Stephen P. Friot (born August 14, 1947) 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 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. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state. There is at least one feder ...
of the
.
Education and career
Born in
Troy
Troy (/; ; ) or Ilion (; ) was an ancient city located in present-day Hisarlik, Turkey. It is best known as the setting for the Greek mythology, Greek myth of the Trojan War. The archaeological site is open to the public as a tourist destina ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
, Friot received a
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...
degree from the
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma, United States. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two territories became the ...
in 1969 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 the
University of Oklahoma College of Law
The University of Oklahoma College of Law is the law school of the University of Oklahoma. It is located on the University's campus in Norman, Oklahoma. The College of Law was founded in 1909 by a resolution of the OU Board of Regents.
Accordi ...
in 1972. He was in private practice in
Oklahoma
Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...
from 1972 to 2001.
District court service
On September 4, 2001, Friot was nominated by President
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 ...
to a seat on the
vacated by
Wayne Alley. Friot was confirmed by 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 ...
on November 6, 2001, and received his commission on November 12, 2001. He assumed
senior status on December 1, 2014.
In June 2017, Friot controversially suggested he would give a reduced sentence to a 34-year-old counterfeiting defendant if she got medically sterilized. He suggested it because she had seven children and had lost parental rights to six of them. In February 2018, he sentenced the woman to a year in federal prison, and he defended his sterilization suggestion by arguing the U.S. Supreme Court "has yet to recognize a constitutional right to bring crack- or methamphetamine-addicted babies into this world."
Russian Activities
Judge Friot has traveled and lectured extensively in the Russian Federation. Those activities include service as the U.S. judicial delegate to the Tenth International Forum on Constitutional Review, in Moscow in 2007; as a U.S. judicial delegate to the U.S.-Russia Judicial Partnership Forum in St. Petersburg (co-sponsored by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation) in 2011 and as a U.S. judicial delegate to the Second U.S. Russian Judicial Peer-to-Peer Dialog in Washington, D.C. in 2011.
In 2022, Judge Friot was named an Associate of the Romanoff Center for Russian Studies at the University of Oklahoma. https://www.ou.edu/cas/romanoff
Judge Friot is the author of three articles published in the Comparative Constitutional Review (Moscow): "Judicial Independence: A Time for Patience, Persistence and Public Awareness" (64 CCR 4, 2008); "Boumediene v. Bush: The Latest Chapter in the U.S. Supreme Court's Jurisprudence at the Intersection of the War on Terror and the Constitutional Doctrine of Separation of Powers" (66 CCR 147, 2008), and "Citation of Foreign Sources of Law by the United States Supreme Court in Cases Addressing Business and Economic Issues: An Analysis of Long-Standing Practice and Contemporary Controversy" (81 CCR 23, 2011).
Judge Friot has lectured as an invited guest lecturer at the faculties of law at the Kutafin Moscow State Law University (2019), the Lobachevsky State University in Nizhny Novgorod (2011, 2012, 2014, 2017), the
Moscow State Institute of International Relations
Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) (, also known as MGIMO University) is an higher education, institute of higher education located in Moscow, Russia. The institute is run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Russia), Russian ...
(MGIMO) (2019), Moscow State University (2015 and 2019), the Pericles Law Center, Moscow (2019), the Russian State University of Justice (2019), Saratov State Law Academy (2015 - 2019), and Ulyanovsk State University (2008). He was a plenary speaker at the Conference of Judges of the Regional Court of Arbitration at the Academy of Justice, Nizhny Novgorod in 2012, at the Research to Practice Conference, Lobachevsky State University Faculty of Law, Nizhny Novgorod in 2014, and at the Second Moscow Legal Forum, Kutafin Moscow State Law University, in 2015.
Published Work
Judge Friot is the author of Containing History: How Cold War History Explains U.S.-Russia Relations, published by the University of Oklahoma Press in June, 2023. https://www.oupress.com/9780806191904/containing-history/
Honors and awards
Judge Friot was the recipient of the 2008 Global Vision Award, presented by the Oklahoma City affiliate of Sister Cities International; the Judge of the Year Award, presented by the American Board of Trial Advocates, 2004; the Oklahoma Bar Association Award of Judicial Excellence, 2012; the Journal Record Leadership in Law Award, 2016 and the Oklahoma County Bar Association Professional Service Award, 2018.
References
Sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Friot, Stephen P.
1947 births
Judges of the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma
Living people
United States district court judges appointed by George W. Bush