Richard Clifton
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Incumbent
Assumed office July 30, 2002
Appointed by	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Cynthia Hall
Personal details
Born	November 13, 1950 (age 64) Framingham, Massachusetts,U.S.
Alma mater	Princeton University Yale University

Richard Randall Clifton (born November 13, 1950 in Framingham, Massachusetts) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on September 4, 2001 to fill a seat vacated by Cynthia Holcomb Hall, and confirmed by the United States Senate 98-0 on July 30, 2002. He was Bush’s first appointment to the Ninth Circuit.

In 2006, he was one of the judges on the panel that upheld the imprisonment of journalist Josh Wolf.^[1]

Clifton received an A.B. at Princeton University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, he clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Herbert Choy. Following his clerkship, he was in private practice in Honolulu, Hawaii until his appointment to the federal bench. He also taught for several years at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii as an adjunct professor.

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Richard Clifton at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

• N. Randy Smith

  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  Randy Smith
  Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
  Incumbent
  Assumed office March 19, 2007
  Appointed by	George W. Bush
  Preceded by	Thomas G. Nelson
  Personal details
  Born	August 11, 1949 (age 66) Logan, Utah, U.S.
  Nationality	United States
  Political party	Republican
  Alma mater	Brigham Young University B.S. 1974, J.D. 1977
  Profession	Attorney
  Religion	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)

  Norman Randy Smith (born August 11, 1949) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He currently lives and maintains chambers in Pocatello, Idaho.

  Contents

   [hide] 

  • 1 Background
  • 2 Ninth Circuit nominations and confirmation
  • 3 Decisions
  • 4 References
  • 5 External links

  Background[edit]

  A native of southeastern Idaho, Smith attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah,^[1] where he received his B.S. degree in 1974 and his J.D. in 1977. Following law school, he returned to Idaho and practiced from 1977 to 1981 as associate and assistant general counsel for the J.R. Simplot Company, one of the largest privately owned companies in the world. Smith concurrently taught business and accounting courses at Boise State University from 1979 to 1981.

  In 1982, Smith joined the law firm Merrill & Merrill, where he remained for thirteen years, first as an associate, and later as a partner beginning in 1984. That same year he began a long second career as an adjunct professor at Idaho State University where he continues teaching accounting, business law, and political science courses in the Economics and Political Science Departments. In the early 1990s, Smith served as Chairman of the Idaho Republican Party and helped manage the campaign of Idaho governor Phil Batt in 1994. Smith left private practice in 1995 following an appointment by Batt to become a state judge for the sixth district in Pocatello, a position he held until his confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

  Ninth Circuit nominations and confirmation[edit]

  Smith was nominated by President George W. Bush to two different vacancies on the Ninth Circuit before eventually being confirmed. The first nomination, on December 16, 2005, was to fill the vacancy left by Judge Stephen S. Trott. However, after opposition from California’s U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein andBarbara Boxer, who argued that Smith, an Idahoan, had been nominated to a “California seat”, his nomination stalled in the 109th Congress.^[2][3]

  Following the Democratic Party takeover of the U.S. Senate in the aftermath of the November 2006 elections, and the withdrawal of fellow Ninth Circuit nomineeWilliam Gerry Myers III,^[3] Bush resubmitted Smith’s name to the 110th Congress on January 16, 2007. The new nomination was to the seat left open by Idaho judge Thomas G. Nelson, then on senior status, resulting in Smith’s confirmation on February 15, 2007, by a vote of 94-0,^[4] over a year after his original nomination.

  Smith was the seventh and final judge appointed by Bush to the Ninth Circuit, and the first Article III judge confirmed by the Senate of the 110th Congress.

  Decisions[edit]

  His first published opinion for the Ninth Circuit was United States v. Zalapa, which dealt with multiplicity of criminal convictions.

  In February 2012, Smith authored a dissent to the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Perry v. Brown holding California Proposition 8 unconstitutional. He did agree with the majority that the appellants had standing to bring the appeal, and that Judge Vaughn Walker‘s decision should not be vacated on allegations of bias.^[5]

  Dorothy Wright Nelson

  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  Dorothy Nelson
  Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
  In office December 20, 1979 – January 1, 1995
  Appointed by	Jimmy Carter
  Preceded by	Seat established
  Succeeded by	Sidney Thomas
  Personal details
  Born	September 30, 1928 (age 87) San Pedro, California, U.S.
  Political party	Democratic
  Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles University of Southern California

  Dorothy Wright Nelson (born September 20, 1928) is a United States federal judge.

  Contents

   [hide] 

  • 1 Biography
  • 2 Federal Court
  • 3 Personal life
  • 4 References
  • 5 Further research

  Biography[edit]

  Born in San Pedro, California,^[1] Nelson received an A.B. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1950, a J.D. from University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law in 1953, and an LL.M. from the University of Southern California Law School in 1956. She was a research associate fellow, University of Southern California Law School from 1953 to 1956. She was in private practice in Los Angeles, California from 1954 to 1957. She was a member of the faculty of University of Southern California Law School from 1957 to 1980. She was an instructor from 1957 to 1958. She was an assistant professor from 1958 to 1961. She was an associate professor from 1961 to 1967. She was an associate dean from 1965 to 1967. She was an interim dean from 1967 to 1969. She was a professor from 1967 to 1980. She was a dean from 1969 to 1980. She was an adjunct professor of law, University of Southern California Law School from 1980 to the present.

  Federal Court[edit]

  Nelson is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In 1973 there was discussion she might be nominated to the US Supreme Court in the news.^[2] Nelson was nominated by President Jimmy Carter on September 28, 1979, to a new seat created by 92 Stat. 1629. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 19, 1979, and received her commission on December 20, 1979. She assumed senior status on January 1, 1995. She published an article in the South California Law Review.^[3] She is the author of a book on Judicial Administration by the West Lawbook company, “Judicial Administration and the Administration of Justice.” ^[4]

  Personal life[edit]

  She is an active member of the Bahá’í Faith and served in the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of United States for many years. She became a Bahá’í following the suggestion to explore the religion from Donald Barrett in 1954 along with about 70 others across a decade.^[5][6] Barrett would go on to serve at the Bahá’í World Center in 1979.^[7] She observers that the choices she made as a professor and dean were informed by the values she gathered from being a Bahá’í including mediation, affirmative action.

  Dorothy was married to James F. Nelson (1927–2011), a longtime Los Angeles Municipal Court judge whose career included high-profile preliminary hearings involving Richard Ramirez, the serial killer known as the Night Stalker, and Cathy Evelyn Smith, who was charged in the death of comic John Belushi. She has two children, Frank, an immigration attorney, and Lorna, an addictions counselor, divorced from Tracy Smith.

  She started and popularized mediation in US courts.