Bruce Marshall Selya (born May 27, 1934) 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, 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. Cou ...

of the

United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (in case citations, 1st Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maine * District of Massachusetts * ...

and former chief judge of the

United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR) is a U.S. federal court whose sole purpose is to review denials of applications for electronic surveillance warrants (called FISA warrants) by the United States Foreign I ...

who is known for his distinctive writing style.

Education and career

Born in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family, he attended Nathan Bishop middle school and

Classical High School Classical High School, founded in 1843, is a public magnet school in the Providence School District, in Providence, Rhode Island. It was originally an all-male school but has since become co-ed. Classical's motto is ''Certare, Petere, Reperire, ...

in Providence. Selya received an

Artium Baccalaureus 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 years ...

degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1955. He received a

Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

in 1958. He was 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 ...

for Judge

Edward William Day Edward William Day (May 24, 1901 – October 22, 1985) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island. Education and career Born in Cranston, Rhode Island, Day received a Bachelor of Phi ...

the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island from 1958 to 1960. He was in private practice of law in Providence from 1960 to 1982. He was a Judge of Probate in Lincoln, Rhode Island from 1965 to 1972.

Federal judicial service

Selya was nominated by President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

on July 27, 1982, to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island vacated by Judge

Raymond James Pettine Raymond James Pettine (July 6, 1912 – November 17, 2003) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island. Education and career Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Pettine received a Bachelo ...

. He 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 August 18, 1982, and received commission the same day. His service was terminated on November 24, 1986, due to elevation to the First Circuit. Selya was nominated by President Reagan on September 26, 1986, to the

, to a new seat created by 98 Stat. 333. He was confirmed by the Senate on October 8, 1986, and received commission on October 14, 1986. In 1996, Selya hired future Supreme Court Justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson to a year-long clerkship with the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Providence. In 2000, Chief Justice William Rehnquist appointed Selya to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, a position Selya held until 2004. In 2005, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Selya to the

, and in 2008 Selya was appointed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts to the chief judgeship of the Court of Review. As the

United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), also called the FISA Court, is a U.S. federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants aga ...

is not an adversarial court and (with few exceptions) only hears argument from the United States government, the Court of Review solely hears appeals from that court when the government is denied a warrant for wiretap surveillance of suspected terrorists or spies. Judge Selya assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the Federal judiciary of the United States, federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of servi ...

at the end of 2006. Then Senator Lincoln Chafee recommended that former

Rhode Island Supreme Court The Rhode Island Supreme Court is the court of last resort in the U.S. State of Rhode Island. The Court consists of a Chief Justice and four Associate Justices, all selected by the Governor of Rhode Island from candidates vetted by the Judicial No ...

Justice

Robert Flanders Robert G. Flanders Jr. (born July 9, 1949), also known as Bob Flanders, is an American attorney who is a partner at Whelan Corrente & Flanders. He is also the founder of Flanders and Medeiros. Previously, Flanders served as an Associate Justice ...

be nominated to replace Selya. President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

interviewed Flanders,

U.S. 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 ...

William E. Smith, and Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice

Paul A. Suttell Paul Suttell (born January 10, 1949) is the chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. Suttell graduated from the Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode IslanHe then attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, from which he gr ...

for the position, before selecting Judge Smith as the nominee. Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse asserted that, due to the President's failure to work with Whitehouse and fellow Democratic senator Jack Reed in selecting a consensus candidate, the vacancy left by Selya's departure would not be filled during Bush's tenure. On October 6, 2009, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

formally nominated

Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson (born August 8, 1951), known commonly as O. Rogeriee Thompson, is an American lawyer who serves as a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and a former Rhode Islan ...

to Selya's seat on the First Circuit.President Obama Nominates Judge Denny Chin for United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson for United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
, ''

whitehouse.gov whitehouse.gov (also simply known as wh.gov) is the official website of the White House and is managed by the Office of Digital Strategy. It was launched on July 29, 1994 by the Clinton administration. The content of the website is in the ...

'' (October 6, 2009). She was confirmed by the Senate in a 98–0 vote on March 17, 2010. In 2022, Selya's career of 36 years was said to be the longest in the history of the first circuit.

Writing style

As a private practitioner, Selya was often lulled to sleep by the legalese and boilerplate rhetoric in judicial opinions, a matter he has sought to remedy since ascending to the bench: "I made a commitment to myself that I would attempt to prove that sound jurisprudence and interesting prose are not mutually exclusive." Selya disclaims " lexiphanicism for its own sake." For Selya, precision is a precondition for his use of a word, and " it does not fit, I won't submit." Selya aspires toward readability by using uncommon words in contexts that make the words' meanings clear; and apart from his vocabulary, Selya's prose is notable for its readability and its avoidance of clotted or formulaic legal rhetoric. It is clear that Selya is widely read by his colleagues. Over the years 1998–2000, Selya numbered as the fourth most cited federal judge outside of the Supreme Court, as measured by the number of citations to his opinions from outside of his own circuit. Occupying the three positions above Selya were Judges Richard Posner,

Frank Easterbrook Frank Hoover Easterbrook (born September 3, 1948) is an American lawyer, jurist, and legal scholar who has served as a United States circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 1985. He was the Seventh Circuit's chief ...

, and Sandra Lynch. Selya's writing style is not without its critics. Boston attorney Harvey A. Silverglate has written that his opinions are "well known" for their "remarkably judgmental but politically naive language," and that " is not unusual to see Selya gratuitously criticize, in sarcastic and sometimes grandiloquent fashion, a party or witness. He has earned a reputation for tossing around both his power and trademark one-hundred-dollar words."

Notable opinions

One of Selya's recent opinions, ''Ungar v. PLO'', has been singled out by The Green Bag as a notable example of good judicial writing. A representative sampling of recent opinions includes ''Aguilar v. ICE'', 510 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2007) (immigration law and federal jurisdiction); ''Havlik v. Johnson & Wales University'', 509 F.3d 25 (1st Cir. 2007) (education law); ''Alexander v. Brigham & Women's Physicians Org.'', 513 F.3d 37 (1st Cir. 2008) (employee benefits); ''United States v. Martin'', 520 F.3d 87 (1st Cir. 2008) (federal sentencing guidelines); ''Connectu LLC v. Zuckerberg'', 522 F.3d 82 (1st Cir. 2008) (civil procedure); ''Rio Mar Assocs., LP, SE v. UHS of Puerto Rico, Inc.'', 522 F.3d 159 (1st Cir. 2008) (tort law); and ''Morales v. Sociedad Espanola de Auxilio Mutuo y Benificencia, 2008 U.S. App. 2380'' (administrative and medical law).

References

Sources