President Biden nominates a Kansas public defender for federal circuit court judgeship
President Joe Biden will nominate a federal public defender in Kansas to become an appeals court judge, moving to end a vacancy the White House previously tried to fill by selecting a federal prosecutor in Kansas.
The White House announced Thursday that Biden plans to nominate Richard E.N. Federico to join the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which covers Kansas and five other states. Federico joined the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the District of Kansas in Topeka in 2017 and has been a senior litigator since 2020.
In just three years, Biden has appointed more public defenders to federal circuit courts than any other president, a move intended to bring diversity of experience to a federal judiciary loaded with former prosecutors.
Federico, who holds a law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law and a graduate-level law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, is a captain in the U.S. Navy Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps, commonly known as JAG. He has served as a military judge for the Navy Reserve Trial Judiciary since 2019 and as an appellate defense counsel before then.
The White House named Federico along with three other judicial nominations.
“The President is announcing his intent to nominate two individuals to federal circuit courts and two individuals to federal district courts—all of whom are extraordinarily qualified, experienced, and devoted to the rule of law and our Constitution,” the White House said in a statement.
“These choices also continue to fulfill the President’s promise to ensure that the nation’s courts reflect the diversity that is one of our greatest assets as a country—both in terms of personal and professional backgrounds.”
Federico’s nomination comes after Biden previously nominated Jabari Wamble, a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas who is also a son-in-law to Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri. The U.S. Senate didn’t confirm Wamble before the end of the last Congress, voiding the nomination.
Biden then nominated Wamble for a lower district court judge position. But Wamble withdrew from consideration in May as the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary continued to review his nomination, despite rating others who were nominated after him.
