Both Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan announced their shock and disgust at the conduct of U.S. Judge Joshua Kindred that led to his recent abrupt resignation. Both said they were moving cautiously to fill this vacancy, as well as another judicial position that has been vacant for multiple years. For a long period, Alaska’s senators utilized recommendations from the Alaska Bar Association to fill federal judgeships. Until the appointment of Joshua Kindred, these recommendations had provided many fine and honorable judges, including Sharon Gleason, Timothy Burgess, Ralph Beistline and Jack Sedgwick, to name a few recent appointees.
Sen. Sullivan said the resignation of Kindred demonstrated to him why the vetting and ranking by the Bar Association of candidates for a federal judgeship could “potentially be insufficient” since it is based on a “poll of attorneys, an interview and resumes” submitted by the applicants. Of course, the individuals appointed as federal judges prior to Kindred were based on recommendations by the Alaska Bar and proved to be highly qualified and honorable people.
Indeed, it is ironic that Sullivan apparently paid little notice to the ranking of the names forwarded to him by the Bar Association: of the 20 names, Kindred was ranked 16th out of 20. That is, 15 of the applicants were rated higher than Kindred. I wonder if the Alaska Federal Judicial Council formed by Sullivan last year to help him pick future nominees for the Alaska federal bench will do a better job than the Bar Association. I hope that in the future, Sullivan will actually pay attention rather than ignore the rankings by the Bar Association.
— Brad Owens
Anchorage
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