Obama Nominates Two Appellate Judges

(CN) - President Barack Obama on Friday nominated two district judges to the federal courts of appeal. London-born Joseph Greenaway from New Jersey may sit on the 3rd Circuit and Beverly Martin from Georgia was nominated to the 11th Circuit.

"Judge Greenaway and Judge Martin have distinguished themselves as first-rate jurists with unflagging integrity and evenhandedness," Obama said.

Greenaway and Martin will be the fourth and fifth nominees that Obama nominated to the Court of Appeals to fill the 15 vacancies.

Joseph Greenaway Jr., 51, was born in London, but grew up in New York, first in Harlem, then in the Northeast Bronx. He now has a son and a daughter.

Greenaway earned his bachelors degree from Columbia University and his law degree from Harvard Law School, where he received the Earl Warren Legal Scholarship and was a member of the Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review.

After earning his law degree, Greenaway was a clerk for Judge Vincent Broderick, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York.

He then spent two years in private practice before becoming a federal prosecutor with the criminal division for four years, even serving as the chief of the narcotics division for a year.

Afterwards, he worked as an in-house general attorney for Johnson & Johnson for six years, before he was appointed as a federal judge to the U.S. District Court of New Jersey, where he has worked for more than 12 years.

Beverly Martin, 53, has worked with Habitat for Humanity and served on the board of directors for a community college foundation. She grew up in Macon, Ga., but now lives in Atlanta.

Martin earned her bachelors degree from Stetson University, and her law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law.

After earning her degrees, she worked for several years at Martin & Snow in her hometown.

In 1984, Martin became an assistant attorney general, representing Georgia for 10 years, then became an assistant U.S. attorney. From there, she became an acting U.S. attorney and, in 1998, a U.S. attorney, serving as the lead counsel in drug conspiracy, firearms possession and counterfeiting cases.

Marin took her seat at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in 2000, where she has worked until her nomination to the 11th Circuit.

The nominations follow three others to the federal courts of appeal. Obama previously nominated Gerard Lynch to the 2nd Circuit, David Hamilton to the 7th Circuit, and André Davis to the 4th Circuit.

The three original nominations have cleared the Senate Judicial Committee, but are awaiting approval from the full Senate.

There are 15 vacancies on the federal circuit courts, but Obama now has five judges awaiting confirmation.

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