Mississippi Litigation Review & Commentary : Mississippi Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Phillip W. Thomas Law Firm : MS Litigation Review & Commentary

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Over two years after his inauguration, President Obama nominated Felicia Adams to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi on Wednesday. The wire reports state:

President Barack Obama has nominated Assistant U.S. Attorney Felicia C. Adams as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi.

Adams has been an assistant U.S. attorney since 2000 in the state's Southern District. She held that position in the Northern District from 1989 to 2000.

She graduated from Jackson State University in 1981 and from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1984. Nominees for U.S. attorney must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Congratulations to Adams. I have not heard one negative comment about Adams since her name first appeared on my radar over a year ago as a candidate for the 5^th  Circuit Court of Appeals slot that went to Justice James Graves. She has been mentioned as a candidate for the U.S. Attorney position for a year.

Congratulations to the Obama administration for waking up and figuring out that Mississippi is a State with at least one U.S. Attorney position that the administration is supposed to fill.

No word on when the administration will nominate a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District. But if I was John Dowdy (interim S.D. U.S. Attorney), I would go ahead and hang the pictures on the wall.   

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In July I mentioned in a post that Jackson attorney Greg Davis is under consideration for appointment as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi. That is still the case.

I am hearing that DOJ is conducting a standard background investigation of Davis. The investigation includes calling lawyers around town and asking them what they think of Davis. Lawyers have been taking these phone calls in the last few weeks. This probably means that Davis in the current favorite to be named U.S. Attorney for the Southern District.

President Obama and the Justice Department have been asleep at the wheel on the Mississippi U.S. Attorney positions for the entire 2–year Obama administration. A review of the Main Justice Web Site's U.S. Attorney chart shows that the vast majority of positions around the county have been filled. The current rumblings surrounding Davis is no strong indication that Obama is waking up on this.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Felicia Adams is thought to still be the leading candidate in the Northern District, despite more recent rumors focusing on Senator Gray Tollison.

Frankly, Obama has taken so long to fill these positions that interest on the subject seems to have waned. Obama will be in a dog fight to keep his job two years from now, so any appointments at this late date may be short term. Filling judicial and U.S. Attorney positions is an area where the Obama administration has underachieved and disappointed its supporters.

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As reported yesterday on Ya'll Politics and other sites, it appears that Gray Tollison will be the next U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi. Tollison is a great choice. But why hasn't he emerged as a candidate sooner?

I have not called around looking for U.S. Attorney rumors in a while, so Tollison's name caught me by surprise. The last I heard was that Felicia Adams was likely to be the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District. Perhaps she is now in the mix for the Southern District post. I've also heard that Jackson attorney Greg Davis is a possibility for the nomination. But that was not a rumor with much conviction, so I am not making a prediction there.

No matter how you cut it, President Obama and the Justice Department have totally botched the two U.S. Attorney nominations in Mississippi. We are a year and a half into what may be a one term presidency and we are still waiting on both nominations. Alan Lange nailed it on this issue in April and I'm just going to quote from his take:

 Whether you are a D or R, this is a big deal. Given our lack of ability to police our own in Mississippi, we have historically disproportionately depended on US Attorneys to help deal with matters like public corruption. Steady hands with a quality backgrounds are needed to fill those seats. There is certainly no shortage of quality lawyers in Mississippi who could handle these jobs, and it's a bit of an affront to the legal community that this hasn't gotten done. With confirmation usually a few months down the road from nomination, it may legitimately be year end before Mississippi can get someone confirmed even if nominees were settled on pretty quickly. We are now running up to the point where good people may not consider taking an appointment for what would effectively be only a two year term (as one would not think that a second Obama term would be a guarantee). That's a big ask of someone to give up their entire law practice for just two years and assume all of the restrictions that a US Attorney takes on after stepping down.

That was in April. The further that we go without nominations, the more this applies.

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Main Justice has this story reporting that Southern District Assistant U.S. Attorney Felicia Adams is being considered for the U.S. Attorney in the Northern District. Adams was once thought to be a candidate for the open Fifth Circuit judgeship, but it’s now pretty clear that Justice James Graves will be appointed to the Fifth Circuit unless unexpected opposition emerges. Graves is deep into the vetting process with his name already having been passed on to the A.B.A.

It appears that Adams being in the running for the Fifth Circuit helped her with the U.S. Attorney post, since she was not previously known to be a candidate for the position. Adams is not well known in the Jackson legal community, but is well thought of by those who do know her.

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In this October post, I discussed the vacant 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals slot and mentioned Justice James Graves as a candidate to fill the position. Since then, President Obama’s administration has moved at its typical slow pace in filling the position. With the President’s White House Counsel leaving the administration at the end of the year, it appears unlikely that the announcement of a nominee is imminent.

It’s my understanding that Justice Graves remains on a growing list of candidates. Other names mentioned as candidates, in no particular order, include:

1. Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Winston Kidd,
2. Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Denise Owens,
3. former Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Robert Gibbs,
4. Jackson attorney Doug Minor,
5. Assistant U.S. Attorney Felicia Adams, and 
6. Circuit Court Judge Margaret Carey-McRae.

It sounds like Judge Winston Kidd is Congressman Bennie Thompson’s candidate. But each of the other candidates have their own supporters in political circles or the bar. I have not heard of Congressmen Gene Taylor or Travis Childers supporting a candidate. Taylor is known to stay out of appointment debates. Childers is rumored to have focused on pushing for Oxford attorney Christi McCoy to be named U.S. Attorney for the Northern District. But McCoy is unlikely to get the nod.

It is believed that some of the 5^th Circuit candidates have been interviewed over the phone by the White House.  

A huge question is when will the White House make an announcement. To see how long this could go on, look at the vacant U.S. District Court seat that has long been presumed to be going to Jackson attorney Carlton Reeves. The seat has been vacant for years and Reeves has been the only known candidate since Obama’s election more than a year ago. But the White House has yet to make an announcement and appears to be in no hurry to make an appointment.

If the White House follows a similar pace with the 5^th Circuit nominee, we will be still be talking about this vacancy this Summer, and perhaps later.