Alabama deck stacked against new black federal judges?

[Thom Little]

U.W. Clemon and Myron Herbert Thompson became Alabama's first black federal judges in 1980. More than 25 years later, they're still the only ones.

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Only two of the 24 federal judges in Alabama are black; the rest are white, according to the Federal Judicial Center. The last black nominee to Alabama's federal courts was Birmingham attorney Kenneth Simon in 2000. President Clinton nominated Simon in the waning months of his last term, but the Senate never held a confirmation hearing.

Blacks make up 26 percent of Alabama's population, according to census data, but less than 10 percent of the federal judgeships. At least six black judges would be needed to reflect the black population of the state.

So when President Bush nominated federal Magistrate Judge Kristi DuBose of Mobile and Troy attorney William Keith Watkins in September to replace senior federal judges in Alabama, Rep. Artur Davis, a black Democratic congressman from Birmingham, spoke out about the lack of diversity on the state's federal judiciary. DuBose and Watkins are white, as are the seven other federal judicial nominees Bush has selected to serve in Alabama since he took office in January 2001.

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"I wouldn't cast these nominations as problems," Davis said of DuBose and Watkins. "But the larger point that I've made is that we've gone 25 years without a black Alabamian being appointed to the federal bench."


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