Arianna J. Freeman facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Arianna Freeman
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| Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit | |
| Assumed office October 20, 2022 |
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| Appointed by | Joe Biden |
| Preceded by | Theodore McKee |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Arianna Julia Freeman
1978 (age 46–47) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Education | Swarthmore College (BA) Yale University (JD) |
Arianna Julia Freeman, born in 1978, is an American lawyer from Pennsylvania. She is a judge on an important court called the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. This court hears appeals, which means it reviews decisions made by lower courts.
Early Life and Education
Arianna Freeman was born in 1978 in Boston, a city in Massachusetts. She went to Swarthmore College and earned a degree called a Bachelor of Arts in 2001. This degree shows she completed her studies with high marks.
Later, in 2007, she earned her Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Yale Law School. A J.D. is the degree you need to become a lawyer. While at Yale, she was an editor for The Yale Journal of International Law, a special magazine that writes about laws between different countries.
Career as a Lawyer
After law school, Ms. Freeman worked as a law clerk. This means she helped judges with their research and writing. She worked for Judge James T. Giles from 2007 to 2008 and for Judge C. Darnell Jones II from 2008 to 2009. Both judges worked in a court in Eastern Pennsylvania.
From 2009 to 2022, Arianna Freeman worked at the Federal Community Defender Office. This office helps people who cannot afford a lawyer. She started as an assistant federal defender, focusing on research and writing. Later, she worked in a special unit that handled complex legal cases.
From 2016 to 2022, she was a managing attorney for the Federal Community Defender office in Philadelphia. This meant she helped lead the team of lawyers there. She was also part of a legal team that successfully appealed a major case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Becoming a Federal Judge
On January 19, 2022, President Joe Biden announced that he wanted to nominate Arianna Freeman to become a United States circuit judge. She was nominated for a position on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. This position became open when Judge Theodore McKee decided to take "senior status," which means he was still a judge but with a reduced workload.
Her nomination went through a process in the United States Senate. First, a hearing was held in March 2022 by the Senate Judiciary Committee. During this hearing, some senators questioned her past work as a public defender.
The committee's vote on her nomination was tied, so it did not move forward at first. However, the full United States Senate later voted to bring her nomination to a vote. After another vote to end debate, the Senate initially rejected her nomination in September 2022.
But then, the Senate reconsidered, and on September 29, 2022, her nomination was confirmed by a vote of 50 to 47. She officially became a judge on October 20, 2022. Arianna Freeman is the first African-American woman to serve on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
See also
