Danya Ariel Dayson (born October 1, 1972) is an associate judge of the

Superior Court of the District of Columbia The Superior Court of the District of Columbia, commonly referred to as DC Superior Court, is the trial court for the District of Columbia, in the United States. It hears cases involving criminal and civil law, as well as family court, landlor ...

Education and career

Dayson earned her

Bachelor of Arts 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 ...

from

Appalachian State University Appalachian State University (; Appalachian, App State, App, or ASU) is a public university in Boone, North Carolina. It was founded as a teachers college in 1899 by brothers B. B. and D. D. Dougherty and the latter's wife, Lillie Shull Dough ...

and her

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 law ...

from

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

. After graduating, she clerked for Judge

Robert E. Morin Robert E. Morin (born January 9, 1953) is an American lawyer and a former Chief Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Early life and education Morin was born on January 9, 1953, in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1974, Morin grad ...

. She then worked in private practice.

D.C. superior court

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 ...

nominated Dayson on July 11, 2011, to a 15-year term as an associate judge of the

to the seat vacated by Stephanie Duncan-Peters. On November 8, 2011, the

Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is the chief oversight committee of the United States Senate. It has jurisdiction over matters related to the Department of Homeland Security and other homeland s ...

held a hearing on her nomination and on the following day, November 9, 2011, the Committee reported her nomination favorably to the senate floor. On November 18, 2011, the full

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 el ...

confirmed her nomination by

voice vote In parliamentary procedure, a voice vote (from the Latin ''viva voce'', meaning "live voice") or acclamation is a voting method in deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a group vote is taken on a topic or motion by responding vo ...

. She was sworn in on April 27, 2012.

Personal life

Dayson was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, raised in

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...

and has lived in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

since 1994. She is married to Michael Murphy and has one child.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dayson, Danya 1972 births Living people 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American women lawyers 21st-century American judges 21st-century American women judges 20th-century African-American women 21st-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American lawyers 21st-century African-American lawyers African-American judges Appalachian State University alumni Georgetown University Law Center alumni Judges of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia People from Chapel Hill, North Carolina Lawyers from New York City