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Agee and Conrad tapped for 4th Circuit

President Bush’s recent nomination of two Virginia judges for the 4th U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals holds the promise of fast relief for that shorthanded court. Moreover, the president’s choice of nominees may signal a thaw in the chilly political climate surrounding federal judicial appointments.

Both Virginia Supreme Court Justice G. Steven Agee and U.S. District Judge Glen E. Conrad are considered moderates, and both have received the bipartisan endorsement of Virginia’s two U.S. senators. Welcoming the Conrad nomination this month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Conn., said, “Progress was long coming, but I commend the president for now taking the advice of Sen. [John] Warner and Sen. [Jim] Webb. In doing so, the president may have cleared the way for the Senate to consider another nominee in the short time remaining to us this year.”

The pace had already picked up by the time of the Conrad nomination. The Senate judiciary committee moved quickly to hold a hearing for Agee early this month. Conrad’s nomination should proceed with similar speed. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in 2003 for the district court bench.

The 4th Circuit has 15 judgeships; five of them are vacant.

The prior delays in confirmations are attributed to Democratic dissatisfaction with earlier nominees. Republicans have condemned what they view as foot-dragging by the Democrat-controlled Senate on Bush’s nomination of Chief Judge Robert Conrad (no relation to Glen Conrad of Virginia) of the Western District of North Carolina and South Carolina lawyer Steve A. Matthews.
What appears to be the likely elevation of Conrad and Agee comes as something of a surprise. With only eight months of President Bush’s term left, many observers expected Senate Democrats to block any judicial appointments based on their expectation that the seats would be filled early in the term of a Democratic president. The agreement on the candidates by a senator from each party gives Democrats the opportunity to rebut the obstructionist label Bush has given them.

The new nominees are well-known to Southwest Virginia lawyers. Glen Conrad has worn a federal robe for more than three decades. He stepped onto the bench as a magistrate judge in 1976, just two years out of law school. He had clerked for Judges Ted Dalton and James C. Turk. After 27 years as magistrate judge, he was elevated to the district court bench in 2003.

“He has been praised by lawyers and judges alike for his intelligence, fairness and commitment to justice,” said White House spokesman Emily Lawrimore.

The nomination of Agee in March was hailed by Leahy as “break[ing] the gridlock on the 4th Circuit.”

Agee practiced law in Salem and Roanoke for more than 20 years before becoming an appellate judge. For 12 years he served as a member of the House of Delegates. The General Assembly named him to the Court of Appeals in 2000 and to the Supreme Court in 2003.

“With more than 30 years of legal experience and the highest esteem of his peers, Justice Agee will make an outstanding federal jurist,” said Sen. John Warner at the time of Agee’s nomination to the federal bench.

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