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The United States District Court for the District of Colorado, 2009-2017

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The United States District Court for the District of Colorado, 2009-2017 THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO, 2009-2017 by Timothy M. Zimmerman1 The United States District Court for the District of Colorado is the federal district court with jurisdiction in the entire state of Colorado. The United States Congress organized Colorado as a judicial district on June 26, 1876, and authorized a single judgeship for the District Court. Over thirty years beginning in 1954, six additional judgeships were authorized, for a total of seven available judgeships. As of this writing in 2017, there are six active District Judges, with one vacancy pending confirmation. Each of the active judges has chambers in Denver. The District of Colorado serves more than 5.5 million people located across more than 104,000 square miles. It is the largest federal district without judicial subdivisions other than Alaska.2 The District is a potpourri of people and cases, including urban issues along the Front Range corridor extending from Fort Collins to Pueblo (which includes numerous military bases and a large concentration of federal prisons), to rural land use issues on the Eastern Plains, and a variety of federal agency and Bureau of Land Management challenges from the Western Slope and mountain areas.3 Chief Judge Marcia S. Krieger was nominated by President George W. Bush on September 10, 2001, to fill a seat left by Daniel B. Sparr, who took senior status. Her confirmation on January 25, 2002 was unopposed in the Senate, and she received her commission on January 30, 2002. Krieger became the Chief Judge on January 1, 2013, when former Chief Judge Wiley Young Daniel took senior status. Prior to her appointment, she 1 Timothy M. Zimmerman is an Associate Attorney at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in Denver, Colorado, and the current Colorado State Vice-President of the Tenth Circuit Historical Society. 2 Chief Judge Marcia S. Krieger, A Federal Perspective, Vol. 46, No. 11, Colorado Lawyer (December 2017). 3 Id. 4416503.3 worked in private practice, sat on the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Colorado, and taught as an adjunct lecturer for the University of Colorado. District Judge Philip A. Brimmer, the son of Clarence Addison Brimmer, Jr., a former Federal District Judge in Wyoming, was nominated by President George W. Bush on July 10, 2008, to fill a seat left when Judge Lewis T. Babcock took senior status. Brimmer was confirmed by the Senate on September 26, 2008, and received his commission on October 14, 2008. Prior to his appointment, Brimmer clerked for Judge Zita L. Weinshienk of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, worked in private practice, was an Assistant Denver District Attorney, and served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Colorado. District Judge Christine Arguello was nominated by President George W. Bush on July 10, 2008, when Judge Walker David Miller took senior status and left a vacancy on the court. She had been previously nominated to fill a seat on the Tenth Circuit by President William J. Clinton in the waning months of his presidency in 2000, but no hearings were scheduled for her confirmation, and President Bush chose not to renominate Arguello to the Tenth Circuit. Prior to serving as a federal judge, Arguello worked in private practice, taught at the University of Kansas School of Law, and served in the Colorado Attorney General’s office. District Judge William J. Martinez was nominated by President Barack H. Obama on February 24, 2010, to fill a vacancy left after Judge Edward Nottingham’s resignation. Martinez was confirmed by the Senate on December 21, 2010, and received his commission the same day. Prior to his appointment, Martinez served as a staff attorney for the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, worked in private practice in Denver, and served as an attorney for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 2 District Judge R. Brooke Jackson was nominated by President Barack H. Obama on January 5, 2011, to fill a vacancy left by the death of Judge Phillip S. Figa. Jackson was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on August 2, 2011, and received his commission on September 1, 2011. Prior to becoming a federal judge, Jackson worked in private practice and served as Chief Judge for Colorado’s First Judicial District, covering Jefferson County and Gilpin County. District Judge Raymond P. Moore was nominated by President Barack H. Obama on November 14, 2012, following Judge Wiley Young Daniel’s transition to senior status. Moore was confirmed on March 22, 2013, and received his commission on March 26, 2013. Prior to serving as District Judge, Moore worked in private