Biden nominates longtime public defender for U.S. court in Philly in race to confirm more judges than Trump

A longtime public defender is President Joe Biden’s latest pick to fill a federal judicial vacancy in Philadelphia as he races to surpass Donald Trump’s record for confirming judges before the end of his first term.

The White House announced the nomination of Catherine Henry — who has spent nearly 30 years defending clients who cannot afford their own lawyers against criminal charges in state and federal court — to the U.S. District Court in a statement Thursday.

She was one of four women Biden put forth that day as candidates for appellate and district judicial seats across the country.

“These choices … continue to fulfill the president’s promise to ensure that the nation’s courts reflect the diversity that is one of our greatest assets as a country — both in terms of personal and professional backgrounds,” the White House said of the nominees.

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.), who recommended Henry, praised her record as a public defender and called her nomination “a major win for Pennsylvania.”

“She will be an excellent federal judge, and I will do all I can to see that she is confirmed as soon as possible,” he said.

Fetterman’s counterpart in the Senate, Democrat Bob Casey, said he is also backing Henry. “She has committed herself to the people of eastern Pennsylvania, and I look forward to her bringing her integrity, experience, and fierce commitment to fairness and equal justice under the law to this critical new role,” he said.

Henry’s nomination came as Biden rushes to cement his imprint on the federal judiciary in the final months of his first term. Federal judges, who must be confirmed by the Senate and are appointed for life, oversee myriad civil and criminal cases each year and issue the first round of rulings on significant legal questions that can eventually rise to the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court.

After Trump made judicial appointments a focus — appointing more than 230 district and appellate judges and three Supreme Court justices during his single term in office — Democrats have pushed to leave their own stamp on the federal judiciary, a mark Trump would not be able to erase should he win a second term in office in November.

On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Biden’s 200th judicial appointee — putting him slightly ahead of the 196 Trump had confirmed by this point in his tenure. According to the White House, 64% of Biden’s confirmed judges nationwide are women and 62% are people of color. They include former labor lawyers, civil rights lawyers, and public defenders.

Biden has had seven judges confirmed in Pennsylvania, including Cindy Chung, the first Asian American judge ever to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia — which handles civil and criminal appeals for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware — and Arianna Freeman, the first Black woman ever to serve on that court.

Henry, who did not return requests for comment Thursday, earned her law degree from the District of Columbia School of Law in 1995 and began her career as a staff attorney at the Feminist Majority Foundation in Arlington, Va., before moving to Philadelphia to work for the Defender’s Association in 1996.

Since leaving that office in 2001 for the Federal Community Defender’s Office, she has become a fixture at the federal courthouse in Center City, defending those who can’t pay for legal representation themselves.

Her clients in recent years have ranged from a former top lieutenant to ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor facing immigration charges for lying about his past as a war criminal to a shoe salesman at a Delaware mall department store who snapped the finger off a terra cotta Chinese warrior during an “ugly sweater Christmas party” at the Franklin Institute.

Lawyers with backgrounds in indigent defense have traditionally been underrepresented on the federal bench. But Henry is the fifth former public defender Biden has nominated in the nine picks he’s made for the Philadelphia region’s federal court vacancies.

Should Henry be confirmed by the Senate, that would leave two open seats in the federal court district that covers Philadelphia, its collar counties and the surrounding area — the latest of which opened up last week after the death of U.S. District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter — and one vacancy on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Biden’s pick for the Third Circuit slot — New Jersey attorney Adeel Mangi, who would become the nation’s first Muslim appellate court judge — has been mired in controversy for months after Republicans threatened to tank his nomination.

During Mangi’s confirmation hearing at the Judiciary Committee in December, Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and John Kennedy (R., La.) attempted to conflate his role as an advisory board member for the Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights with support for the terrorist group Hamas.

Several law enforcement groups also opposed his confirmation on the grounds that he is an advisory board member of the Alliance of Families for Justice, a criminal justice reform group that supports families of prisoners.

Two Democratic Senators from Nevada opposed Mangi’s nomination, making his chances of confirmation slim in the chamber, where Democrats hold a narrow 51-49 majority.

Fetterman said previously that he supports Mangi’s nomination. Casey, who is up for reelection in November, was noncommittal, indicating he’d be open to supporting Mangi if his nomination came up for a vote.