President Joe Biden on Wednesday moved to elevate a Florida magistrate judge to a seat on a federal appeals court as part of a new slate of four judicial nominees unveiled by the White House.
The Democratic president said he intended to nominate U.S. Magistrate Judge Embry Kidd in Orlando to fill a vacancy on the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is dominated by appointees of Republican presidents.
Before joining the bench in 2019, Kidd had served as a federal prosecutor for about five years. He earlier in his career worked as an associate at the law firm Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C.
He was nominated to fill a vacancy created in January when U.S. Circuit Judge Charles Wilson, an appointee of Democratic former President Bill Clinton, announced plans to take senior status, a form of semi-retirement for judges.
Biden's latest nominees also included picks to serve on district courts in Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania. The White House said the four nominees continue to fulfill Biden's efforts to diversify the federal bench.
Wilson was the second Black person to ever serve on the court, which hears appeals from Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Kidd is also Black and like Wilson is from Florida.
In the Western District of New York, Biden nominated Monroe County Acting State Supreme Court Judge Meredith Vacca, a Korean American in Rochester, to become the first woman of color to serve as a life-tenured judge on that trial court.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who as the state's senior Democrat recommended Vacca to the White House, in a statement said that upon confirmation that district court would become one of the few nationally with 50% or more women judges.
In Maryland, Biden moved to elevate U.S. Magistrate Judge Adam Abelson in Baltimore to a life-tenured position as a district judge. Before joining the bench last year, Abelson had been a partner at the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder
And in Pennsylvania's Middle District, Biden nominated Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Saporito to serve as a district court judge. Before joining the bench in 2015, Saporito had been a public defender.
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11th Circuit's Wilson to take senior status, creating vacancy
