Jinsook Ohta testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 3, 2021. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

The U.S. Senate on Friday confirmed the first federal trial judges in California under President Joe Biden, sending a former public defender and a former consumer protection prosecutor to the Southern District in San Diego and a former corporate counsel and civil litigator to the Central District in Los Angeles. A fourth confirmation occurred shortly before midnight Eastern time.

Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 20, 2021. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Senators voted 48-25 to confirm Linda Lopez, who's been a magistrate judge since 2018 after 11 years as a federal public defender, and 47-24 to confirm Jinsook Ohta, a San Diego County Superior Court judge and former deputy attorney general. They also voted 46-24 to confirm Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, to the Central District, then late Friday night voted 46-24 to confirm U.S. Magistrate Judge Jennifer Thurston to the Eastern District bench.

The confirmations follow years of dire judge shortages that have repeatedly been decried in the legal community and beyond. In June, 38 of California's Democratic U.S. representatives signed a letter urging Biden to take action. California's four districts have had judicial emergencies in place over the vacancies, which some say don't properly reflect the true case overload because the number of judgeships hasn't kept pace with district population growth. The Eastern District, for example, has not added a judgeship since 1978, though its population has swelled from 2.5 million residents to approximately 8 million.

Introducing the nominees, California Senator Alex Padilla said the judicial nominations under the prior administration, "let me put it mildly here — were far from diverse, far from representative of our nation."

"And as a result, the federal courts and those who sit on the federal bench do not reflect the diverse, vibrant America that it serves. And I'm not just talking about gender. I'm not just talking about race and ethnicity," Padilla said. "For too long, the bench of our federal courts has been dominated by corporate lawyers and former prosecutors."

Padilla said the federal bench need more judges with backgrounds in public defense, consumer protection, public interest, immigration, labor and local government

"We need all these perspectives in order to rebalance our federal courts and hopefully in the process rebuild and reaffirm public confidence in the fairness of their rulings," Padilla said.

Linda Lopez testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 3, 2021. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

In addition to her public defense background, Lopez also had a private criminal defense practice in Miami, Florida, from 2003 to 2007. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, she graduated from the University of Miami School of Law in 1999 and earned a bachelor's degree from Florida International University in 1996. She also has associate degrees from Miami Dade Community College.

Born in South Korea, Ohta was a deputy attorney general focused on consumer protection for 10 years before joining the San Diego County Superior Court bench in 2020. Prior to joining the California Attorney General's Office, she was an associate at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton in San Diego from 2003 to 2006, and at O'Melveny & Myers from 2002 to 2003. She earned her law degree from New York University School of Law in 2001 and a bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1998.

In his Senate floor introduction on Friday, Padilla referenced a commission he established in January to bring forth new judicial candidates. It's 70% attorneys of color, and a majority of the members are women. Padilla said the resulting nominations "represent a big step in the right direction."

The confirmations follows Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer filing cloture on Lopez, Ohta and 20 other Biden nominees, including Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Holly Thomas and 1st District Court of Appeal Justice Gabriel Sanchez, who is Gov. Jerry Brown's former deputy legal affairs secretary, for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Jennifer Thurston testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, October 20, 2021. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Schumer also filed cloture for Frimpong, who was vice president of Millennium Challenge Corp. and worked at the U.S. Department of Justice for eight years before joining the state court bench, as well as Thurston. Thurston has been a magistrate since 2009 after 12 years as deputy county counsel in Kern County.

Schumer hasn't yet filed cloture for another Central District nominee, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Hernán Vera, who deadlocked in the Senate Judiciary Committee on an 11-11 vote Dec. 2.

The Senate is now adjourned until Jan. 3; Sanchez's nomination to the 9th Circuit is scheduled to be considered that afternoon.

Cloture is a procedural move that allows nominations to move forward without debate. Schumer said Thursday he was invoking it because the nominees "have been pointlessly stalled by Republican obstruction."

"In past years, many of these nominees would have sailed through with consent and cooperation, but this year a handful of Republicans have hijacked the rules of the Senate to slow the process down," Schumer said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Sanchez's nomination 12-10 on Dec. 2 but deadlocked 11-11 on Thomas.

The full Senate on Monday confirmed Biden's first judicial nominee in California, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District, sending her to the Ninth, along with Jennifer Sung, a labor attorney in Oregon who was confirmed 50-49 Wednesday. Koh was the first female Korean-American federal judge in the U.S. when she joined the bench, and she'll be the first Korean-American woman to sit on a federal appeals court.

Meanwhile, Biden put forth his 11th round of judicial nominations on Wednesday, including four nominees for the Central District: 

- Sherilyn Peace Garnett, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge since 2014. Garnet was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District from 2001 to 2014, including deputy chief of the general crimes section from 2008 to 2011. She was an associate at Arnold & Porter in Los Angeles from 1999 to 2000. She earned her law degree from Harvard Law School in 1995 and her bachelor's degree from the University of California at Riverside in 1991.

- Kenly Kiya Kato, a U.S. magistrate judge in the Central District since 2014. Kato was a solo practitioner in civil and criminal law from 2004 to 2014 after a year as an associate at Liner LLP in Los Angeles. She was a deputy federal public defender in Los Angeles from 1997 to 2003 after earning her law degree from Harvard in 1996 and her bachelor's from UCLA in 1993.

- Fred Slaughter, an Orange County Superior Court judge since 2014. Slaughter was an assistant U.S. attorney from 2002 to 2014, serving in the criminal sections of the Central District as well as the District of Oregon and the District of Arizona. Slaughter coordinated the  Central District's Project Safe Neighborhoods from 2004 to 2006 and was deputy chief in Santa Ana from 2012 to 2013. He earned his law degree and bachelor's degree from UCLA.

- Sunshine Suzanne Sykes, a Riverside County Superior Court judge since 2013 and the current presiding judge of the appellate division. Sykes was deputy county counsel for Riverside County from 2005 to 2013, litigating cases involving juvenile dependency and abused children. She worked for the Southwest Justice Center's Juvenile Defense Panel from 2003 to 2005 and California Indian Legal Services from 2001 to 2003. She earned her law and bachelor's degrees from Stanford University in 2001 and 1997.