Norfolk federal prosecutor, Richmond magistrate judge vie for U.S. district court vacancy — as another vacancy opens up

A Norfolk-based federal prosecutor is one of two women recommended by Virginia’s two U.S. senators to fill an open judgeship on the federal bench in Richmond.

The other candidate is a federal magistrate judge in Richmond with ties to a Newport News law firm that specializes in consumer class action lawsuits.

The vacancy was created when U.S. District Judge John Gibney took senior status effective Nov. 1.

Meanwhile, another vacancy on the Norfolk federal judiciary was created when U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson moved to “senior status” — or semi-retirement — this week after nearly three decades on the bench.

Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark R. Warner will soon make recommendations to fill that job as well — with President Joe Biden expected to soon nominate candidates for both slots.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa O’Boyle, a Norfolk federal prosecutor since 2007, landed one of the senators’ two recommendations to fill the Richmond judgeship.

The chief of the criminal prosecutions for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Norfolk, O’Boyle specializes in public corruption and financial fraud cases. She’s handled some of the division’s highest profile criminal prosecutions in recent years.

That includes the case against former Norfolk Sheriff Bob McCabe for several weeks this summer; the 2016 corruption case against Norfolk Vice Mayor Anthony Burfoot; the 2013 fraud case against former Bank of the Commonwealth President Edward Woodward; and the 2010 corruption case against former Norfolk Police Detective Robert Ford.

She also prosecuted the 2009 Ponzi scheme case against Troy Titus and the 2019 corruption case against Peninsula community activist Shaun Brown, and many others.

“This experience gives us confidence that Ms. O’Boyle would make an excellent nominee for this seat,” Kaine and Warner wrote in a joint letter to Biden on Nov. 6.

The senators also recommended U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth W. Hanes, who sits in Richmond and was appointed to that job in 2020.

Before she became a lawyer, Hanes worked in corporate finance before leaving that job to launch a non-profit organization in West Virginia that helped abused children and crime victims.

Hanes was an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Richmond between 2009 and 2016, then worked for four years as a Richmond-based managing attorney for Consumer Litigation Associates, a law firm on J. Clyde Morris Boulevard in Newport News.

In 2020, the federal district judges appointed Hanes as a magistrate judge in Richmond.

“Together, these experiences qualify Judge Hanes for this nomination, and we are honored to recommend her,” Kaine and Warner wrote in the letter to Biden.

After a candidate is nominated by the president, they must go through a Senate confirmation process — to include appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. They are then voted on by both that panel and the full Senate.

“We believe either of these individuals would win confirmation from the Senate and serve capably on the bench,” Kaine and Warner wrote to Biden. “We are honored to recommend them to you ... Both would serve with great distinction and have our highest recommendation.”

There’s an entirely separate application process now underway to fill Jackson’s seat.

Jackson, who is stepping down after 28 years on the federal bench, is a former federal prosecutor who was appointed to the district court judgeship in 1993 by former President Bill Clinton.

A spokeswoman for Kaine, Ilse Zuniga, said the senators began taking applications to fill Jackson’s job on Oct. 6, a process that’s still underway. “We, along with Senator Warner’s team, are currently considering candidates to make recommendations to the White House,” she wrote in an email Tuesday.

Though a president isn’t obligated to pick one of the senators’ recommended selections, most presidents do just that, particularly when the president and senators are from the same political party, as they are now.

“I’ve been in tracking it,” said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. “In every vacancy in Virginia so far, the (Biden) White House has nominated from the people who came in recommended by the senators.”

“Kaine and Warner have a lot of debts this White House owes to them,” Tobias added. “So I don’t think it’s worth it for (the White House) to cross the recommendations from those two senators.”

As for the two candidates, Tobias said he taught Hanes as a law student at the University of Richmond. “She was a very strong student,” Tobias said. “She was one of the best students we’ve had.”

He cited her range of experience as a public defender, plaintiff’s lawyer handling class action lawsuits, and appointment as a magistrate judge.

“I think she presents a strong profile, and would be very appealing to the White House on those kinds of criteria,” Tobias said. “She is well respected by the judges here, which is why they appointed her as a magistrate judge.”

“But (O’Boyle) has that experience in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which I think is important, too,” Tobias said. “She strikes me as somebody who knows her way around federal court, at least on the criminal side.”

James Broccoletti, a Norfolk-based criminal defense attorney, said he has “great respect for her as both a trial lawyer and as a fair person.”

He said that though she hails from the prosecutor’s side, “I don’t think she’d come in with a pro-prosecution type of attitude” as a judge.

“She’s always struck me as being someone that’s open minded, and has an ear to listen and understands both sides of the fence, which is unusual,” Broccoletti said. “I think she’d be open to all sides, and would consider all arguments.”

Peter Dujardin, 757-247-4749, pdujardin@dailypress.com