Edward Chen

From Judgepedia

Edward Milton Chen is a federal magistrate judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Education

Chen received his undergraduate degree in 1975 from the University of California – Berkeley and his law degree in 1979 from Boalt Hall School of Law. ^[1]

Legal career

After law school, Judge Chen served as a law clerk for Charles Renfrew on the Northern District of California and James Browning on the Ninth Circuit. From 1982 until 1985, Chen was an associate with the San Francisco law firm Coblentz, Cahen, McCabe & Breyer. As a private lawyer in 1983, he was part of the legal team that won reversal of Fred Korematsu's conviction for refusing to report for the internment of Japanese Americans in 1942. The Supreme Court had ruled against Korematsu in 1944 and said the internment was justified by military reports that Japanese Americans were aiding Japan's armed forces. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of San Francisco cleared Korematsu nearly 40 years later and said the military had known at the time that no such evidence existed. ^[2] Chen worked as a staff lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1985 - 2001. ^[1][3]

Judicial career

Chen became a federal magistrate judge in 2001. ^[3] After his initial term expired, he was reappointed to a new eight-year term. ^[4]

Federal judicial nomination

On the recommendation of Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chen was nominated by President Obama for an Article III judgeship on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, replacing judge Martin Jenkins. ^[1][5] The Senate Judiciary Committee approved his nomination 12 - 7 on October 15, 2009, but the full Senate returned Chen's nomination to the President on December 24, 2009. ^[6] Senator Feinstein reiterated her support for Judge Chen and her hope that the President will renominate Judge Chen for the U.S. District Court in an interview published in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 29, 2009.^[7] On January 20, 2010, Obama renominated Judge Chen ^[8] and on February 4, 2010 the Senate Judiciary Committee again approved the nomination with a 12 - 7 party line vote. ^[9][10]

Senate rules require that nominees who have not received a vote by the end of the legislative session must either be carried over to the following session by unanimous consent, or be resubmitted by the administration. The return of Judge Chen, along with a number of other judicial and executive branch nominees was not unexpected.

If approved, Chen would have been the first Asian American to serve the Northern District of California. ^[11][12]

Judiciary Committee hearing

Chen's Public Questionnaire Available Here

Questionnaire Update

Questions for the Record Available Here

Chen had his first hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 23, 2009. ^[13]

Conservative objections

Chen's nomination has come under fire from the GOP, who consider him to bring "too great a risk of judicial activism" to the bench, and citing his 15 years with the ACLU as potentially problematic. ^[14][15][16] The Senate Judiciary Committee approved his nomination 12 - 7, with Democrats voting to approve and Republicans voting against. ^[3] Ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions, has indicated that he is troubled by some of Chen's public statements, including a speech in 2005 where Chen questioned whether the government's response to Hurricane Katrina would have been better had New Orleans' population been upper class and white. "Both his writings and public comments while a magistrate ... suggest that Judge Chen believes judges should interpret the law according to their personal understandings and preferences" said Sessions, whose own nomination to the federal bench was defeated by the same committee in 1986. ^[4] The Washington Times, widely recognized as a conservative newspaper, has editorialized against the nomination of Chen, calling him "a biased radical willing to impose his own politics from the bench". ^[17]

Response to conservative objections

Many California community leaders have risen in defense of Chen's nomination from the attacks of conservatives. Charles Renfrew, a former U.S. District Court judge and former deputy attorney general, stated: "When considering his nomination, senators should focus on his eight-year record of fairly and impartially presiding as a magistrate, a record that has won him plaudits from numerous law enforcement officials." ^[18] Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who recommended Chen to President Obama, said Chen "has made the transition from advocate to judge, and I do not believe there is a spot, a blemish, a wart on his record as a magistrate." ^[19] Andrew Hahn, Past President of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, wrote in a letter to the Editor of the Washington Times, "Instead of taking quotations out of context, consider what Judge Chen told the Senate Judiciary Committee: 'It is never proper for judges to indulge their own values in determining what the law means. Judges should do everything humanly possible to uphold their oath to apply the law without regard to a person's status.'" ^[20]

External links

• Magistrate Judges of the Northern District of California

References

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