Biden Nominates Stephanie Dawkins Davis To 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
As discussions surround a potential Supreme Court appointment, Black women should be elected to all types of offices, but the Biden administration has committed to diversity when it concerns the judicial branch. So far, the Biden administration has nominated 75 judges to federal courts – of the 40 confirmed judges, 80% are women, and 53% are people of color. This includes U.S. District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs, who is considered on the shortlist for Justice Stephen Breyer’s Supreme Court seat.
The Biden administration wants to continue that streak. According to The Detroit News, President Biden has nominated U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Dawkins Davis to serve on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the U.S. Senate confirms Davis, she will become the second Black woman to serve on the 6th Circuit and the first from Michigan.
Davis, 55, is currently serving on the U.S. Courthouse in Flint. She was also the first Black woman President Trump nominated to the federal bench as president.
Former attorneys such as U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade have spoken to Davis’s qualifications.
“Judge Dawkins is a talented lawyer, an outstanding judge and a person of great integrity,” said former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade, who has known Davis for 25 years and now teaches at the University of Michigan law school.
“We could not find a better candidate to serve on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. In fact, she would make an excellent Supreme Court justice.”
Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law Senate, would “expeditiously” confirm Davis, given her “wealth” of relevant experience:
“Elevation of district judges to the appeals courts is a venerated convention that all modern presidents employ, because the nominees have already been confirmed once by the Senate, bring much relevant expertise and have comprehensive, accessible records that the Senate can evaluate,” he said.
Growing up, Davis cited the decision Brown v. Board of Education as to where her interest in law began. As the Detroit Press notes, Davis boasts many qualifications for her appointment:
She graduated from Wichita State University in 1989 and Washington University School of Law in St. Louis in 1992.
Davis previously served as a magistrate judge, appointed in 2016. One of her high-profile cases involved arraigning Amor Ftouhi in the 2017 terrorism and stabbing attack at Flint’s Bishop International Airport. Ftouhi was later convicted.
Davis started her career as a civil defense attorney at the firm Dickinson Wright PLLC in Detroit before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where she worked as a federal prosecutor for 18 years, starting in 1997. McQuade later appointed her as her executive assistant U.S. attorney in 2010 — a post she held through 2015.