Allison H. Eid
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Assumed office
November 3, 2017
Appointed byDonald Trump
Preceded byNeil Gorsuch
Associate Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court
In office
March 13, 2006 – November 3, 2017
Appointed byBill Owens
Preceded byRebecca Love Kourlis
Succeeded byMelissa Hart
Solicitor General of Colorado
In office
2005–2006
Attorney GeneralJohn Suthers
Preceded byAlan Gilbert
Succeeded byDaniel D. Domenico
Personal details
Born
Allison Lynn Hartwell

January 1965 (age 58–59)
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
SpouseTroy Eid
EducationStanford University (BA)
University of Chicago (JD)

Allison Lynn Hartwell Eid (born January 1965) is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. She previously served as an associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.[1]

Early life and education

Born in Seattle and raised in Spokane, Washington[2] by a single mother,[3] Eid earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in American studies with distinction in 1987 from Stanford University, where she was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. After graduating, she served as a Special Assistant and Speechwriter to President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Education, William Bennett.[4] She left the Department of Education to attend the University of Chicago Law School, where she was an articles editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. She graduated in 1991 with a Juris Doctor with high honors and was elected to the Order of the Coif.[1][5]

Legal career

After graduating from law school, Eid served as a law clerk for Judge Jerry Edwin Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and then for justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.[4] After completing her clerkships, she went on to become a commercial and appellate litigator at the law firm of Arnold & Porter.[4] In 1998, she left Arnold & Porter to serve as an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School, where she taught courses on Constitutional law, torts, and federalism.[1][5]

Colorado Solicitor General and Supreme Court of Colorado service

In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed Eid to serve on the Permanent Committee for the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise, which writes the history of the U.S. Supreme Court and sponsors the Oliver Wendell Holmes Lecture.[1][5][6] In 2005, Republican Attorney General John Suthers appointed Eid to serve as Solicitor General of Colorado.[7] A year later, Colorado Governor Bill Owens appointed Eid to serve as the 95th justice of the Colorado Supreme Court on February 15, 2006.[1] She took office on March 13, 2006. In 2008, 75% of Colorado voters voted to retain Eid on the Supreme Court.[8][9]

In May 2017, Eid found that imposing an eighty-four year sentence on a fifteen-year-old murderer did not violate the Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition on sentencing juveniles to life without parole because the punishment was styled as an aggregate term-of-years sentence.[10][11] In May 2016, she was included on President Donald Trump's list of potential Supreme Court justices.[12]

Federal judicial service

On June 7, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Eid to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, to the seat vacated by Judge Neil Gorsuch, who was elevated to the United States Supreme Court.[13][14][15] On September 20, 2017, a hearing on her nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.[16] On October 26, 2017, her nomination was reported out of committee by an 11–9 vote.[17] On November 1, 2017, the United States Senate invoked cloture on her nomination by a 56–42 vote.[18] On November 2, 2017, her nomination was confirmed by a 56–41 vote.[19] She received her judicial commission the next day.[20] She sworn in on November 4, 2017.[21]

Personal life

Eid met her husband, Troy Eid, when he was standing in line at a Stanford University dorm cafeteria while she was working as a student food service worker and he was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Stanford Daily; she later said: "It was love at first sight in the meal card line."[22] In 2006, a few months after Allison Eid was appointed to the Colorado Supreme Court, President George W. Bush appointed Troy Eid as the 41st United States Attorney for the District of Colorado and the first Egyptian-American U.S. Attorney in the country's history.[1][23][24] The Eids reside in Morrison, Colorado, with their son Alex and daughter Emily.[25]

Electoral history

2008
Colorado Supreme Court – Retain Allison H. Eid, November 4, 2008[26]
Party Candidate Votes %
Nonpartisan Yes 1,338,571 74.58%
Nonpartisan No 456,337 25.42%
Majority 882,234 49.16%
Total votes 1,794,908 100.00%

