David Brooks Smith

American judge (born 1951)

David Brookman "Brooks" Smith (born 1951) is a senior judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit . He was previously Chief Judge of both the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania , and is the only judge in the history of the Third Circuit to have served as both a chief district judge and chief of the Court of Appeals.[_citation needed
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Legal career

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Smith was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania . After graduating from Dickinson School of Law , Smith began his legal career in Altoona, eventually becoming managing partner of Jubelirer, Carothers, Krier, Halpern and Smith. From 1977 to 1979, Smith served as an Assistant District Attorney for Blair County , Pennsylvania. Smith was later named as a special prosecutor, conducting a grand jury investigation from 1981 to 1983 into organized criminal activity in central Pennsylvania. He became Blair County's District Attorney in 1983, and in December 1984, Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh appointed Smith to a judgeship on the Court of Common Pleas of Blair County. The following year, Smith received the nominations of both the Republican and Democratic Parties for a ten-year term as judge on the same court. In 1987, Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Robert N. C. Nix Jr. appointed Smith Administrative Judge of the Blair County Courts, charging him with responsibility to address that court's chronic backlog.

Federal judicial service

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District court service

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In 1988, President Ronald Reagan , with the advice of Senators Arlen Specter and H. John Heinz III , nominated Smith to the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania . He was confirmed by the Senate on October 14, 1988, and received his commission on October 17, 1988. He served as Chief Judge of that court from 2001 to 2002. His service as a district court judge ended on September 23, 2002 when he was elevated to the court of appeals.

Court of appeals service

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Smith was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by President George W. Bush on September 10, 2001. Having been unanimously rated "well qualified" by the Standing Committee of the American Bar Association , his nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 31, 2002. He received his commission on August 2, 2002. He served as chief judge of the Third Circuit from October 1, 2016 to December 4, 2021. Smith assumed senior status on December 4, 2021.

In June 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States appointed Smith as Special Master to oversee a matter filed pursuant to that Court's original jurisdiction under Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution. The case is Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado, No. 141.

Professional affiliations and activities

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During his years on the federal bench, Judge Smith has served, by appointment of the Chief Justice of the United States, on five committees of the Judicial Conference of the United States , the federal judiciary's policy-making body. During his term as Chief Judge of the Third Circuit, he sat on the Conference's eight-member Executive Committee. In 2013, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Smith to chair the Committee on Space and Facilities. In that capacity, he led a national space reduction initiative which was the federal judiciary's major cost containment measure. Smith was a member of the Space and Facilities Committee from 2006 until 2016. During his time on the District Court, he served for six years on the Criminal Rules Advisory Committee of the Judicial Conference, beginning in 1993. And in early 2020, Smith became one of four federal judges who were members of the Federal Judiciary's COVID-19 Task Force.

After taking senior status in December 2021, Judge Smith was appointed to membership on both the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability and the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure.

He maintains membership in the American Law Institute, the Federal Judges Association and the Allegheny Bar Association.

International rule-of-law efforts

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Judge Smith has assisted in efforts to enhance the rule of law in the judicial systems of Central and Eastern Europe.

He has taught in judicial training sessions in Russia for the Department of State and with the American Bar Association ’s Central and Eastern European Legal Initiative ; in Bulgaria , Latvia and Albania with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); in Kosovo with the International Development Law Organization ; and in Bosnia and Macedonia with the U.S. Justice Department ’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistanc

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Judicial Career

Biography