Renowned Hispanic Judges

Throughout history of the U.S. judiciary, 161 Hispanic have served as lifetime judges out of more than 3,900 total appointments, a mere 4 percent of lifetime judges ever.  Until 1945, all Article III judges were white males. According to the American Bar Association, 7.3 percent of federal judges were Hispanic in 2023. 

The large majority of white-male Article III judges has spawned concerns among minority communities that the justice system has been biased against them.  This perceived underrepresentation is unfortunate for several reasons.  Importantly, Hispanic confidence in the U.S. criminal justice system has been declining at a time when members of their community are interacting more than ever with police.  Also, there is a growing body of evidence showing that people of color receive stricter treatment than white people when their cases are tried before white judges.  In response to these concerns, cooperative federal-state programs have been created to examine how biases affect the judiciary and raise awareness of prejudice, stigma, and discrimination.

Increasing representation of Hispanics in the federal judiciary system has taken decades. The fact that Article III judges enjoy lifetime appointments (“hold their office during good behavior”) reduces the availability of open positions and has meant that the composition of the federal bench has changed gradually. The partisan status of the President, who must nominate Article III candidates, and that of the Senate, that must confirm the nominees, affect the process for redressing years of overlooking qualified Hispanic attorneys for seats in the judiciary. For example, President Biden’s campaign promise to nominate judges “who look like America” sparked some hope for a more diverse judiciary. In its first year the Biden administration made significant progress, having already nominated more Hispanics to the federal bench (15) than his predecessor appointed in four years, and already 40 percent of the total number of Hispanic judges that President Obama appointed in eight years (37). From Jan. 1, 2021, to Oct. 1, 2023, the Senate confirmed 140 new federal judges, only 14 of whom (10 percent of new federal judges) were white men.

President Biden also is attempting to place Hispanics on appeals courts. His nominee for the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Brad Garcia, already won confirmation (see below). Additionally, Biden’s nomination of Irma Carrillo Ramirez to serve on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals received bipartisan Senate support in December of 2023, making her the first Latina judge on that court. Ana Isabel de Alba, Biden’s nominee to serve on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, also won Senate approval in November of 2023. Despite progress, Hispanic judges remain underrepresented on the Federal Bench.

Hard work and a devotion to education have always been prerequisites to attaining a career as a judge.  Below, these themes can be found in the brief biographies of eight prominent Hispanic judges.

Reynaldo Guerra Garza

Reynaldo Guerra Garza (1915-2004) was the oldest of eight children born to Mexican immigrants in Brownsville, Texas. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas prior to receiving a Bachelor of Law from the University of Texas School of Law in 1939. He went into private practice until 1942, and then enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II.  Upon his return from the war, he resumed his private practice.

Garza was the first Mexican-American to become a lower federal court judge when, just two months after President John F. Kennedy‘s inauguration in 1961, he was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas (Houston). He served as Chief Judge from 1974 to 1979 during which time he presided over many important cases, the most celebrated of which was the 1972 Medrano v. Allee civil rights litigation. As part of a three-judge panel, Garza ruled that several articles contained in Vernon’s Texas Civil Statutes were unconstitutional and, therefore, could not be used to justify Texas Rangers breaking up of United Farm Workers’ strikes. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter nominated Garza to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. As such Garza became the first Hispanic appointed to any federal circuit court. His judicial career lasted 43 years.

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed a bill designating the U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building in Brownsville as the Reynaldo G. Garza and Filemon B. Vela United States Courthouse. The Library of Congress produced a video that is a personal tribute to Garza (fast forward past the introductions and start viewing at the 14:30 minute mark).

Carmen C. Cerezo

Carmen Consuelo Cerezo was born in 1940 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1963, Cerezo earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from the University of Puerto Rico. Her training in the law began with completion of a Doctor of Laws from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law in 1966. In 1988, following more than 20 years of private practice and service in the judiciary, Cerezo completed a Master of Law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Cerezo’s work in the judiciary began as a law clerk in the U.S. District Court of Puerto Rico from 1967 until 1972. For the following four years, she sat on the bench in the Puerto Rico Superior Court. In 1976, Cerezo was elevated to a judgeship on the Puerto Rico Court of Intermediate Appeals. Upon being nominated by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, Cerezo became the first Hispanic woman to serve as a U.S. District Judge in the federal judicial system. In 1993, she became the first woman to serve as a presiding judge of a U.S. district court.

Cerezo retired from the federal bench after 40 years of service, effective February 28, 2021.  Upon her retirement, the U.S. District Court of Puerto Rico memorialized Cerezo in a very personal statement about her life.  An attorney who pleaded cases in her courtroom said this: “Judge Cerezo distinguished herself as an exceptional and principled jurist, leader, and public servant.”

Carlos T. Bea

Carlos T. Bea was born in Spain in 1934. When he was five years old, his family left Spain because of the threat to the country from Hitler’s Nazis. They emigrated to Cuba in 1939 where his father had been born and his grandfather had been in business.  Following the death of his father, Bea, his mother, and brother moved to California where he was educated and resided most of his life. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958.

