Max Oliver Cogburn Jr. (born April 21, 1951) is a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...

of the

United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina The United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina (in case citations, W.D.N.C.) is a federal district court which covers the western third of North Carolina. Appeals from the Western District of North Carolina are take ...

Early life and education

Born in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, Cogburn earned a

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 ...

degree from the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

in 1973 and a

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

Samford University Samford University is a private Christian university in Homewood, Alabama. In 1841, the university was founded as Howard College by Baptists. Samford University describes itself as the 87th oldest institution of higher learning in the United Sta ...

Cumberland School of Law in 1976.

Professional career

From 1976 until 1980, Cogburn worked as an associate and then as a partner at an

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous cit ...

law firm. From 1980 until 1992, he worked in the United States Attorney's office in Asheville as an

Assistant United States Attorney An assistant United States attorney (AUSA) is an official career civil service position in the U.S. Department of Justice composed of lawyers working under the U.S. Attorney of each U.S. federal judicial district. They represent the federal gove ...

, including as Chief Assistant United States Attorney from 1986 until 1988. From 1992 until 1995, Cogburn was a partner in a law firm in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

. From 1995 until 2004, he served as a federal magistrate judge on the

. He returned to private practice in 2004, working in Asheville, North Carolina.

Federal judicial service

On May 27, 2010, President Obama nominated Cogburn to a seat on the Western District of North Carolina. He was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on December 8, 2010, but his nomination lapsed at the end of 2010 and the end of the

111th Congress The 111th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government from January 3, 2009, until January 3, 2011. It began during the last weeks of the George W. Bush administration, with th ...

. Obama renominated Cogburn on January 5, 2011, and he was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 3, 2011. 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 ...

confirmed Cogburn by a 96–0 vote on March 10, 2011. He received his commission on March 11, 2011.

Notable rulings

On October 10, 2014, Cogburn struck down North Carolina's gay marriage ban as unconstitutional, opening the way for same-sex marriages in North Carolina to begin immediately. Cogburn was a member of a three-judge panel that struck down the redistricting of certain North Carolina Congressional districts for relying too heavily on race. Cogburn also wrote a separate concurring opinion in that case. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court. The case, ''

Cooper v. Harris ''Cooper v. Harris'', 581 U.S. ___ (2017), is a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court ruled 5–3 that the North Carolina General Assembly used race to ...

'', was upheld by a 5–3 decision of the Supreme Court on May 22, 2017.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cogburn, Max 1951 births Living people Assistant United States Attorneys Cumberland School of Law alumni Judges of the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina United States district court judges appointed by Barack Obama 21st-century American judges University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni United States magistrate judges