Garland, Merrick Brian

Garland, Merrick Brian,1952–, American government official and judge, b. Chicago, grad. Harvard (A.B. 1974, J.D. 1977). He was special assistant to the U.S. attorney general (1979–81), a lawyer in private practice (1981–89, 1992–93), and assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia (1989–92). In the U.S. Dept. of Justice's criminial division (1993–97), he supervised the prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombing andUnabombercases. In 1997 he was appointed to the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; he became the court's chief judge in 2013. When he was nominated by President Obama to the Supreme Court after AntoninScalia's death (2016), Congressional Republicans refused to consider his appointment and called for the next president to fill the vacancy. Garland is regarded as a judicial moderate with an ability to build consensus.

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