Legal News

Chief Judge of 4th Circuit, Williams, Resigns; Traxler Takes Her Place

By Jennifer Forsyth

Karen J. Williams, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, has announced her resignation after being diagnosed to be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, according to a letter she sent to colleagues yesterday. (It was not the same letter sent to the White House, her office said.)

“…[A]lthough no one knows how quickly the disease will progress, I want to leave the court while I still have my faculties and know that I have made all my decisions with a sound mind,” Williams wrote, saying that she was announcing her step down from the bench “with great sadness and a heavy heart.” To read the letter to her colleagues, click here.

Her office issued an official statement that says while Judge Williams “is presently able to perform her judicial duties, because of the nature of the disease she has elected to retire so any future decisions would not be called into question.”

The Washington Post moved this story on her resignation today and its possible impact on the appellate court that was once considered the country’s most conservative. Williams was appointed to the 4th Circuit in 1992 by George H.W. Bush. Click here for an assessment by Slate of her possibility as a U.S. Supreme Court nominee in the 2005 vacancy created by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Williams’s name is no longer on the 4th Circuit website. William Traxler Jr., a fellow South Carolinian, is now listed as chief judge.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 09, 2009 (boomark / email).