Douglas H. Ginsburg

Douglas Ginsburg
Judge of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Incumbent
Assumed office October 14, 1986
Nominated by	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	Skelly Wright
Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
In office July 16, 2001 – February 11, 2008
Preceded by	Harry Edwards
Succeeded by	David Sentelle
Personal details
Born	May 25, 1946 (1946-05-25) (age 65) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Deecy Gray
Alma mater	Cornell University University of Chicago

Douglas Howard Ginsburg (born May 25, 1946) is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed to this court in October 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. He served as its Chief Judge from July 16, 2001 until February 10, 2008. Ginsburg was picked by Reagan to fill a United States Supreme Court vacancy in 1987, but the judge withdrew from consideration after his earlier marijuana use created a controversy.

He is not related to Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Ginsburg has announced that he will take senior status in October 2011 and plans to join the faculty of New York University School of Law in January 2012.^[1]

Education

Ginsburg graduated from The Latin School of Chicago in 1963. Ginsburg went on to attend Cornell University in 1964–1965 and then 1968–1970, when he received his B.S. degree. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1973, where he served on the University of Chicago Law Review with Frank Easterbrook. He then became a law clerk for US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.^[2]

Teaching and other public service experience

From 1975 to 1983 Ginsburg was a professor at Harvard Law School. From 1983 to 1986 he served in the Reagan administration, as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, in the Office of Management and Budget, and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. Since 1988 he has been an Adjunct Professor at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia, where he teaches a seminar called "Readings in Legal Thought."^[3] He is also a Visiting Lecturer and Charles J. Merriam Scholar at the University of Chicago Law School in Chicago, Illinois. Ginsburg has been a visiting professor at Columbia University Law School (1987–1988) and a visiting scholar at New York Law School (2006–2008). He serves on the advisory boards of the Jevons Institute for Competition Law and Economics, University College London, Faculty of Laws; Law and Economics Center, George Mason University School of Law; Competition Policy International; Journal of Competition Law & Economics; Journal of Law, Economics & Policy; Supreme Court Economic Review; University of Chicago Law Review; and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.

He was a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 2001–2008, and previously served on its Budget Committee, 1997–2001, and Committee on Judicial Resources, 1987–1996; American Bar Association, Antitrust Section, Council, 1985–1986 (ex officio), 2000–2003 and 2009–2012 (judicial liaison); Boston University Law School, Visiting Committee, 1994–1997; and University of Chicago Law School, Visiting Committee, 1985–1988.

U.S. Supreme Court nomination

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan announced his intention to nominate Ginsburg to the United States Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Lewis F. Powell. Ginsburg was chosen after a Senate controlled by Democrats had rejected the nomination of Judge Robert Bork after a bruising, partisan confirmation battle.

Ginsburg's nomination would collapse for entirely opposite reasons from Bork's rejection, as he almost immediately came under some fire when NPR's Nina Totenberg^[4] revealed that Ginsburg had used marijuana "on a few occasions" during his student days in the 1960s and while an Assistant Professor at Harvard in the 1970s. It was Ginsburg's continued use of marijuana after graduation and as a professor that made his indiscretions more serious in the minds of many Senators and members of the public.^[5][6]

Due to these allegations, Ginsburg withdrew his name from consideration, and remained on the federal appellate bench, where he is still a Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, serving as the DC Circuit's chief judge for most of the 2000s. Anthony Kennedy was then nominated and confirmed as the 107th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

See also

• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States

References

1. ^ http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2011/09/dc-circuit-judge-to-join-nyu-law-faculty-.html
2. ^ http://www.law.gmu.edu/faculty/directory/adjunct/ginsburg_douglas
3. ^ http://www.law.uchicago.edu/courses/coursedetails.html?CourseNumber=57012&SectionNumber=1&Quarter=1&Year=2008
4. ^ 'Nina Totenberg, NPR Biography' http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=2101289
5. ^ The Washington Post: "Media Frenzies in Our Time" Special to the washingtonpost.com [1]
6. ^ Ginsburg was also accused of a financial conflict of interest during his work in the Reagan Administration, but a Department of Justice investigation under the Ethics in Government Act found that allegation baseless in a February 1988 report. Hall, Kermit, ed., The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, page 339, Oxford Press, 1992

Sources

• Douglas H. Ginsburg at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

External links

• University of Chicago Faculty Bio
• George Mason University Faculty Bio
• Reagan's Remarks in Nomination to the Supreme Court

Legal offices
Preceded by Skelly Wright	Judge of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit 1986–present	Incumbent
Preceded by Harry Edwards	Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit 2001–2008	Succeeded by David Sentelle

Persondata
Name	Ginsburg, Douglas H.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	May 25, 1946
Place of birth	Chicago, IL
Date of death
Place of death