VPIRG president, Planned Parenthood lawyer, racial equity office head, former House Speaker screening next federal judge candidates
This news story appeared first in the Bennington Banner.
by Mike Donoghue
The names of at least two leading lawyers to potentially replace retiring Federal Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford have been forwarded to Vermont’s Congressional delegation.
It is unclear when Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and Peter Welch, D-Vt. will release the names of the top candidates seeking the lifetime appointment as a federal judge. The federal judgeship, which pays $232,600 annually, is considered lucrative in Vermont and normally draws applications from state judges and others.
It also is unclear if, and when, the general public will be given a chance by the two senators to weigh in on the merits of the proposed finalists.
Sanders’ office and Welch did not respond to requests for information.
An extra lid of secrecy has been put on the selection process this time, according to two people familiar with the screening, but not authorized to speak about it publicly. The Senators withheld who and how the individual members of the screening committee were made.
Crawford has served on the federal bench since 2014. The new judge’s primary assignment would be at the U.S. District Courthouse on West Street in Rutland.
Crawford and Burlington lawyer John Pacht, who later was named a state judge, were the two names forwarded in 2014 by the advisory committee that eventually went to the White House for the last district court vacancy.
Sanders and Welch, who are consulting with Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., are expected to forward their recommendation to the White House. President Joe Biden will make a formal nomination, which must be approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee and eventually the full senate.
Welch was added to the Senate Judiciary Committee after longtime U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt. retired in January 2023 after 48 years in Washington.
The screening committee, which was ordered to provide confidentiality about the candidates and the process, conducted interviews with the candidates in January and then were asked to rank them, according to a source familiar with the process, but was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
Crawford, 69, will take Senior Status in mid-August — which allows him to preside over a limited caseload, including continuing with the elaborate cross-country murder-for-hire case from the Northeast Kingdom. A jury trial is scheduled for the final two defendants in September. It will be in either Burlington or Rutland.
Sanders, as the state’s new senior senator, is taking the lead on the selection process this time. He has appointed three people to the Judicial Nomination Advisory Panel.
Welch was allocated two seats on it, while the Vermont Bar Association was asked to provide the final two members. The VBA solicited nominations to be on the screening committee and the executive board sent names of qualified lawyers to Sanders.
The federal judicial selection process has always been part transparent and part confidential.
Nobody was selected for the screening committee from the offices that deal with the federal judges on a day-to-day basis, including the court clerk’s office, the U.S. Marshal, U.S. Probation, U.S. Attorney or the Federal Defender.
The screening committee members were Shapleigh “Shap” Smith, a Burlington lawyer and former legislator and Speaker of the House, David Silver, a Bennington defense lawyer, Lisa Shelkrot, a Burlington lawyer, Barbara Prine, staff attorney at Vermont Legal Aid; Paul Burns executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group; Xusana Davis, executive director of Racial Equity for the state; Eleanor “Ella” Spottswood, a senior staff attorney with Planned Parenthood of America and chair of the state Judicial Nominating Board.
The selection process this time is slightly different from Vermont’s longstanding tradition. Leahy, who served in the senate for 48 years, normally used a nine-person merit committee. Leahy used an equal system with three selections each made by his office, the junior senator and the state bar association. The process proved to be non-partisan.
Crawford has been the chief federal judge in Vermont since 2017.
Lawyers interested in replacing Crawford had until Dec. 1 to fill out the elaborate 10-page questionnaire with multi-part detailed questions. The completed application with the typed answers and various attachments, including legal rulings, newspaper clippings, published writings and scripts of talks can easily run 100 pages or more.
Applicants also got a 1½-page list of issues that the FBI background check is likely to cover, including asking about any involvement in any group that advocates the use of force to overthrow the U.S. government, or if the applicant has traveled to Cuba.