Pamela A. Harris

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Pamela Harris
Image of Pamela Harris

Nonpartisan

United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit
Tenure

2014 - Present

Years in position

10

Education

Bachelor's

Yale College, 1985

Law

Yale Law School, 1990

Personal
Birthplace
Hartford, Conn.

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Pamela Ann Harris is a federal judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. She joined the court in 2014 after a nomination from President Barack Obama.[1]

Biography

Education

Harris earned her B.A. summa cum laude from Yale University in 1985, and her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1990.[1][2]

Professional career

  • 2012-2014: Visiting professor, Georgetown University Law Center
  • Senior advisor, Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University
  • 2010-2012: Principal deputy assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Policy, United States Department of Justice
  • 2009-2010: Executive director, Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University
  • 2007-2009: Co-director, Harvard Law School's Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Clinic
  • 1999-2009: Attorney, appellate and Supreme Court litigation practice, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, Washington, D.C.
  • 2006-2009: Of counsel
  • 2005-2009: Partner
  • 1999-2004: Counsel

Judicial career

Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

Nomination Tracker
Fedbadgesmall.png
Nominee Information
Name: Pamela Harris
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit
Progress
Confirmed 81 days after nomination.
ApprovedANominated: May 8, 2014
ApprovedAABA Rating: Unanimously Well Qualified
Questionnaire: Questionnaire
ApprovedAHearing: June 24, 2014
QFRs: (Hover over QFRs to read more)
ApprovedAReported: July 17, 2014 
ApprovedAConfirmed: July 28, 2014
ApprovedAVote: 50-43


Pamela Harris was nominated on May 8, 2014, by President Barack Obama to fill a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. The vacancy was created when Andre Davis assumed senior status on February 28, 2014. President Obama said of the nomination:

“ Throughout her career, Pamela Harris has shown unwavering integrity and an outstanding commitment to public service. I am proud to nominate her to serve on the United States Court of Appeals.[2][3] ”

Pamela Harris was rated Unanimously Well Qualified by the American Bar Association.[4] Hearings on Harris' nomination were held before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary on June 24, 2014, and her nomination was reported by U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on July 17, 2014. Harris was confirmed on a 50-43 recorded vote of the U.S. Senate on July 28, 2014, and she received her commission on July 29, 2014.[1][5]

Noteworthy cases

Fourth Circuit says legal permit to carry gun does not indemnify against police-conducted stop-and-frisk search (2017)
See also: United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit (United States of America v. Robinson)

On January 23, 2017, the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled that a police officer who makes a lawful traffic stop and who has a reasonable suspicion that one of the automobile’s occupants is armed may conduct a stop-and-frisk search, also known as a Terry search, of that individual in the interest of officer safety. This search may be conducted even if the individual searched has a legal right to carry a firearm. Writing in dissent, Judge Pamela A. Harris objected to the majority's conclusion. She wrote,[6]

“

In many jurisdictions and for many years, police officers could assume that anyone carrying a concealed firearm was up to no good. Because public possession of guns was prohibited or tightly regulated, concealed firearms were hallmarks of criminal activity, deadly weapons carried by law-breakers to facilitate their crimes. So it followed, without much need for elaboration, that if a suspect legally stopped by the police was carrying a gun, then he was not only 'armed' but also 'dangerous,' justifying a protective frisk under Terry v. Ohio. ... But that is no longer the case, at least in states like West Virginia. Today in West Virginia, citizens are legally entitled to arm themselves in public, and there is no reason to think that a person carrying or concealing a weapon during a traffic stop – conduct fully sanctioned by state law – is anything but a law-abiding citizen who poses no threat to the authorities. And as behavior once the province of law-breakers becomes commonplace and a matter of legal right, we no longer may take for granted the same correlation between 'armed' and 'dangerous.'

The majority disagrees, adopting a bright-line rule that any citizen availing him or herself of the legal right to carry arms in public is per se 'dangerous' under the Terry formulation and therefore subject to frisk and disarmament, at police discretion, if stopped for a traffic violation or some other minor infraction. It may be, as the concurring opinion suggests, that this is where we will end up – that the price for exercising the right to bear arms will be the forfeiture of certain Fourth Amendment protections. ... But unless and until the Supreme Court takes us there, I cannot endorse a rule that puts us on a collision course with rights to gun possession rooted in the Second Amendment and conferred by state legislatures. Nor would I adopt a rule that leaves to unbridled police discretion the decision as to which legally armed citizens will be targeted for frisks, opening the door to the very abuses the Fourth Amendment is designed to prevent. I must respectfully dissent.[3]

”

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Federal Judicial Center, "Biographical directory of federal judges," accessed June 16, 2016
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 The White House, "President Obama Nominates Pamela Harris to Serve on the United States Court of Appeals," May 8, 2014
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
  4. ↑ American Bar Association, "Ratings of Article III judicial nominees, 113th Congress," accessed May 12, 2014
  5. ↑ United States Congress, "PN 1696 — Pamela Harris — The Judiciary," accessed June 16, 2016
  6. ↑ U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, United States of America v. Shaquille Montel Robinson, January 23, 2017

Political offices
Preceded by
- 		United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit
2014-Present		 Succeeded by
-



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