Edith Brown Clement

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Edith "Joy" Brown Clement (born April 29, 1948) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.


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[edit] Legal career

Judge Clement was born in Birmingham, Alabama and educated at the University of Alabama, receiving her B.A. in 1969, and at Tulane Law School, where she received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1972. Her early career included a period clerking for Judge Herbert W. Christenberry at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana (1973-1975), after which she worked as a maritime attorney in private practice in New Orleans, Louisiana until 1991.

On October 1, 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated Clement was to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. She was confirmed by the Senate to this post on November 21, 1991 by a vote of 99-0, and received commission on November 25, 1991. In 2001 she served as chief judge of this court, before being nominated to the Fifth Circuit.

She was nominated to her current seat on September 4, 2001 by President George W. Bush to fill a seat vacated by Judge John Malcolm Duhé, Jr., who had assumed Senior status. President Bill Clinton in 1999 had nominated Louisiana lawyer H. Alston Johnson III to the seat on the Fifth Circuit created by Duhé's vacancy, but senators never held a hearing or took a vote on Johnson's nomination. Clement was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 13, 2001 by a vote of 99-0, and received her commission on November 26, 2001. She was the first judge Bush appointed to the Fifth Circuit.

Judge Clement is a member of the Maritime Law Association of the United States, the Federal Bar Association, the American Law Institute, the Federalist Society, the Tulane Law School's Inn of Court, and the Committee on the Administrative Office of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

With John Roberts' promotion to Chief Justice by President Bush, the media mentioned Clement as a possible choice to fill what would have been his spot as an Associate Justice in part because she is a woman, and also because she is conservative but uncontroversial, with a limited paper trail on controversial issues. Time however stated that Clement's chances were diminished because the Bush Administration believes her to be guilty of excessive self-promotion. Eventually, George W. Bush picked White House Counsel Harriet Miers as his nominee to succeed Justice O'Connor, but with the withdrawal of Miers's nomination [1], Clement again was thought to be a potential nominee until the nomination of Samuel Alito, who was ultimately confirmed.

[edit] Notable opinions

Clement has a reputation as a conservative jurist and a strict constructionist who strongly supports principles of federalism. She has written few high-profile opinions.

She wrote for the majority in Vogler v. Blackmore, 352 F.3d 150 (5th Cir. 2003), reducing pain and suffering damages awarded by a jury to a mother and daughter who were killed in a car accident. The basis of her ruling was the lack of specific evidence about the daughter's "awareness of the impending collision." Large damage awards to the father and husband due to the loss of society in his wife and daughter were affirmed.

In Chiu v. Plano Independent School District, 339 F.3d 273 (5th Cir., 2003), Judge Clement held that a school district's policy requiring the preapproval of fliers handed out at a school event violated the First Amendment free speech rights of would-be protestors.

In United States v. Harris, 408 F.3d 186 (5th Cir. 2005), Clement again wrote for the majority, this time reinstating the sentence of a police captain convicted for violation of federal civil rights laws in using excessive force. The captain moved to vacate, arguing that his counsel had been insufficient. Clement and the court held that the representation had been reasonable.

Judge Edith Brown Clement wrote a unanimous opinion for the 5th Circuit in Tarver v. City of Edna. She upheld officers' appeal of qualified immunity for reasonably arresting a father who was interfering with the return of a child to its rightful custodian. Qualified immunity also protected officers from the plaintiff's accusation of excessive force in using handcuffs and confining him to the police car as part of the arrest. Officers also, however, slammed the car door on his foot and head, and the plaintiff's excessive force claim under this heading was remanded.

Judge Clement has joined other conservative judges in dissenting in Commerce Clause cases that implicate federalism. In U.S. v. McFarland, 311 F. 3d 376, she argued that the Commerce Clause power did not enable Congress to regulate local robberies. In GDF Realty Investments, Ltd. v. Norton, 362 F.3d 286, Judge Clement argued that the Endangered Species Act needed a commercial nexus to enable regulation of endemic rare species.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Material on this page is taken or adapted from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy, and from the Fifth Circuit Library System of the United States Court of Appeals, both public domain sources.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
John Malcolm Duhé, Jr.		 Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
2001-present		 Succeeded by
incumbent
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