WASHINGTON (CN) — President Joe Biden added five names to his roster of judicial nominees Tuesday, including one who, if confirmed, would be the first Asian American woman to serve on the bench of the Philly-based Third Circuit.
The sole appeals court nominee, Cindy Chung, is a prosecutor who has been the U.S. attorney for Pittsburgh since 2021. Prior to this, she served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the same office beginning in 2014 and did a five-year stint — from 2009 to 2014 — as a trial attorney at the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights criminal section.
The White House noted Tuesday that with 112 nominees to date, Biden has “won confirmation of the most lower court judges for the first year of a presidency since the Kennedy Administration.”
“These choices also continue to fulfill the President’s promise to ensure that the nation’s courts reflect the diversity that is one of our greatest assets as a country — both in terms of personal and professional backgrounds,” the White House said in a press release Tuesday.
The other nominees whom Biden selected for judgeships on the Philadelphia federal bench include two Black women, Kai Scott and Kelley Hodge.
Scott, a judge on the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas since 2015, comes to the nomination with a public defender’s background. She previously served as a trial unit chief for the Federal Community Defender Office for the Philadelphia federal courthouse from 2010 to 2015 and was an assistant federal defender from 2004 to 2010.
Hodge is a former interim district attorney, who filled the post in 2017 and 2018 after Philadelphia DA Seth Williams was convicted of corruption. The nominee currently is a partner in private practice at the Philadelphia-based law firm Fox Rothschild.
Also tapped for openings in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania were Judge Mia Perez and attorney John Frank Murphy.
Perez, a Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas judge since 2016, was elected to her seat on the bench after five years in private practice at her own firm. If confirmed, she would be the second Latina judge to serve on the Philadelphia federal bench. She also boasts career history as an assistant defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia from 2006 to 2010.
Murphy, an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School since 2014, is currently a partner at the Philadelphia branch of Baker & Hostetler, his place of work since 2007.
Biden’s first pick for the Third Circuit, Arianna Freeman, is awaiting Senate confirmation after her nomination to become the first woman of color to join that bench. Her nomination advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in late June.
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