WASHINGTON —
President Joe Biden, on a recent trip aboard Air Force One, spent time reminiscing with advisers and lawmakers about his time as a young lawyer in Delaware in the 1960s, working as a public defender.
The flight between New York and Washington was brief, and there was not enough time to talk about Biden’s time in his job during the civil rights era.
But as Biden considers his first Supreme Court nominee, that little-known time in his life could shed light on the personal experience he brings to the decision. The conversation was revealed by a person with knowledge of the trip who asked not to be identified.
Biden has already made history by nominating more public defenders, civil rights attorneys and nonprofit attorneys to federal court in his first year than any other president. He is increasing not only the racial and gender diversity of judges but also the diversity of their professional experience.
That trend may continue as Biden contemplates making history again by appointing a black woman to the Supreme Court.
While three of the current justices have experience as prosecutors, none have experience as defense counsel. The last justice with substantial experience as a defense attorney was Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights attorney appointed 55 years ago. He was the first black person to ascend to the highest court, retiring in 1991.
Some of the women on Biden’s list as potential high court candidates have extensive experience as defense attorneys or in the civil rights field: Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, for example, has worked as a public defender and served on the Sentencing Commission before being nominated to court by President Barack Obama.
Eunice Lee, 51, appointed by Biden to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in August, is the first former federal defender to serve on that court.
The judicial appointments made by Biden so far make his interest in professional diversity clear.
Nearly 30% of federal judges nominated by Biden have been public defenders, 24% have been civil rights attorneys, and 8% have been labor rights attorneys.
By the end of his first year in office, Biden had had 40 justices confirmed, the most since Ronald Reagan. Of those, 80% are women and 53% are people of color, according to the White House.
“It’s extremely important to have a diversity of perspectives and for the court system to reflect the experiences and perspectives of the people who come to its courts,” said Lisa Cylar Barrett, policy director for the legal and educational department at the National Association for the Advancement of Justice. of Colored People (NAACP).
The Supreme Court hears only a fraction of the federal cases filed each year. Some 400,000 cases are filed in federal court each year. Some 7,000 are presented to the Supreme Court, which ultimately examines only about 150.
Most judges appointed to federal courts have been prosecutors, corporate attorneys, or both. A survey three years ago found that more than 73% of sitting federal judges were men and that more than 80% were white, according to the Center for American Progress.
Having diversity in the courts makes for a fairer judicial system, activists say. Judges draw on their personal experience in evaluating arguments and deciding cases, and they also learn from each other. Public defenders often represent the indigent and marginalized and those who cannot afford attorneys.
“They represent 80% of people who don’t have money to pay for their own lawyer,” said Emily Galvin-Almanza, a former public defender who founded the nonprofit group Partners for Justice. “So when you appoint a public defender as a judge, you’re putting a person there who hears things differently, a person who knows the experiences of those who don’t have a voice.”
Biden’s brief stint as a public defender is not widely known, and is not included in the official biography posted on the White House website. Rather, the president prefers to talk about his 36 years as a senator and his time as head of the Legal Affairs Commission, in which he presided over six nominations to the Supreme Court.
But at times Biden has spoken of his time as a public defender. It is an experience that has influenced some of his decisions as president, such as giving federal subsidies for public defenders and expanding other efforts for that work.
“Civil rights, the Vietnam War, and President Nixon’s abuses of power were the reasons I started my public career,” Biden said in a 2019 speech in South Carolina as part of his presidential campaign. .
“That is why I decided to resign from a prestigious law firm and become a public defender, because there were people, those who needed help the most, who did not have the money to pay someone to defend them,” he added.
In his 2007 autobiography, he called the work of the public defender “God’s work.”
Biden promised during the campaign to nominate a black woman for the Supreme Court, and he spent his first year in office appointing black women to federal courts in order to have a good pool of candidates. Most of the judges appointed to the Supreme Court have come from federal courts, but it is not an essential requirement. Among the current justices, only Elena Kagan was not a federal judge.
Federal judges are typically chosen from state courts, which also lack diversity. But Biden’s attempts to make the federal courts more diverse could affect the judiciary at the state level as well.
“Neither state nor federal courts reflect the diversity of the communities they serve, nor the diversity of the legal profession,” said Alicia Bannon, director of the law program at the Brennan Center for Justice at the University of California Law School. NYU. “But we are hopeful that that is slowly changing.”
Biden has promised a rigorous selection process to nominate a female Supreme Court nominee. The advisory team, led by former Democratic Senator Doug Jones, is reviewing writings, public statements, court rulings and the personal biography of each candidate, interviewing each one and those close to her.
All the background of the person in question will be examined, and even their medical history because, in the end, the position is for life.
The goal is to give the president as much information as possible about the candidate’s judicial philosophy, her fitness to be on the court, and her readiness for the confirmation debate.
Although the formal interviews come later, Biden has already spoken with some of them before, when they were appointed to other courts.