Biden California Court Nominee With Hearing Disability Confirmed

Rita Lin, confirmed to a San Francisco trial court seat, soon will become one of the few federal judges open about living with a disability.

The California state judge, who has used hearing aids since childhood, was confirmed on Tuesday, 52-45, to the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

She replaces Edward Chen, an Obama appointee and the first Asian American man appointed to the Northern District. Lin, born in 1978, will be the first Chinese American woman on the court.

“Judge Lin’s unique background and diverse work experience have given her a perspective and framework that will benefit all those who appear before her,” California Asian Pacific American Bar Association President Asit Panwala wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Republicans scrutinized Lin over a 1998 article she wrote as a Harvard College student, at the time writing that the “Christian coalition” are “bigots.” Lin said during her confirmation hearing that she no longer holds that view.

Prosecutor to Judge

Lin spent a decade at Morrison & Foerster, where she focused on complex litigation and represented individuals and corporations in cases related to trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition, breach of contracts, and real estate.

In her pro bono practice she was co-lead counsel for a US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit staff attorney, who was denied spousal health coverage for her wife under the Defense of Marriage Act. The US Supreme Court later ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, and the Ninth Circuit dismissed the case.

As a prosecutor in the Northern District of California for four years, she worked in her office’s General Crimes Section, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, and the Special Prosecutions section focused on public corruption. She also founded their program for investigating doctors and other medical professionals who were illegally prescribing opioids.

Lin was appointed by former California Gov. Jerry Brown to the San-Francisco-based superior court in 2018. She presided over preliminary criminal hearings between 2019 and 2020, and was later assigned to preside over criminal trials in 2021. Juries came to verdicts in six of her 10 trials, according to her Senate Judiciary Questionnaire.

A Close Listener

Born in Oakland, she graduated both college and law school at Harvard University. She clerked for Judge Sandra Lynch, the first woman to serve on the First Circuit.

The daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, Lin’s parents immigrated to Washington in the 1960s before moving to the West Coast, she said during her confirmation hearing.

Lin lost her hearing due to a childhood illness, and is “completely deaf” in her right ear and “hearing impaired” in her left ear, she said during questioning from Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.). She has used hearing aids in both ears since she was 5.

Though her disability made her childhood difficult, it taught her “to listen to every word of necessity,” she said during her confirmation hearing.

“I think both of those mental habits—listening closely and recognizing the possibility that I might be missing critical information—those mental habits have served me well throughout my professional career as a civil litigator, as a federal prosecutor, and most of all now as a superior court judge,” Lin said.

Lin will become President Joe Biden’s second judicial appointee with a disclosed disability. Jamal Whitehead, who uses a prosthetic leg, was confirmed in February to the Western District of Washington.

A quarter of US adults have a disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Senate also on Tuesday confirmed Vernon Oliver, 53-44, to the District of Connecticut. He’s been a state court judge since 2009 and is a former assistant state attorney general.

Oliver will replace Clinton appointee Stefan Underhill, who took senior status in November of 2022.