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Allison H. Eid". Colorado Supreme Court. Retrieved April 6, 2011.
  2. ^ Kyle Henley (February 16, 2006). "Conservative picked for bench". Colorado Springs Gazette.
  3. ^ "Gorsuch-like Nominee Eid 'Inspiration' as Working Mother". www.bna.com.
  4. ^ a b c "Nominee Report" (PDF). Alliance for Justice. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 12, 2018. Retrieved July 9, 2018.
  5. ^ a b c "Allison Hartwell Eid – Adjunct Faculty". University of Colorado Law School. Retrieved April 6, 2011.
  6. ^ "President Bush Appoints CU-Boulder Law Professor To Oliver Wendell Holmes Committee". University of Colorado Law School. May 23, 2002. Archived from the original on November 18, 2011.
  7. ^ "Allison Eid is new Colorado Solicitor General". University of Colorado Law School. July 30, 2005.
  8. ^ "Colorado Supreme Court 2008 Election Results". Denver Post. Archived from the original on August 14, 2011. Retrieved April 6, 2011.
  9. ^ "Official Publication of the Abstract of Votes Cast" (PDF). Colorado Secretary of State. p. 119. Retrieved April 6, 2011.[permanent dead link]
  10. ^ Note, Recent Case: Colorado Supreme Court Holds that Aggregate Term-of-Years Sentences Can Never Implicate Eighth Amendment Restrictions on Juvenile Life Without Parole, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 1187 (2018).
  11. ^ Lucero v. People, 394 P.3d 1128 (Colo. 2017).
  12. ^ COLVIN, JILL. "TRUMP UNVEILS LIST OF HIS TOP SUPREME COURT PICKS". Associated Press. Archived from the original on May 19, 2016. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
  13. ^ "President Donald J. Trump Announces Judicial Candidate Nominations". whitehouse.gov – via National Archives.
  14. ^ "Twelve Nominations Sent to the Senate Today". whitehouse.gov – via National Archives.
  15. ^ "Presidential Nomination 585, 115th United States Congress". United States Congress. June 7, 2017. Retrieved June 30, 2018.
  16. ^ "Nominations – United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary". www.judiciary.senate.gov. September 20, 2017.
  17. ^ "Results of Executive Business Meeting – October 26, 2017, Senate Judiciary Committee" (PDF).
  18. ^ "On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture Re: Allison H. Eid, of Colorado, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Tenth Circuit)". United States Senate. November 1, 2017.
  19. ^ "On the Nomination (Confirmation Allison H. Eid, of Colorado, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Tenth Circuit)". United States Senate. November 2, 2017.
  20. ^ Allison H. Eid at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
  21. ^ "Appointment of Honorable Allison Eid to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals". United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. November 4, 2017. Retrieved May 27, 2023.
  22. ^ Sara Burnett (September 28, 2006). "U.S. attorney craves tasks". Rocky Mountain News. p. 20A.
  23. ^ "Bush nominates Troy Eid as U.S. attorney for Colorado". Casper Star Tribune. Associated Press. June 10, 2006.
  24. ^ "Faculty Profile – Troy A. Eid". University of Denver Sturm College of Law. Retrieved April 6, 2011.
  25. ^ "Justice Allison H. Eid (CO)". Project Vote Smart. Retrieved April 6, 2011.[permanent dead link]
  26. ^ "Official Publication of the Abstract of Votes Cast for the 2008 Primary, 2008 General" (PDF). Office of the Secretary of State of Colorado. June 29, 2009. Retrieved May 10, 2018.

External links

Legal offices Preceded byAlan J. Gilbert Solicitor General of Colorado 2005–2006 Succeeded byDaniel D. Domenico Preceded byRebecca Kourlis Associate Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court 2006–2017 Succeeded byMelissa Hart Preceded byNeil Gorsuch Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit 2017–present Incumbent
Solicitors General of Colorado
Judges of the United States courts of appeals
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