Barrington Daniels Parker Jr. (born August 21, 1944) is a senior

United States circuit judge In the United States, federal judges are judges who serve on courts established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. They include the chief justice and the associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit judges of the U.S. ...

of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate ju ...

Background

Parker's father, Barrington Daniels Parker Sr., was a judge on the

United States District Court for the District of Columbia The United States District Court for the District of Columbia (in case citations, D.D.C.) is a federal district court in the District of Columbia. It also occasionally handles (jointly with the United States District Court for the District ...

, from 1969 to 1993. Parker studied at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, where he received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

degree in 1965. He received a Juris Doctor from

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...

in 1969. He serves on the

Yale Corporation The Yale Corporation, officially The President and Fellows of Yale College, is the governing body of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Assembly of corporation The Corporation comprises 19 members: * Three ex officio An ''ex officio'' m ...

, the university's board of trustees. He also was a member of St. Elmo, a secret society at Yale.

Career

He served as law clerk for Judge

Aubrey E. Robinson Jr. Aubrey Eugene Robinson Jr. (March 30, 1922 – February 27, 2000) was a United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Education and career Born in Madison, New Jersey, ...

on the

from 1969 to 1970. Parker had been in private practice as an attorney in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

for 24 years, from 1970 to 1994. He was also a partner at Parker Auspitz Neesemann & Delehanty and Morrison & Foerster and an associate at Sullivan and Cromwell.

Federal judicial service

On April 26, 1994, President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

nominated Parker to serve as a United States district judge the

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New ...

, to a seat vacated by Judge Leonard B. Sand, who assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...

on July 1, 1993. He was confirmed on September 14, 1994 by

voice vote In parliamentary procedure, a voice vote (from the Latin ''viva voce'', meaning "live voice") or acclamation is a voting method in deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a group vote is taken on a topic or motion by responding vo ...

. He received his commission on September 15, 1994. His service as a district judge was terminated on October 18, 2001 when he was elevated to the court of appeals. Parker was initially nominated to that court by President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

on May 9, 2001, to fill a seat vacated by Judge Ralph K. Winter, who assumed senior status on September 30, 2000. However, the Democratic-controlled

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

returned Parker's nomination just a few months later without considering it. Bush renominated him, along with many other previously returned nominees, on September 4, 2001. This time, the Senate confirmed Parker's nomination a little over a month later, on October 11, 2001, by a 100–0 vote. He received his commission on October 16, 2001. He assumed

on October 10, 2009. The fact that Parker had earlier been appointed to the

by President

in 1994 may explain the speed with which the Senate confirmed Parker's promotion to the Second Circuit. It was somewhat unusual for Parker to be appointed to the federal bench by one President and then later promoted by a President from the opposing political party, although several other Second Circuit judges have had a similar trajectory, including Jon O. Newman, Fred I. Parker, and

Sonia Sotomayor Sonia Maria Sotomayor (, ; born June 25, 1954) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and has served since ...

. On July 9, 2019, Parker was part of a three-judge panel which ruled that President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

cannot block people from his

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account for being critical of him. Writing for the panel, Parker said that the president uses his Twitter account to make official announcements and actions, so that responses to it are protected by the

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

. The decision affirmed an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge

Naomi Reice Buchwald Naomi Lynn Reice Buchwald (born February 14, 1944) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Personal Naomi Reice was born in 1944 in Kingston, New York, to Mr. and Mrs. ...

Personal life

Parker is the son of Barrington D. Parker.

References

External links