Judicial Nominee Terrence Boyle Raises Red Flag for Civil Rights Groups
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 2/25/2005
Calling him "unfit" to serve, the nation's oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition this week announced its opposition to the confirmation of Terrence Boyle to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The diverse group of organizations cited concerns over Boyle's record on civil rights and his high reversal rate by the very court to which he has been nominated."Judge Boyle is not fit to serve on the Fourth Circuit," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). "Judge Boyle has not only demonstrated a sustained hostility to civil rights, he has misinterpreted, misapplied or simply ignored the law and legal precedent."
A key issue in the debate over Boyle's fitness for the circuit court is his failure to disclose thousands of unpublished opinions from his career on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. In a questionnaire Boyle filled out for the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2003, he estimated that he had decided between 11,000 and 12,000 cases for the District Court. Yet fewer than 400 of his opinions have been published
LCCR also joined a coalition of civil rights, human rights, labor and women's organizations calling for the full, immediate disclosure of Judge Boyle's unpublished district court opinions. The Coalition for a Fair and Independent Judiciary, to which LCCR belongs, sent a letter to senators this week stating its view that the Senate "cannot meet its Constitutional obligations to review the nomination of Judge Boyle without full disclosure and review of the entirety of Judge Boyle's record on the district court."
"What is already on the record is bad enough, but the Senate and the American people have a right to know his entire record of performance on the bench," Henderson said.
In addition to assailing the Americans with Disabilities Act, critics say that Boyle has had a troubling history of denying voting rights and dismissing claims of discrimination based on race, gender, and age. Furthermore, Boyle's close connection to former Senator Jesse Helms from South Carolina, who was known to have constructed political roadblocks in integrating the Fourth Circuit, is troubling to critics.
"Promoting Judge Boyle's atrocious record by elevating him to the Fourth Circuit would deal a devastating blow to civil rights jurisprudence," LCCR Deputy Director Nancy Zirkin said. "It's no surprise that he was a protégé of former Senator Jesse Helms, who virtually stood in the courthouse door of the Fourth Circuit, doing everything in his power to block the desegregation of the last all-white circuit in the country."
As a district court judge, Boyle was reversed by the Fourth Circuit, known as an extremely conservative court, in more than 150 cases, including dozens of cases involving civil rights and criminal justice issues.
"Judge Boyle's judicial record of hostility to the rights of Americans is exceeded only by the breadth of his incompetence. He does not deserve a lifetime appointment to any court, much less one as important as the Fourth Circuit," Henderson said.
Boyle's critics also cite the diversity of the Fourth Circuit as a reason for their opposition. The Fourth Circuit, which includes parts of Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, has one of the nation's fastest growing Latino populations and has the most African-Americans of any other circuit court.