practice, served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Colorado, and worked as a public defender, ultimately serving as the Federal Public Defender for the Districts of Colorado and Wyoming. The final vacancy, created when Judge Robert E. Blackburn took senior status, remains open. However, on October 2, 2017, President Donald J. Trump nominated Daniel D. Domenico to fill the vacancy. His nomination is pending. Mr. Domenico previously served as a law clerk to Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich on the Tenth Circuit, served as Colorado’s Solicitor General, and worked in private practice. In addition to the six active judges, six Senior Judges currently preside on the court. In order of length of tenure, the Senior Judges are: Richard Paul Matsch (appointed in 1974 by President Nixon), John L. Kane Jr. (appointed in 1977 by President Carter), Lewis Thornton Babcock (appointed in 1988 by President Reagan), Wiley Young Daniel (appointed in 1995 by President Clinton), and Robert E. Blackburn (appointed in 2002 by President G.W. Bush). Judge 3 David M. Ebel (appointed in 1988 by President Reagan to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals) sits as a Senior Judge both on the Tenth Circuit and the Colorado Federal District Court. Finally, nine Magistrate Judges assist the District Judges. The Magistrate Judges are: Michael J. Watanabe, Craig B. Shaffer, Michael E. Hegarty, Kristen L. Mix, Kathleen M. Tafoya, Nina Y. Wang, Scott T. Varholak, David L. West, and Gordon P. Gallagher. These judges are essential to the functioning of the District Court and greatly enhance judicial efficiency. The District of Colorado is one of the busiest federal districts in the country, placing it in the top 15% of districts nationwide using a caseload per judgeship weighting formula.4 Commentators have argued that additional judgeships (the last one was added in 1984) are necessary, particularly in light of the district’s large geographic footprint, large amount of federal lands in the district, and unique business law filings as a result of numerous agencies being headquartered in Denver.5 These factors, combined with the fact that most of the court will retire or take senior status in the next five years, has led Chief Judge Krieger to assemble a working group to convince Congress to fund additional judgeships for the district.6 To date, no additional judgeships have been authorized, but work is continuing to convince Congress of the need for additional judges in the district. In 2018, a new pilot project will be implemented to better serve southeastern Colorado, and will be known as the Pueblo Jury Division. This Division will extend from El Paso County south to the New Mexico border, and west from Kansas to Saguache County. The project will 4 Sean R. Gallagher and James M. Lyons, A Call for Additional Federal Judges, the Docket, December 28, 2015, http://www.dbadocket.org/the-business-of-law/a-call-for-additional-federal-judges/. 5 Id. 6 Id. 4 involve placing a full-time magistrate judge in Colorado Springs so that parties are not required to travel to Denver for adjudication of their matters. This follows numerous outreach programs over the last decade, which involved placing magistrate and district judges in various corners of the state, including in Colorado Springs, Durango, and Grand Junction.7 Under the Chief Judge’s leadership, the District of Colorado has worked hard to serve all of its constituents in the various and varied parts of the District. This update picks up where David Erickson’s 1990 to 2009 history of Colorado’s Federal District Court ended, and includes biographical sketches of the two former District of Colorado judges who passed away since 2009: Judges James R. Carrigan and Walker David Miller. 7 A Federal Perspective, supra note 2. 5 Jim R. Carrigan: A Lifelong Pursuit of Justice8 Judge Jim R. Carrigan left a legacy almost anyone would strive for. He was a learned professor, a competent judge, a lifelong advocate for justice, a respected and well-liked leader, and a devoted family man. He was not born in Colorado, but made Colorado his home. And for that, the people of Colorado owe him a debt of gratitude. James R. Carrigan was born in Mobridge, a small town on the banks of the Missouri River in north-central South Dakota, on August 24, 1929. His birthday was exactly two months before “Black Thursday” and the start of the Great Depression. He spent most of his childhood in the town of Hallock, in far northern Minnesota, a few miles from the Canadian border. His father provided for the family by running a bakery, at which Carrigan worked as a boy. Shoveling snow, sugaring donuts, and wrapping up bread, he embraced at a tender age the work ethic of his father, whom he described as the hardest-working man he ever knew.9 The Great Depression hit his family hard, forcing it—a family of six—to share a basement for some time.
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