President Clinton nominated U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis yesterday to fill the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seat left vacant by the death of Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., whom Davis clerked for two decades ago.
If his appointment is confirmed by the Senate, Davis, 51, of Ellicott City would become the first black member of the court. But his nomination faces an uncertain future, coming just weeks before the presidential election and just days before Congress recesses for the year.
Still, colleagues praised Davis as the right choice for the Richmond, Va.,-based court, which hears appeals of federal cases from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
J. Frederick Motz, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Baltimore, called Davis a "first-rate judge," whose legal interests include issues as varied as correctional reform and the impact of human genome research on the law.
"I think he would be a splendid appointment," Motz said yesterday. "I know the only regret around here is we would lose a tremendous colleague."
University of Maryland law professor Douglas L. Colbert called Davis the "ideal nominee to break through the 4th Circuit's historic racial barrier."
The 4th Circuit has the largest African-American population of any federal circuit court territory - about 23 percent of residents in the five states the court encompasses are black. But it is the only federal circuit court that has never had a black member.
Davis was attending a conference out of town yesterday and could not be reached to comment on his nomination.
A Baltimore native, Davis earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971 and his law degree from the University of Maryland in 1978 after serving three years as director of the Baltimore Urban League.
Davis clerked for Maryland U.S. District Judge Frank A. Kaufman and for Murnaghan in the 4th Circuit. Davis later worked for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in Washington, then returned to Baltimore to work as a federal prosecutor.
Davis worked in private practice and taught at the University of Maryland law school before becoming an associate district judge in Baltimore in 1987. He served as a judge in Baltimore Circuit Court from 1990 to 1995, before his appointment to federal court.
Among his more prominent decisions, Davis struck down a Baltimore law last winter requiring that 20 percent of the city's public works contracts go to minority companies. Davis ruled that the law violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.
