Six Arizona Judge Confirmation Hearings Tuesday

Next Tuesday will be Arizona’s day in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill where the committee will hold confirmation hearings for six federal judge nominees – all for Arizona.

The happiest may be Rosemary Marquez who has waited two years to have her nomination heard.  She is a solo practitioner from Tucson.

The Arizona District court has been staggering under the weight of immigration and border drug trafficking cases, with six vacancies on the court.  Their caseload was declared a “judicial emergency” by the 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The nominations were initially blocked by the state’s Republican senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, who retired in 2012 and was replaced by another Republican, Jeff Flake.

Earlier in January, McCain and Flake lifted the hold on Marquez and the other nominees.

The other nominees include: Steven Logan, John Tuchi, Diane Humetewa, Douglas Rayes and James Soto.

Humetewa is a member of the Hopi tribe and an ArizonaStateUniversity law professor and special advisor to the President and special counsel.  She served as chief prosecutor in the Hopi Indian Tribal Prosecutor’s office.

Soto is a state Superior Court judge in Nogales who came from a private practice at Soto, Martin and Coogan.

Rayes is also a Superior Court judge, but in the Phoenix court, who presides over complex civil litigation.  He came from a private practice in Tryon, Heller & Rayes.

Tuchi is a executive assistant U.S. Attorney in Phoenix and previously served as a prosecutor.  He came from a private practice at Brown & Bain, now part of Perkins Coie.

Logan is also a prosecutor in the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix.  Prior to that, he worked as an immigration judge for the Justice Department’s Office for Immigration Review in Eloy, Arizona.