Senate Judiciary Committee Holds Hearing on Jane Kelly

On Wednesday, February 27, 2013, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on President Obama’s nomination of Jane Kelly to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Her credentials are stellar. A graduate summa cum laude from Duke University, she went on to graduate cum laude from Harvard Law School and clerk on the district court in South Dakota for Judge Donald Porter and on the Eighth Circuit for Judge David Hansen. Jane Kelly currently works as an assistant public defender in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and has briefed and argued numerous appellate cases, including before the Eighth Circuit, and tried 14 cases to verdict in federal district court. In 2004, she received the John Adams Award from the Iowa Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, given annually to an Iowa attorney who has devoted his or her career to defending the indigent.

Jane Kelly’s hearing is a good time to take stock of how much more progress is needed before the federal bench reflects the diversity of our nation. Supported by both Iowa Senators Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Jane Kelly would be only the second woman in the Eighth Circuit’s 122-year history to have ever served on the court. The lone female member is Judge Diana Murphy, who sits in Minnesota. Today, women only represent approximately 30% of federal judges and there are still other courts like the Eighth Circuit where progress is measured by firsts, seconds, or thirds. A more broadly representative bench will help ensure litigants are heard fairly, enriched by a panoply of differing perspectives and voices brought to the cases by the judges who decide these cases.

Not only is Jane Kelly notable because of her legal excellence and because she would be the second woman on the court to which she has been nominated, but also because she would bring needed diversity of legal experience as a public defender. She testified at her hearing that she did not know of a single other judge on the Eighth Circuit with this background.

Surely Jane Kelly fully deserves and should be given a prompt vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee, not only for her sake, but also for the sake of the people served by the Eighth Circuit who are waiting for justice.