Barry P. Goode (born April 11, 1948) is a judge in Contra Costa County, California and a former federal judicial nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
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A New York native, Goode earned a bachelor's degree magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Kenyon College in 1969. He earned a law degree cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1972.[1]
Goode's first job out of law school was as a special assistant to U.S. Sen. Adlai Stevenson III of Illinois, from 1972 until 1974, when Goode then joined the San Francisco law firm McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen (now Bingham McCutchen), where he rose to become a partner. Throughout his 27-year career at the firm, he specialized in representing large corporations in environmental litigation. He also worked as an adjunct instructor of environmental law at the University of San Francisco.[2] Goode left the firm in 2001 to join California state government.
President Bill Clinton nominated Goode to the Ninth Circuit on June 24, 1998 to replace Charles Edward Wiggins, who had taken senior status.[3] With the U.S. Senate under Republican control from that point until the end of Clinton's presidency, Goode's nomination languished, with no hearing scheduled or U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee vote for him. Despite the support for him from both of California's senators at that time, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, Goode's nomination was held up by one anonymous senator who had placed a hold on his nomination for unexplained reasons. Clinton renominated Goode on January 26, 1999, and renominated him again on January 3, 2001.[2] On March 19, 2001, however, President George W. Bush withdrew 62 executive and judicial nominations made by Clinton in his final days as president, including that of Goode.[4] Goode's nearly three-year nomination remains one of the single longest federal appeals-court judicial nominations never given a full Senate vote, behind those of Helene White, Henry Saad and Terrence Boyle.
In April 2003, President Bush nominated Carlos Bea to the Ninth Circuit seat to which Goode had been nominated. Bea was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in September 2003.[5]
On February 1, 2001, California Gov. Gray Davis named Goode as his secretary of legal affairs. Goode called the post an "important job," in an interview with the Metropolitan News Enterprise newspaper in a story that was published on February 2, 2001. "I'm the kind of person who looks forward, not backward," he told the paper, referring to his expired federal judicial nomination.
During his time working for Gray Davis, Goode was the point person during two controversies. One involved a $95 million software contract with Oracle Corporation and Northrop Grumman that state officials rescinded in 2002 after critics charged that it would cost the state millions of dollars instead of generating the promised $100 million in savings.[6] The other controversy involved power generator Duke Energy, which in 2001 was accused of gouging California.[7]
On November 11, 2003, just days before he left office after an unprecedented recall vote, Davis appointed Goode to serve on the Contra Costa County Superior Court.[8] Goode's courtroom is located in Martinez, California, which is the county seat of Contra Costa County.
Goode lives in Richmond, California.[1] Goode has taught environmental law at the University of San Francisco School of Law.[1]