San Diego Federal Court Gets a New Judge

SAN DIEGO (CN) - By 94-0 vote the Senate on Wednesday confirmed San Diego County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Ann Bashant to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, in San Diego.

Bashant, 54, will fill a judgeship vacant since March 29, 2013, when Judge Irma E. Gonzalez assumed senior status.

Bashant has been on the San Diego Superior Court bench since 2000, from 2010 to 2013 as president judge for the Juvenile Court. She was an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego from 1989 to 2000, was deputy chief of the Narcotics Section from 1995 to 1997 and chief of the Border Crimes Section from 1997 to 1998.

Bashant was in private practice from 1986 to 1989, and was an adjunct professor at Western State University, now Thomas Jefferson School of Law, from 1988 to 1991.

She got her bachelor's degree from Smith College in 1982 and her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, in 1986.

With Judge Bashant's confirmation, the San Diego federal bench has its full complement of 13 judges. The court had 8,190 new case filings in fiscal year 2013 - 683 for each judge then on the bench.

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