Jeffrey Vincent Brown (born March 27, 1970) is a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

for the

United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas (in case citations, S.D. Tex.) is the federal district court with jurisdiction over the southeastern part of Texas. The court's headquarters is in Houston, Texas and has six ...

and a former associate justice of the

Texas Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) is the court of last resort for civil matters (including juvenile delinquency cases, which are categorized as civil under the Texas Family Code) in the U.S. state of Texas. A different court, the Texas Court of ...

. He was appointed to the U.S. district court by President Donald Trump.

Early life and education

Brown's father was a police officer. In 1988, Brown graduated from Bishop Lynch High School in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

, Texas. He earned his bachelor's degree in English from the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

and his

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice l ...

degree from the

University of Houston Law Center The University of Houston Law Center is the law school of the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1947, the Law Center is one of 12 colleges of the University of Houston, a state university. It is accredited by the American Bar A ...

, at which he served as one of the editors of the ''Houston Law Review''. He served as a

law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...

to Texas Supreme Court Justices

Jack Hightower Jack English Hightower (September 6, 1926 – August 3, 2013) was a former Democratic U.S. representative from Texas's 13th congressional district. Early life Born in Memphis, the seat of Hall County in West Texas, Hightower was a United Stat ...

and

Greg Abbott Gregory Wayne Abbott (born November 13, 1957) is an American politician, attorney, and former jurist serving as the 48th governor of Texas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 50th attorney general of Texas from 2002 ...

, the subsequent

governor of Texas The governor of Texas heads the state government of Texas. The governor is the leader of the executive and legislative branch of the state government and is the commander in chief of the Texas Military. The current governor is Greg Abbott, wh ...

. He became certified in civil trial law and practiced with the

Houston Houston (; ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in Texas, the Southern United States#Major cities, most populous city in the Southern United States, the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most pop ...

firm of

Baker Botts Baker Botts L.L.P. is an American law firm of around 725 lawyers. Headquartered in One Shell Plaza in Downtown Houston, Texas, the firm has energy and technology related clients. It is referred to as the second-oldest law firm west of the Miss ...

L.L.P.

Judicial career

From 2007 to 2013, he was a justice on Houston's 14th Court of Appeals. Prior to that, he was the judge of the 55th Texas State District Court. Brown ran unsuccessfully for the Place 3 position on the Texas Supreme Court in the 2010 Republican primary. He finished in fifth place with 188,238 votes (16.8 percent). Brown ran in a 2014

special election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

in order to keep his position on the Texas Supreme Court. In the Republican

primary election Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the ...

held on March 4, 2014, Brown defeated an intraparty challenge from Joe Richard Pool Jr., son of the late U.S. Representative

Joe R. Pool Joe Richard Pool (February 18, 1911 – July 14, 1968) was an American politician who served as a United States House of Representatives, U.S. Representative. from Texas Pool represented all of Texas from January 3, 1963, until January 3, 1967 (w ...

, who in the 1960s held Texas' 3rd congressional district seat. Brown received 820,582 votes (71.9 percent) to Pool's 320,558 (28.1 percent). In the November 4, 2014, general election, Brown defeated the Republican-turned- Democrat Lawrence E. Meyers. Brown polled 2,772,056 votes (60.3 percent) to Meyers's 1,677,341 (36.5 percent). Another 146,511 votes (3.2 percent) went to the Libertarian Party nominee, Mark Ash. Brown won election to a full term on the Texas Supreme Court in 2018. With 4,388,052 votes (53.7 percent), he defeated Democrat Kathy Cheng, who polled 3,777,468 (46.3 percent). His service on the Texas Supreme Court ended on September 4, 2019, when he was commissioned as a federal district judge.

Federal judicial service

On March 8, 2019, 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 ...

announced his intent to nominate Brown to serve as a United States district judge of the

. On March 11, 2019, President Trump nominated Brown to the seat vacated by Judge

Melinda Harmon Melinda Sue (Furche) Harmon (born November 1, 1946 in Port Arthur, Texas) is an inactive Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, best known as the lead judge in the subsequently ...

, 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 March 31, 2018. On April 10, 2019, a hearing on his nomination was held before the

Senate Judiciary Committee The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nomination ...

. On May 9, 2019, his nomination was reported out of committee by a 12–10 vote. On July 30, 2019, the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the e ...

voted 51–37 to invoke

cloture Cloture (, also ), closure or, informally, a guillotine, is a motion or process in parliamentary procedure aimed at bringing debate to a quick end. The cloture procedure originated in the French National Assembly, from which the name is taken. ...

on his nomination. On July 31, 2019, his nomination was confirmed by a 50–40 vote. He received his judicial commission on September 4, 2019. He was sworn into office on September 11, 2019. In January 2022, Brown enjoined enforcement of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal employees that President Biden's administration had implemented. Noting his belief that people should get vaccinated against COVID-19, Brown explained that the case turned on the question of "whether the President can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment." In April 2022, a three-judge panel 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 ...

vacated Judge Brown's ruling and instructed him to dismiss the case, but in June a majority of active Fifth Circuit judges voted to rehear the cause en banc, thereby vacating the April panel opinion.https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/22/22-40043-CV2.pdf

Personal life

Brown and his wife, Susannah, a former schoolteacher, have three children. They reside in

Galveston Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Gal ...

. In 2016, he was awarded the Outstanding Eagle Scout Award by the National Eagle Scout Association.

References

External links