Leslie Southwick

(Redirected from Leslie Southwick )

American judge (born 1950)

Leslie Harburd Southwick (born 1950) is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and a former judge of the Mississippi Court of Appeals .

Early life and education

[(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leslie_H._Southwick&action=edit&section=1 "Edit section: Early life and education")
]

Born in Edinburg , Texas , Southwick graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree _cum laude _ from Rice University in 1972 and received his Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law in 1975.

Career

[(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leslie_H._Southwick&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: Career")
]

Following law school, Southwick clerked for the Presiding Judge, John F. Onion, Jr., of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals from 1975 to 1976, and then, in Mississippi , for Judge Charles Clark of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from 1976 to 1977.

Southwick was in private practice as an attorney in Jackson , Mississippi with the firm Brunini, Grantham, Grower & Hewes from 1977 to 1989, serving as a partner from 1983 to 1989. In 1989, Southwick entered government service as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice Civil Division . There he supervised the one hundred and twenty-five lawyers of the Federal Programs Branch, which defends suits brought against the United States. He also supervised the Office of Consumer Litigation, a twenty-five lawyer division charged with civil and criminal enforcement of federal consumer laws.

Southwick was elected one of the first ten judges of the Mississippi Court of Appeals in 1994. He was a candidate for a seat on the Supreme Court of Mississippi in 1996, coming in third out of five candidates in the general election. He thereafter remained on the court of appeals until the end of 2006 when, with a nomination to a lifetime position in the federal judiciary pending, he did not run for re-election. He attended The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School at the University of Virginia and entered the United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps from 1992 to 1997. Southwick was on a leave of absence from the court from August 2004 to January 2006. In 2005, he served in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom as a Judge Advocate General with the 155th Brigade Combat Team of Mississippi Army National Guard .

Southwick also taught law as an adjunct professor at the Mississippi College School of Law and was a member of the American Inns of Court , Charles Clark Chapter.

Federal judicial service

[(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leslie_H._Southwick&action=edit&section=3 "Edit section: Federal judicial service")
]

Southwick with Trent Lott in October 2007

On January 9, 2007, President George W. Bush nominated Southwick to fill a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated by Judge Charles W. Pickering , who retired in 2004. Bush had previously elevated Pickering to the Fifth Circuit with a recess appointment in January 2004, after Senate Democrats blocked two previous attempts to appoint Pickering in 2001 and 2003.

In December 2004, Pickering announced that he would retire from the federal bench and would not seek a nomination for a permanent seat on the Fifth Circuit. Originally, Bush nominated Mississippi attorney Michael B. Wallace in the 109th Congress to replace Pickering, but his nomination also became stalled due to fierce opposition from Senate Democrats. Upon the Democratic takeover of Congress in the November 2006 elections, Wallace asked President Bush not to re-nominate him in the 110th Congress .

Finding itself without a nominee to a judgeship that had already sat vacant for two years, the White House turned to Southwick, then a nominee to a vacancy on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi . Bush had nominated him on June 9, 2006 to fill a vacancy on that court left by Judge William H. Barbour Jr. , who retired on February 4, 2006. Southwick had a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 19, 2006 and was reported favorably to the floor of the Senate by the Committee on September 29, 2006. However, Southwick, like many other judicial nominees, failed to receive a vote by the full Senate before the 109th Congress adjourned for good on December 9, 2006. Pursuant to Senate rules of procedure, his nomination, along with many others, was returned to the President.

Southwick's successive federal nominations within seven months of each other, though unusual, were not unprecedented. In May 2006, the Bush White House similarly nominated Jerome A. Holmes to a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit after nominating him to a vacancy on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma in February 2006.[[10\

…