William Eugene Davis (born August 18, 1936), known as W. Eugene Davis, 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 Fifth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (in case citations, 5th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * Eastern District of Louisiana * M ...

. His chambers are in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

Education

Born in Winfield in Marion County in northwestern

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...

, Davis attended Samford University in Homewood, a suburb of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

, Alabama. After three years at Samford, he received a scholarship to

Tulane University Law School Tulane University Law School is the law school of Tulane University. It is located on Tulane's Uptown campus in New Orleans, Louisiana. Established in 1847, it is the 12th oldest law school in the United States. In addition to the usual common ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

. There he received his Juris Doctor in 1960 without having received an undergraduate degree (Samford awarded him 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 2006). While at Tulane, Davis was a member of the Board of Editors of the ''

Tulane Law Review The ''Tulane Law Review'', a publication of the Tulane University Law School, was founded in 1916, and is currently published five times annually. The Law Review has an international circulation and is one of few American law reviews carried by ...

'' and graduated

Order of the Coif The Order of the Coif is an honor society for United States law school graduates. The name is a reference to the ancient English order of advocates, the serjeants-at-law, whose courtroom attire included a coif—a white lawn or silk skullcap, whi ...

Career

Davis was in private practice in New Orleans from 1960 to 1964, and then joined a law firm in

New Iberia New Iberia (french: La Nouvelle-Ibérie; es, Nueva Iberia) is the largest city in and parish seat of Iberia Parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The city of New Iberia is located approximately southeast of Lafayette, and forms part of the Laf ...

, where his partners were Congressman Pat Caffery and U.S. Circuit Judge John Malcolm Duhé, Jr.

Federal judicial service

On August 5, 1976, Davis was nominated by President Gerald Ford, to a seat on the

United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana The United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana (in case citations, W.D. La.) is a United States federal court with jurisdiction over approximately two thirds of the state of Louisiana, with courts in Alexandria, Lafayett ...

vacated by Judge Richard Johnson Putnam. Davis was confirmed by the

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 ...

on September 17, 1976, and received his commission on September 21, 1976. His service terminated on December 9, 1983, due to elevation to the Fifth Circuit. President Ronald Reagan nominated Davis to the

on November 1, 1983, to a seat vacated by Judge Robert A. Ainsworth Jr., who died on December 22, 1981. Reagan at first considered Ben Toledano, a New Orleans lawyer and former Republican political candidate for the slot but withdrew the nomination after opposition surfaced from the NAACP. Davis was again confirmed by the United States Senate on November 15, 1983, and received his commission the following day. He 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 December 31, 2016. Judge Davis was appointed by Chief Justice

William Rehnquist William Hubbs Rehnquist ( ; October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney and jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years, first as an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and then as the 16th chief justice from ...

as a member of the Advisory Committee on the

Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are the procedural rules that govern how federal criminal prosecutions are conducted in United States district courts and the general trial courts of the U.S. government. They are the companion to the Federa ...

on October 1, 1995. Davis became Chairman of this Committee on October 1, 1997 and served as Chairman until October 2001 when his term of service ended. In 2014, Judge Davis received the prestigious American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Fifth Circuit at the American Inns of Court Celebration of Excellence held at the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Davis was inducted into the Tulane Law School Hall of Fame in March 2015. In 2017, the Louisiana Bar Foundation awarded Davis its Distinguished Jurist Award.

Notable case

Davis was one of three judges on a panel that heard the appeal to ''

Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC v. Salazar ''Hornbeck Offshore Services v. Salazar'' is an ongoing case in United States federal court. In the wake of the ''Deepwater Horizon'' explosion and the subsequent oil spill, the U.S. Department of the Interior issued a six-month moratorium o ...

'', a case challenging the

U.S. Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the man ...

six-month moratorium on exploratory drilling in deep water that was adopted in the wake of the

Deepwater Horizon explosion The ''Deepwater Horizon'' drilling rig explosion was an April 20, 2010 explosion and subsequent fire on the ''Deepwater Horizon'' semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit, which was owned and operated by Transocean and drilling for ...

and the subsequent oil spill. The Fifth Circuit panel denied the government's emergency request to stay the lower court's decision pending appeal.Pelofsky, Jeremy.; Doggett, Tom
Court refuses stay in deepwater drilling case.
''Reuters Canada.'' July 8, 2010.

References

External links

*
Gracella Simmons, "Ten questions with Judge W. Eugene Davis", Baton Rouge Bar Association, Oct. 1, 2006
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, W. Eugene 1936 births 20th-century American judges Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judges of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana Living people Louisiana Republicans People from Lafayette, Louisiana People from Marion County, Alabama People from New Iberia, Louisiana Samford University alumni Tulane University Law School alumni United States court of appeals judges appointed by Ronald Reagan United States district court judges appointed by Gerald Ford