Leroy Millette
Leroy F. Millette, Jr. was a justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia. He was appointed to the court by former Governor Tim Kaine in 2008. Millette was confirmed by the Virginia General Assembly on February 11, 2009, to a full 12-year term.[1] Millette retired from the court on July 31, 2015.[2][3]
Education
Millette received his undergraduate degree in economics in 1971 from the College of William and Mary and his J.D. in 1974 from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at William and Mary.[4]
Career
After graduating from law school, Millette entered private practice. His first position on the bench was as a substitute judge for the juvenile and general district courts. In 1990, he joined the General District Court. Three years later, Millette was elevated to the Circuit Court of Prince William County. While serving in the circuit court, he presided over the capital murder trial of John Allen Muhammed, the Beltway Sniper, confirming the jury's sentence of death, and was also involved in aspects of the Lorena Bobbitt trial in 1993. In 2008, Millette joined the Virginia Court of Appeals. He was elected to the Virginia Supreme Court in 2009.[4]
Awards and associations
- 1986: Named one of a dozen up-and-coming young lawyers in Washington, D.C., Washingtonian Magazine[4]
Political ideology
In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.
Millette received a campaign finance score of -0.95, indicating a liberal ideological leaning. This was more liberal than the average score of 0.11 that justices received in Virginia.
The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.[5]
See also
External links
- Virginia's Judicial System, "Website of the Supreme Court of Virginia
- Project Vote Smart.org, "Leroy Millette, Jr.'s Biography"
- InsideNoVA.com, "Former Prince William judge sworn to Va. Supreme Court," September 5, 2008
Footnotes
- ↑ Virginia's Judicial System, "Justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia," accessed April 29, 2015
- ↑ PilotOnline.com, "Va. judge who heard Muhammad sniper case to retire," April 28, 2015
- ↑ Supreme Court of Virginia, "Press Release: The Honorable LeRoy F. Millette, Jr., Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia, Announces Retirement," April 28, 2015
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 William and Mary Alumni Magazine, "Impeccably Fair and Dedicated: The Honorable Leroy F. Millette '71, J.D. '74," Spring/Summer 2004
- ↑ Stanford University, "State Supreme Court Ideology and 'New Style' Judicial Campaigns," October 31, 2012
