The Virgin Islands Bar Association is calling on President Joe Biden to nominate a Virgin Islander to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals — a position that has not been held by a jurist from the territory since Judge William Hastie retired in 1971.
In a letter to Biden dated Aug. 30, the association’s board of governors said appointing a judge from the USVI to the appellate court that also serves Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania would help to ameliorate the inequities posed by the territory’s lack of representation in Congress.
“These other States have the lobbying power of two U.S. Senators, while the United States Virgin Islands is voiceless with a non-voting Delegate only in the House. Your predecessor, President Harry S. Truman, used his own forward-looking moral imperative to nominate William Hastie as a Virgin Islands jurist so that Virgin Islanders would have a voice and representation on the Third Circuit,” the letter states.
“Additionally, Hastie was the first African-American to serve on a federal appellate court. You now have the same opportunity and imperative to fill the vacancy and confer a judicial seat to the United States Virgin Islands,” given the upcoming retirement of Judge Kent Jordan in January, it says.
Hastie, a Harvard Law School graduate, was a trailblazing civil rights jurist who was appointed Virgin Islands governor in 1946 and helped to craft the Organic Act of 1936. Truman nominated him to the appellate bench where he served from 1950 to 1971, including a period as chief judge.
Most recently, the court ruled on a Virgin Islands inmate’s habeas corpus petition that has languished for 10 years, remanding the case back to V.I. District Court with a sharp rebuke over the tardiness of the territory’s judicial system.
The V.I. Bar Association is not alone in its call for action.
The American Bar Association unanimously approved a resolution in 2014 noting the historical problems with lack of representation on the Circuit Court of Appeals for the nation’s territories, notes the letter, penned by the association’s President-Elect Russel B. Pate Jr. and approved by a unanimous vote of its board of governors. The V.I. Bar Association has unanimously voted to continue, for the 10th year, to support the resolution, he added.
And last year, Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett renewed the call for Biden to nominate a Virgin Islander to the appellate bench.
“The lack of diversity among judges adversely affects the quality of appellate decisions,” Plaskett wrote in a letter to the president in March 2023. “Federal courts of appeal must often interpret territorial law on a regular basis, the lack of first-hand knowledge of territorial criminal and civil law and practices of the territory leaves the appellate court at a disadvantage. This knowledge deficit can prove harmful to those whose cases originally arise within the V.I. As such, the absence of Virgin Islands representation creates the potential of Virgin Islanders receiving unequal justice,” she said.
The lack of representation “is the exact problem that the Thirteen Colonies had with Great Britian, no representation in Parliament and no ability to select their own judges. This is antithetical to the ideals and principles of American Democracy that every citizen is a stake-holder in democracy and should have a voice and representation in every branch of government,” the Bar Association’s letter states.
It goes on to note that not only would any of the territory’s federal District Court judges be an excellent choice for nomination, but there are also more than 17 local judges and justices with exemplary records of service in the Virgin Islands that are qualified, too. Beyond that, the V.I. Bar Association comprises hundreds of members who would meet the high ethical and practical legal standards for service on the bench, it says.
“The Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ website lists the biographies of its 24 judges. The Virgin Islands is just asking for one slice, in fairness, of that 24-person pie,” Pate said when contacted for comment on Wednesday.
It is an issue that is long past due to be addressed, he notes in the letter to Biden.
“The U.S. Virgin Islands has now been a part of the United States for 107 years, since 1917. And since the retirement of Judge Hastie, the United States Virgin Islands has been waiting patiently for 53 years for one of its own to have a say in dispensing justice in the Third Circuit. As good neighbors and colleagues, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, should welcome the inclusion of a Virgin Islands jurist to their collective wisdom,” the letter concludes.
