Biden to nominate SC Judge DeAndrea Gist Benjamin to 4th Circuit Court of Appeals

President Joe Biden plans to nominate South Carolina Judge DeAndrea Gist Benjamin to fill a vacant seat on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the White House announced Tuesday.

Benjamin, 49, became a 5th Judicial Circuit state judge in 2011. She oversees civil and criminal trials in Richland and Kershaw counties.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals is one of the nation’s 13 appellate courts and is one step below the U.S. Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices usually are chosen from the nation’s appellate courts.

The appeals court is authorized 15 judges from the states of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and North and South Carolina.

Benjamin would be the third South Carolina judge on the 4th Circuit, along with Jay Richardson and Marvin Quattlebaum.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn on Tuesday called Benjamin an “outstanding jurist,” and said that he recommended her for the vacancy created on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals by Judge Henry Floyd’s assumption of senior, or semi-retired, status on the court.

“Judge Benjamin will bring her own unique life and legal experiences to the federal bench, and she is well qualified to fill this vacancy,” the Columbia Democrat said, noting Benjamin is “a product of South Carolina public schools and universities.”

Benjamin, a Columbia native, is married to former Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin.

She is a 1994 graduate of Winthrop University, and a 1997 graduate of University of South Carolina Law School. She graduated from Columbia High School in Columbia.

Benjamin is the second female African American judge from South Carolina nominated to a federal appeals court as Biden’s pledged to bring more diversity to the federal bench.

Last year, Biden nominated former U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. She was recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Before Benjamin is seated, she must go through a confirmation process that will include being vetted by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

News of her nomination was first reported by the Charleston Post and Courier.

Bakari Sellers, a Columbia attorney, former state lawmaker and CNN commentator, said Benjamin will make an excellent judge.

“She is a great jurist,” he said. “Her workload and intellect make her perfectly suited for this post.”

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After she graduated from law school, Benjamin worked as a law clerk for state Judge Casey Manning.

From 1998-1999, she was in the juvenile and family court division of the 5th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, and, from 1999-2001, she was an assistant attorney general under Attorney General Charlie Condon.

From 2001-2011, she worked in her father’s law practice, the Gist Law Firm in Columbia. She also served as a municipal judge from 2004-2011.

Last year, Benjamin ran for and lost a prize seat on the S.C. Court of Appeals.

Had she won, she would have been the first African American female on that court. The victor in that race was Florence Family Court Judge Jerry “Jay” Vinson, who received 95 votes to Benjamin’s 63 votes, with 158 of the General Assembly’s 170 lawmakers voting.

In the race, Benjamin was dogged by an email attack from a conservative group that accused Benjamin of being a “liberal, Democratic” donor. It based its charges on campaign contributions her father’s law firm had made to Democratic candidate.

At a hearing by a judicial screening commission three months before she lost the election, no evidence was produced that any of Benjamin’s court decisions had been influenced by political considerations.

“Judges are nonpartisan, and I take my oath seriously,” Benjamin told a reporter prior to the 2021 election. “I am fair and impartial to everyone who appears before me.

A sampling of some of Benjamin’s sentencing decisions over the years includes a case from 2019, when she sentenced a woman who pleaded guilty to felony DUI for killing a Lexington County motorcyclist to 21 years in prison with no parole. The maximum penalty for that crime is 25 years.

Another came in 2015, when she sentenced Holt Carlen, the son of the late University of South Carolina football coach Jim Carlen, to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a 2012 felony DUI that resulted in death

One of her biggest trials was presiding over the 2013 case of Brett Parker, a Midlands bookie accused of killing his wife and friend in a fiendish plot to free himself from a mountain of gambling debts by collecting an insurance policy on his wife. The case was one of the most widely publicized criminal trials in South Carolina in years and attracted national attention.

After a three-week trial, the jury took three hours to find Parker guilty of killing his wife, Tammy Jo Carson Parker, and his betting bookie clerk, Bryan Capnerhurst. Benjamin sentenced Parker to life in prison without parole.

Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond School of Law professor who specializes in the federal judiciary, said Tuesday that Benjamin should make it though the Senate Judiciary Committee and get a favorable vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Especially, he said, if she has the support of South Carolina’s two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott.

“I think she’s in good shape,” Tobias said. “She has good experience.”

A big unknown, Tobias said, is whether the Senate in an election year, with senators taking weeks off to campaign, will have enough time to give Benjamin a committee hearing, a favorable vote reporting her out and then hold a vote in the Senate.

“The only issue is timing, whether she’ll be confirmed this year,” Tobias said. “There are a number of people ahead of her.”

McClatchyDC correspondent Alex Roarty contributed to this report.