Background
Boyle received a B.A. from Brown University in 1967 and a J.D. from the Washington College of Law at American University in 1970. From 1970 to 1973, he was the minority counsel of the Housing Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Banking and Currency.
In 1973, he was a legislative assistant to conservative Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina.
He was appointed to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina by President Ronald Reagan on May 3 1984 following unanimous confirmation by the United States Senate.
First Fourth Circuit nomination
On October 22, 1991, Boyle was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to a vacant seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit created by Judge James Dickson Phillips, Jr. taking senior status.. However, his nomination was not acted upon by a Senate controlled by the Democrats. His nomination was allowed to lapse at the end of Bush's presidency.
Continued Fourth Circuit controversy over North Carolina seat
On December 24, 1995, President Bill Clinton nominated James A. Beaty, Jr., an African American judge on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, to the same seat to which Boyle had been originally nominated in the hope of integrating the Fourth Circuit. Almost immediately, Beaty's nomination ran into opposition from Jesse Helms, who was angry that Clinton had refused to renominate Boyle.
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee did not hold a hearing or a vote on Beaty's Fourth Circuit nomination during 1996. Clinton renominated Beaty in 1997, but Helms then announced that the court had a light caseload and did not need any more judges. Helms and the Fourth Circuit's Chief Judge at the time, James Harvie Wilkinson III, even lobbied Congress to leave the seat vacant on the grounds that the seat was not needed. In addition, Beaty was accused of being an activist judge because while sitting as a visiting judge on a Fourth Circuit panel in 1995, he concurred in a decision overturning the murder conviction of Timothy Scott Sherman of Hickory, Maryland because one juror had visited the crime scene, according to a February 1999 article in the ABA Journal.
As a result of Helms' opposition, Beaty's nomination again did not receive a hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during 1997 or 1998. Clinton elected not to renominate Beaty to the Fourth Circuit in 1999. Ultimately, Beaty's nomination languished for more than 1,000 days, making it one of the longest appeals-court nominations in U.S. history never to be acted on by the U.S. Senate.
On August 5, 1999, President Bill Clinton nominated Judge James A. Wynn, Jr., an African American judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, to replace Beaty as his nominee for the open North Carolina seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Wynn's nomination also never received a hearing from the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee or received a full vote from the U.S. Senate due to the resistance of Sen. Jesse Helms, who used his previous claim that the court did not need any more judges as his justification.
Clinton renominated Wynn to the Fourth Circuit on January 3, 2001, but his nomination was returned by President Bush on March 20, 2001.
Second Fourth Circuit nomination and controversy
On May 9, 2001, Boyle was renominated by President George W. Bush to the same circuit court seat to which he had been nominated in 1991. His nomination was never brought to a vote on the floor of the Senate. For over five years, the nomination was stalled. Boyle's nomination is the longest federal appeals court nomination never given a full Senate vote.
His nomination was adamantly opposed by Democrats from the beginning. Former North Carolina Democrat and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards claimed Boyle was an opponent of civil rights and disabilities legislation. Boyle's supporters viewed Boyle as the victim of political payback and obstruction because of his ties to Helms, who had derailed several judicial nominations by President Bill Clinton because of Boyle, and the determination of liberal politicians not to let conservatives serve at the highest levels of the federal judiciary.
In March 2005, following Bush's re-election and an increased Republican Senate majority, the Senate Judiciary Committee gave Boyle a hearing almost a full four years after his nomination. On June 16 2005, Boyle was voted out of Committee on a 10-8 party line vote.
In April 2006, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he would try to schedule a vote in May on the nomination of Boyle.. No vote occurred however. With the Democrats taking over the U.S. Senate in the 110th Congress, Boyle's confirmation chances markedly decreased. On January 9, 2007, the White House announced that it would not be re-nominating Boyle to the Court of Appeals. At the time, Boyle clearly stated he did not voluntarily withdraw his nomination..
On July 17, 2007, President George W. Bush nominated Robert J. Conrad, to the seat vacated by James Dickson Phillips, Jr..
References
External links
- Federal Judicial Center Profile
- U.S. Department of Justice Profile
- "Controversial Bush judge broke ethics law", Will Evans, Salon.com, July 6, 2006
- Power Line Blog Supporting Boyle, June 17, 2005
- Center for American Progress Press Release Opposing Boyle, March 4, 2005
- "Four Judicial Nominees Ask to Withdraw", New York Times, Jan. 9, 2007
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Tuesday July 08, 2008 at 23:15:57 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation
Copyright © 2008, Dictionary.com, LLC. All rights reserved.