Joe Biden picks LA, San Diego judges for federal California court roles. Who are they?
President Joe Biden intends to have a longtime Los Angeles judge and a San Diego magistrate judge fill federal California judicial vacancies, the White House said on Wednesday.
Biden will be nominating Judge Serena Murillo, who has spent the last nine years on the Los Angeles Superior Court, to a lifetime judicial role on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
He will be nominating U.S. Magistrate Judge Benjamin Cheeks from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California for a lifetime role. Magistrate judges serve terms rather than lifetime appointments.
The appointments require Senate confirmation. The Senate returns next month, but it’s unclear when they may consider the choice.
“Californians deserve a federal bench that reflects the diversity of the Golden State,” said Sen. Laphonza Butler, D-Calif. “I applaud the President’s nomination of Judge Serena Murillo and Judge Ben Cheeks to the United States District Courts for the Central District and Southern District of California, respectively.”
Biden’s judicial nominations have included more women, people of color and LGBTQ individuals than those picked by any other U.S. president, according to a Washington Post analysis.
On the Los Angeles Superior Court, Murillo presides over felony trials in the criminal division. She has also served in the court’s appellate and civil divisions. She’s been a part of the Los Angeles Superior Court Latino Judicial Officers Association and is president-elect of California Women Judges, which advocates for women’s inclusion in the state’s judicial branch.
Murillo was an associate justice pro tem on the California Court of Appeal in the second appellate district from 2018 to 2019. An associate justice pro tem is appointed to serve in the place of an appeals justice during a vacancy.
Before becoming a judge, Murillo was a prosecutor for 17 years in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. She has litigated before the California Court of Appeals, state Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the federal appellate court covering Western states.
Previously, Murillo was an associate attorney in Los Angeles at McNicholas & McNicholas in 1997 and a law clerk in Claremont at Shernoff, Bidart Echeverria in 1996. She graduated from Loyola Law School in 1996 and earned her undergraduate degree at the University of California, San Diego, in 1993. Murillo was born in Pomona, California.
“The daughter of a Mexican-American farm worker and a schoolteacher, Judge Murillo has demonstrated a tireless work ethic and developed extensive criminal and civil judicial experience with the Los Angeles County Superior Court,” said Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif.
Cheeks has been a magistrate judge for the Southern District since July. Before becoming a judge, Cheeks was a criminal defense lawyer in his San Diego private practice for more than a decade.
From 2010 to 2013, he was an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District. For seven years prior, he was an assistant district attorney in New York County.
Cheeks graduated from the American University, Washington College of Law, in 2003. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Miami, Florida, in 2000.
“Judge Cheeks has earned immense respect from his colleagues in the Southern District and has fought to protect vulnerable immigrants against fraud,” Padilla said.
California federal judicial vacancies
Murillo and Cheeks are part of Biden’s 55th round of nominees for federal judicial positions. Wednesday marks 259 nominees to be announced for federal judicial positions, according to the White House.
There are five vacancies for California federal judgeships across the Central and Southern Districts, which are in Southern California, and one future vacancy in the Northern District, which runs along the coast from Del Norte through Monterey counties.
There are four federal trial court districts in California. They fall under the umbrella of the Ninth Circuit.
The Senate Judiciary Committee must okay Biden’s nominees, then the full Senate must vote to confirm the person to the judicial bench. The Senate currently has a Democratic majority, but that could change in January.
California Sens. Padilla and Butler serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Butler, who was appointed to serve in the Senate after Sen. Dianne Feinstein died, is not running for election and will likely be replaced in the Senate by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, not long after the November election, assuming he wins. It’s not certain whether he’d join the committee.
Prior to today’s announcement, there were four other nominees awaiting a Senate confirmation to California district courts, all of whom are women.
Biden has had four judges confirmed to the Ninth Circuit in California — all people of color, and three women — and 26 to federal district courts in the state during his presidency, according to The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
This includes Judge Dena M. Coggins, the first Black and Asian American woman to serve as a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, which covers Sacramento. Coggins was previously a judge on the Sacramento County Superior Court before her confirmation this year.
This story was originally published October 23, 2024 at 2:30 PM.
