Judge Merrick Garland (U.S. Government photo)
Our Merrick Garland biography is now live.
Merrick Garland is the U.S. Court of Appeals judge nominated to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama on March 16, 2016.
- Here are few quick biographical facts about Merrick Bryan Garland.
- He was born in Chicago, grew up in Illinois and attended Harvard — where he earned a B.A. in social studies (summa cum laude) in 1974 and then a law degree (magna cum laude) in 1977.
- He clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan.
- He became a federal prosecutor in 1989, and eventually supervised the prosecutions of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombings of 1995, and also of Ted Kaczynski, the notorious ‘Unabomber.’
- He was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1997 by President Bill Clinton, and has been there ever since. He was named that court’s Chief Judge in 2013.
Merrick Garland is 63 years old, which is rather old for a Supreme Court nominee in this age of political maneuvering. (Other potential candidates were in the 50s or, like Judge Sri Srinivasan, in their 40s.) The next step is confirmation hearings by the U.S. Senate.
For more details, see our full biography of Merrick Garland»