Biden pick SC Judge Michelle Childs confirmed by Senate for influential DC Circuit

South Carolina federal Judge Michelle Childs will get a promotion after the U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination Tuesday evening to be on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The Senate voted 64-34 to send the University of South Carolina Law School graduate to what’s commonly known as the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a prominent bench that has traditionally served as a launching pad for future Supreme Court justices, including current Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

South Carolina’s U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, both Republicans, voted to confirm Childs.

“Judge Childs is an extremely talented lawyer and has proven to be a fair-minded judge. She has wide and deep support from all corners of the South Carolina legal community. She will be a great addition to the DC Circuit Court,” Graham said Tuesday in a statement. “Senator Scott and I appreciate the bipartisan support from our Senate colleagues and wish Judge Childs well on this new chapter in her life.”

The post is a lifetime appointment and pays $236,000 a year.

Childs, 56, was nominated by President Joe Biden in December.

Her nomination to the Court of Appeals was briefly put on hold earlier this year as she was considered for an upcoming vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. That seat ultimately went to now-Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, despite unsuccessful pleas supportive of Childs to Biden from Graham and Biden ally House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-Columbia.

Jackson, who served on the D.C. Circuit, became the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She succeeded retired Justice Stephen Breyer.

Childs’ confirmation marks a major promise for diversity by Biden, who pledged to elevate more Black female jurists.

She is known as an unflappable judge with a serious but approachable temperament who can handle complex as well as simple cases. In one of her last actions as a district court judge in South Carolina, last week she sentenced former Chester County Sheriff Alex “Big A” Underwood to 46 months in federal prison on a variety of federal corruption charges.

Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond Law School professor who specializes in the federal judiciary, said Tuesday that Childs appeared to have the largest majority of any of Biden’s appellate court nominees so far.

“Some nominees had really close votes, like 51-49, something like that,” said Tobias, who attributed her double-digit bipartisan support to Graham’s backing as well as to a wide perception that Childs is a mainstream judge.

Childs won’t immediately take a seat on the appeals court.

“She has to get a commission, which comes through the mail,” Tobias said.

Then she’ll be sworn in.

“She possesses the diversity of life experiences that is currently absent from much of the federal bench,” Clyburn said in a statement, adding he was pleased by the bipartisan vote. “This is a proud day for South Carolina and for all young people of similar backgrounds and experiences who aspire to follow her example.”

Education, legal background helped elevate Childs

A U.S. District Court judge for more than a decade, Childs’ deep resume includes work as a S.C. state trial court judge on the circuit court from 2006-2010 and as a commissioner from 2002-2006 on South Carolina’s Workers’ Compensation Commission, a panel that hears injured workers’ claims.

As a state judge, Childs was assigned complex business litigation by then S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal, who has praised Childs’ intellect and work ethic.

Before becoming a judge, Childs, then in her early 30s, was the deputy director of the state Department of Labor. Prior to that, she worked as an associate and then partner at Nexsen Pruet, a prominent Columbia law firm whose clients include a host of large corporations. She was the first Black woman to make partner at that firm.

As Biden considered Childs for the Supreme Court, Graham and Clyburn centered their advocacy on Childs’ public education, stressing that it would be a plus to have a such a jurist on the nation’s highest court. Most justices on the current court were educated at Ivy League universities and law schools.

Childs attended the University of South Florida and received her law degree from the University of South Carolina. She later earned a master’s degree from Duke University, a private college in North Carolina. She was born in Detroit and moved to Columbia as a teen.

Biden gave Clyburn’s preferences for a federal judgeship great weight.

During the 2020 campaign, when it looked like Biden’s effort to secure the Democratic nomination for president was flagging, Clyburn publicly endorsed Biden right before the South Carolina Democratic primary. It was at that time that Biden promised to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court should he take the White House.

Among Childs’ most prominent cases in South Carolina, in 2014 Childs ruled a South Carolina law unconstitutional when she upheld a Lexington County same-sex couple’s bid to get legal recognition from the state for their out-of-state marriage.

She also presided over many of the civil cases exposed after the massive failure of the V.C. Summer nuclear project in Fairfield County. And, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she oversaw cases that pitted concerns about voting fraud against concerns about health, ruling to remove witness signature requirements that ultimately was overturned.

For more than four years, Childs presided over dozens of fraud cases that the the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office brought against a tight-knit group of several thousand people known as the Irish Travelers who live in the Aiken area of South Carolina.

In those cases, she sent some defendants to jail and gave probation to others, at times expressing concern that it was an Irish Travelers practice to stop educating young girls at a very young age.

Columbia attorney Bakari Sellers, who is a former state lawmaker, author and CNN commentator, applauded the confirmation Tuesday night, calling it “an amazing story for little girls in Columbia and across the state.”

“She went to public school, public universities and now she is arguably on the second-highest court in the land,” Sellers said.

Reporter Stephen Pastis contributed to this report.