Bea practiced law in the San Francisco area from 1959 until 1990. From 1990 to 2003, he served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003. In 2019, the 85 years-old Bea informed then-President Trump that he intended to take senior status and to remain active upon the appointment of a successor.

Other personal items about Bea include the fact that he played basketball for Stanford and, in 1952 was a member of the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Also, he taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. Finally, Bea was named Honorary Vice Consul of Spain from 1979 to 1993. He received the Pro Bono Recognition Award from the State Bar of California in 1989. 

The Ninth Federal District Court Historical Society made the transcript available of a fascinating, detailed oral history of Bea. Bea’s address to the Heritage Foundation about statutory interpretation is available in a video (skip first 6 minutes of introductory remarks). 

Sonia Sotomayor

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was born in 1954 to Puerto Rican parents who raised her in a Bronx, New York, housing project. At age nine, her father died leaving her mother a single parent. Sotomayor’s career was shaped by her outstanding success as a student. She graduated as valedictorian of her high school class, graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, and earned a J.D. at Yale Law School while serving as editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Sotomayor began her legal career in 1979 as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. She was appointed U.S. District Court Judge in 1992, followed by appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1998. In 2009, Sotomayor became the first Latina to be a U.S. Supreme Court Justice with her appointment by President Barack Obama.

Having worked her way up to the highest level of the American judicial system, Sotomayor stands as a pioneer and an inspiration to Hispanics and females alike. An interview about her autobiography is captured on video, “Turning Pages: My Life Story and The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor.”  This wonderful conversation promises to be especially important for young people who will hear about how she dealt with the challenges in her life and what she learned from them.

Carmen R. Velasquez

In 1960, Carmen Valasquez was born in Quito, Ecuador. At the age of 14 her family moved to Queens, a borough of New York City, where she went to high school. In 1984, she completed a Bachelor of Arts from John Jay School of Criminal Justice. While attending Temple University School of Law, she took courses in the summer of 1985 at the University of Athens Law School. During the summer of 1986 she worked as an intern for the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Velasquez earned her J.D. degree in 1987, an achievement facilitated by receiving a Temple University Graduate Fellowship that paid for her entire legal education and living expenses.

Following her formal education, Velasquez worked as an attorney in several New York City departments from 1987 until 1991, including the Office of District Attorney of Bronx County and the Legal Affairs Division of the Sanitation Department.  Beginning in 1991, she spent the next 17 years in private practice that included adjunct teaching at Baruch College and her alma mater, John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Velasquez’s career as a judge began in 2008 with an election victory for a 10-year term on the New York City Civil Court of Queens County. In 2014, she gave up this post following an election that made her a justice of the New York Supreme Court, Queens County, for a term from 2015 to 2028. Thus, Velasquez is the first Ecuadorian-American to serve as judge of the Civil Court and the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

In November 2020, Velasquez was named one of ten judges in the U.S. to become part of the U.S. Chapter Pan-American Commission of Judges on Social Rights and Franciscan Doctrine. In January 2021, Velasquez was elected President of the Association of Supreme Court Justices of the State of New York, the first Latina to hold that office. She also has held important positions in national professional organizations, including Co-Chair of the Judicial Council of the Hispanic National Bar Association, Vice-President of the Latino Judges Association, and National Secretary of the National Association of Women Judges.

In a video in which her narrative is in both English and Spanish, Velasquez offers a brief introduction of herself. 

Esther Salas

Esther Salas was born in 1968 in California, the daughter of a Cuban mother and a Mexican father. With her mother and siblings, at age five she moved to Union, New Jersey, where the family lived as indigents dependent upon welfare.  At Rutgers University, Salas earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1991 and a J.D. in 1994.

Following President Barack Obama’s nomination in 2011, Salas became the first Latina to serve as a United State Magistrate Judge and a United States District Judge in New Jersey. Salas has presided over several notable trials, including the mortgage and bank fraud case of Teresa Giudice, the star of Real Housewives of New Jersey.

In July of 2020, a gunman shot and killed her 20-year-old son, Daniel, and shot and injured her husband at the family home. Following this tragedy, Salas worked to enact legislation that would shield from public disclosure the home addresses and telephone numbers of judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers. Daniel’s Law was signed by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy in November 2020. Congress passed a law named after Salas’ son, Daniel Anderl, in December of 2022. The law aims to protect federal judges by safeguarding their personally identifiable information and that of their close relatives. In a video, Salas discusses the basis for this legislation and her gratitude that her son did not die in vain.

Bradley N. Garcia

Bradley N. Garcia was born in Gaithersburg, Maryland in 1986. In 2008 he earned a Bachelor of Arts in international studies and economics from Johns Hopkins University and received the Dean of Student Life Award for campus leadership. He enrolled in Harvard Law School following college and earned a J.D. in 2011, magna cum laude. He was the editor and alumni chair of the Harvard Law Review, a Dean’s Scholar, and a research assistant for Professors Jack Goldsmith and Louis Kaplow. Following law school, Garcia clerked for judges appointed by Presidents of both political parties: Judge Thomas Griffith, appointed to the D.C. Circuit by President George H.W. Bush; and, Justice Elena Kagan, appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama.

