Richard Randall Clifton (born November 13, 1950) is a

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

United States circuit judge In the United States, a federal judge is a judge who serves on a court established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. Often called "Article III judges", federal judges include the chief justice and associate justices of the U.S. Su ...

of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts for the following federal judicial districts: * Distric ...

Education and legal training

Clifton received an Artium Baccalaureus degree at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

and a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

from

Yale Law School Yale Law School (YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824. The 2020–21 acceptance rate was 4%, the lowest of any law school in the United ...

. After law school, he clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge

Herbert Choy Herbert Young Cho Choy (January 6, 1916 – March 10, 2004) was the first Asian American to serve as a United States federal judge and the first person of Korean ancestry to be admitted to the bar in the United States. He served as a United Stat ...

Career

Following his clerkship, he was in private practice in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

until his appointment to the federal bench. He also taught for several years at the

William S. Richardson School of Law The William S. Richardson School of Law is the professional graduate law school of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Located in Honolulu, Hawaii, the school is named after its patriarch, former Hawaii State Supreme Court Chief Justice Will ...

at the

University of Hawaii A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

as an adjunct professor.

Federal judicial service

He was nominated to the

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...

on September 4, 2001 to fill a seat vacated by

Cynthia Holcomb Hall Cynthia Holcomb Hall (February 19, 1929 – February 26, 2011) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central Di ...

. The

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

confirmed him on July 30, 2002 by a 98–0 vote. He was Bush's first appointment to the Ninth Circuit. He received his commission on July 30, 2002. He assumed senior status on December 31, 2016.

Notable cases

In 2006, he was one of the judges on the panel that upheld the imprisonment of journalist Josh Wolf. On February 7, 2017, Clifton along with fellow Ninth Circuit judges

William Canby William Cameron Canby Jr. (born May 22, 1931) is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting in Phoenix, Arizona. As both a professor at Arizona State University College of Law and ...

and Michelle Friedland heard oral arguments on a motion from the

Trump administration Presidency of Donald Trump may refer to: * First presidency of Donald Trump, the United States presidential administration from 2017 to 2021 * Second presidency of Donald Trump, the United States presidential administration since 2025 See also * ...

to stay the temporary restraining order in

State of Washington v. Trump ''State of Washington and State of Minnesota v. Trump'', 847 F.3d 1151 (9th Cir. 2017), was a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of Executive Order 13769, issued by U.S. president Donald Trump. A few days after the executive order w ...

, part of the ongoing court cases related to

Executive Order 13769 Executive Order 13769, titled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, labeled the "Muslim ban" by Donald Trump and his supporters and critics alike, and commonly known as such, or commonly referred to as the ...

. A live audio feed of the telephonic argument was broadcast nationwide. On February 9, the three judges denied the request for a stay of the temporary restraining order. In July 2018, Clifton dissented when the court found that Hawaii's licensing requirement to openly carry firearms violated the

Second Amendment to the United States Constitution The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the Right to keep and bear arms in the United States, right to keep and bear arms. It was ratified on December 15, 1791, along with nine other articles of the Un ...

. On July 3, 2019, in a follow-up ruling to the February 2017 ruling, Clifton and Michelle T. Friedland upheld a district court's halting of parts of Donald Trump's wall. N. Randy Smith issued a dissent, and on July 26, the Supreme Court overturned Friedland and Clifton by a 5-3 vote on ideological lines with

Stephen Breyer Stephen Gerald Breyer ( ; born August 15, 1938) is an American lawyer and retired jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and r ...

saying he would temporarily block the construction of the wall but allow funding to be set aside for it. On November 29, 2019, Clifton temporarily halted the execution of Barry Lee Jones, who was convicted of one count of sexual assault, 3 counts of child abuse, and a felony murder.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Clifton, Richard Randall 1950 births Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Living people People from Framingham, Massachusetts United States court of appeals judges appointed by George W. Bush New Trier High School alumni William S. Richardson School of Law faculty 20th-century American lawyers Yale Law School alumni Princeton University alumni