Emily Michele Coody Marks (born March 6, 1973) is the Chief United States district judge of the

United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama The United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama (in case citations, M.D. Ala.) is a federal court in the Eleventh Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are appeal ...

Biography

Marks was born on March 6, 1973, in

Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population of 1 ...

. She 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 ...

, magna cum laude, from Spring Hill College, 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 the University of Alabama School of Law, where she served as chair of the John A. Campbell Moot Court Board and as a senior editor of the ''University of Alabama Law & Psychology Review''. Marks was a partner in the Montgomery, Alabama, office of Ball, Ball, Matthews & Novak, P.A., where she practiced from 1998, when she joined the firm as an associate, to 2018, when she became a judge. She specialized in labor and employment law, civil rights law, and appellate practice, and routinely lectured on these topics before employers and other members of the bar.

Federal judicial service

On September 7, 2017, President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

nominated Marks to serve as a United States District Judge of the

, to the seat vacated by Judge Myron Herbert Thompson, who 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 ...

on August 22, 2013. On October 17, 2017, a hearing on her nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee. On November 9, 2017, her nomination was reported out of committee 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 ...

. On January 3, 2018, her nomination was returned to the President under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6 of 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 January 5, 2018, President

announced his intent to renominate Marks to a federal judgeship. On January 8, 2018, her renomination was sent to the

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 ...

. On January 18, 2018, her nomination was reported out of committee by a 17–4 vote. On August 1, 2018, her nomination was confirmed by

. She received her judicial commission on August 3, 2018. She became Chief Judge on January 31, 2019, after William Keith Watkins assumed

. In September 2021, ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' published an investigation into 131 federal judges who were alleged to have broken the law by presiding over cases in which they had a financial interest. In August 2018, Marks purchased stock in Wells Fargo Bank two weeks after she was assigned a case in which plaintiff-homeowners sued Wells Fargo for wrongful foreclosure on their home. She did not disclose her stock purchases. Marks subsequently dismissed the lawsuit against Wells Fargo on a pre-trial motion. In October 2022, Marks invoked qualified immunity to deny the family of a cancer patient the right to sue the policeman who killed him. The patient had acted aggressive and erratic after brain surgery. The family called the police for help. A neighbor, also a policeman, intervened and fired six shots, hitting the unarmed victim five times.

Memberships

She has been a member of the Federalist Society since 2017.

References

External links

* , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Marks, Emily C. 1973 births Living people 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American lawyers 21st-century American judges Alabama lawyers Judges of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama People from Tuscaloosa, Alabama Spring Hill College alumni United States district court judges appointed by Donald Trump University of Alabama School of Law alumni 20th-century American women lawyers 21st-century American women lawyers 21st-century American women judges