Conservative State Judge Nominated for Federal Bench

A conservative California appellate judge, Consuelo M. Callahan, was nominated by President Bush on Thursday to a seat on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Callahan, 52, has served on the state court of appeal in Sacramento since 1996, when she was appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson. She succeeded Janice Rogers Brown, who was elevated to the California Supreme Court.

Previously, Callahan was a Superior Court judge in Stockton, and her official biography describes her as the first female and Latina to serve on that court. “I am greatly honored to be nominated to the 9th Circuit and look forward to the confirmation process,” Callahan said in a statement.

The 9th Circuit, which has raised the ire of conservatives because of rulings overturning death sentences and barring the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in classrooms, has 24 active judges and four vacancies.

Bush has nominated Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl and Justice Department lawyer Jay Bybee for two of the open slots. Kuhl faces opposition from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and liberal advocacy groups because of briefs she wrote while working in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration.

On Thursday, Callahan, a graduate of Stanford University and McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, was praised by colleagues appointed by both Democratic and Republican governors.

“I am sad because Connie’s leaving will be a major loss to my court,” said Justice Arthur Scotland, the presiding justice on the 3rd District Court of Appeal, who was appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian.

Justice Richard M. Sims III, appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown, said Callahan “listens to both sides in cases and strives hard to do the right thing.”

“To my knowledge, she has no agenda” as a judge, Sims added.

“Connie is very direct, approachable and not self-important,” said Elizabeth R. Parker, McGeorge’s dean. Callahan, who is on the school’s board of directors, was on the committee that hired Parker, the former general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency.

As an appeals court judge, Callahan has written more than 200 opinions.

In 2001, she wrote the majority opinion in a case closely followed in the legal community. The issue was whether an attorney whose former law firm represented an opposing party in a pending lawsuit should be automatically disqualified from participating in the case. The attorney asserted that he should be permitted to remain on the case because he had no reasonable probability of access to confidential information that would create a conflict of interest.

Initially, a trial judge disqualified the lawyer, ruling it could be presumed that the attorney had knowledge constituting a conflict. But the court of appeal reversed, with Callahan writing that there had to be a detailed review of the facts before an attorney was disqualified in such a situation. The California Supreme Court declined review, thus upholding Callahan.

The same year, Callahan was part of a three-judge panel that unanimously rejected the claim of Catholic Charities of Sacramento that it should be exempt from a California law requiring employers to provide contraceptive coverage to employees. The group contended that the law violates religious freedom because Catholicism views contraception to be “intrinsically evil and a grave sin.”

The appeals court ruled that the statute “does not advance or inhibit religion.” Instead, the court said the law served to “eliminate discriminatory insurance practices that undermined the health and economic well-being of women.”

The court held that Catholic Charities did not fit within the law’s “religious employer” exemption because the organization serves the needs of all faiths and does not proselytize. The California Supreme Court agreed to review the decision, which is still pending.

Callahan served in Stockton as a deputy city attorney and deputy district attorney. She is married to an agent for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The couple have two children.