Biden nominates state Supreme Court Justice Maria A. Kahn to a 3rd CT seat on U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

President Biden on Friday nominated state Supreme Court Justice Maria A. Kahn to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

If approved by the U.S. Senate, Kahn — a former federal prosecutor — will be the third Connecticut judge on the federal appeals court in New York, which has influence over contracts, securities, anti-trust matters and other questions of commercial law. The court, a few blocks above Wall Street, takes federal appeals from New York, Connecticut and Vermont.

It was assumed for decades that Connecticut had two seats on the court. But in a surprise announcement earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said his research convinced him that Connecticut actually is entitled to three seats, and he persuaded his good friend and fellow Democrat, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York to give one of the jealously guarded patronage appointments. By tradition, a state’s U.S. Senators recommend federal judicial appointments to the White House.

“For Connecticut not to have a third seat would be absolutely unprecedented,” Blumenthal said at the time. “We have reconstructed the history here. I regard it as a major achievement to sort of have dug into the intricacies of the 2nd Circuit judicial selection system. This seat has a history that would boggle your mind.

“We discussed it with Sen. Schumer, and we had very gracious and amicable conversations and we sorted it out.”

On Friday, Blumenthal, who recommended Kahn to the White House, called her “one of the most impressive and inspiring jurists to be nominated to this supremely important appellate court.”

“She has seen American justice system through the eyes of an immigrant with keen appreciation for fairness and the rule of law found uniquely in America,” he said. “ And she has served our own state bench as a steadfast advocate for justice and accountability.”

Kahn will fill, if confirmed, a seat with unusual lineage now held by Judge Jose A. Cabranes, who has decided to assume semi-retired status as a senior judge.

Cabranes was born in Puerto Rico; raised and educated in New York; attended college and graduate school in New York, New Haven and London; and was employed, among other places, in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., before moving to New Haven, where he was general counsel to Yale University. In 1979, on the recommendation of former U.S. Sen. Abraham Ribicoff, a Connecticut Democrat, Cabranes was appointed a U.S. District Court judge in Connecticut, the first Puerto Rican appointed to a federal district court in the country.

He was elevated to the court of appeals in 1994 — on the recommendation of then U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat. Moynihan joked at the time that he was repatriating Cabranes to New York. But Carbranes is listed on court records as a Connecticut judge — the eighth judge to be appointed to a seat that, since it was created in 1887, had been filled exclusively by New Yorkers. Cabranes lives in Connecticut.

If confirmed, Kahn would join Connecticut judges William Nardini and Sarah Merriam on the appeals court.

Kahn was appointed to the state Supreme Court by former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in 2017. She was appointed to the state Appellate earlier that year and to the Superior Court in 2006. Before becoming a judge, she was an assistant U.S. Attorney in New Haven, where she was involved in criminal and civil litigation.

She was born in Angola, Africa, to parents of Portuguese origin and emigrated to the U.S. at age 10. She obtained an undergraduate degree from New York University in 1986 and a law degree from Fordham University School of Law in 1989.