In 2013, Garcia joined O’Melveny & Myers as an Associate. He was the recipient in 2018 of the firm’s “Warren Christopher Values Award” in recognition of demonstrable excellence, leadership, and citizenship. Garcia was made a Partner in 2021. In 2022, he moved to become Deputy Assistant Attorney General with the Department of Justice. When the Senate confirmed President Biden’s nomination of Garcia to the powerful United States Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia in 2023, he became the first Hispanic judge to serve on that court.

Garcia has extensive experience with appellate litigation in a wide range of courts. Much of his legal career was devoted to defending civil and human rights, including important immigration and constitutional law cases in a pro bono capacity. Garcia participated in the preparation of several amicus briefs for cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued a case before those justices.

Bloomberg Law designated Garcia an Appellate Fresh Face in 2021. He was recipient of The National Law Journal Legal Awards that highlighted the top litigation and appellate work in 2021.

Garcia is a member of the Federal Circuit Bar Association and the Hispanic National Bar Association. He has served as a Moot Court Judge at the Georgetown University Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He also is a member of the Supreme Court & Appellate Advisory Board of the MacArthur Justice Center.

Gonzalo P. Curiel

The youngest of four children, Gonzalo P. Curiel was born in East Chicago, Indiana, in 1953 to immigrant parents from Jalisco, Mexico. He attended high school in Indiana and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana University in 1976. He earned his J.D. from the Maurer School of Law in Indiana University in 1979. Once Curiel was admitted to the bar in Indiana and Illinois, he began private practice that lasted from 1979 to 1986. In 1986 he was admitted to the bar in California and started a new practice in Southern California that lasted until 1989.

He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, first in the Southern District of California from 1989 to 2002, and then the Central District of California from 2002 to 2006. He tried more than 300 cases over his 27 years with the U.S. attorney’s office.

In 2006, Curiel moved to the bench, sitting on the San Diego County Superior Court until 2012. It was then that President Obama appointed him U.S. district judge for the Southern District of California. Curiel assumed senior status in September of 2023.

Curiel’s role as a judge became prominent in the news when President Trump objected to his hearing two cases in which the Trump Organization was charged and convicted of fraud for misleading students in connection with Trump University. The basis for Trump’s objection was the judge’s Mexican heritage, a public declaration of bias against Hispanic judges.

Curiel is a member of several professional organizations, including service from 1993 to 1998 on the American Bar Association’s Hispanic Advisory Committee of the Commission on Public Understanding about the Law. As a member of the State Bar of California’s Criminal Law Advisory Commission from 1994 to 1998, he served as both vice chair and chair for one-year terms of office. Curiel was involved in two judges’ associations: the San Diego County Judges Association and the California Judges Association. From 2007 to 2010, he served on the San Diego Superior Court’s Domestic Violence Committee.

In 2020, Curiel was awarded Indiana University’s Bicentennial Medal in recognition of his distinguished service and support of the university.

Discussion Questions

1. What did you learn about the process that must be completed to earn a law degree, J.D.? Is becoming a lawyer a career that you would like to pursue? If so, what is the attraction of becoming a lawyer? If so, do you have a current preference for a particular law specialty? If becoming a lawyer does not interest you, why do you feel that way about a career in the legal profession?
2. What special challenges do Hispanics face if they wish to pursue a career as a lawyer?
3. Beside the fact that they all are Hispanic, are there any other similarities shared among the lawyers described? Among the judges?
4. For which of the Hispanic lawyers described would you have liked to work as a paralegal (a lawyer’s assistant qualified to conduct legal and factual research, draft court documents, and handle correspondence)? Why?
5. For which of the Hispanic judges described would you have liked to work as a clerk (a person with a law degree that provides direct assistance and counsel to a judge in making legal determinations and in writing opinions by researching issues before the court)? Why?

Additional Resources

The Law School Transparency (a nonprofit consumer advocacy and education organization concerning the legal profession) report has more detailed information about average annual tuition (Fall 2022 to Spring 2023) and average three-year tuition total for both public and private law schools.  The data reveal that the higher the average tuition in public and private schools, the higher the percentage Bar pass rates of their graduates.

Additional information about prominent Hispanic lawyers is available, including summaries of the types of law practiced.  Almost all of those listed have attained the status of partner in their respective law firms.

The American Constitution Society prepared pie charts depicting differences in the diversity of Article III judges confirmed during the Obama, Trump, and first years of the Biden administration.  The data reveal differences based on gender and race/ethnicity.

For those interested in identifying sitting Hispanic judges, the Federal Judicial Center maintains a Biographical Directory of Federal Judges that provides background information on members of the federal judiciary, including details about each judge’s education, federal judicial service, and professional career.

Wikipedia has a list of Hispanic and Latino American jurists.