Denise Jefferson Casper (born January 9, 1968) is an American attorney serving as a

United States 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 ...

of the

United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (in case citations, D. Mass.) is the federal district court whose territorial jurisdiction is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. The first court session was he ...

. She used to be the Deputy District Attorney for the

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

District Attorney's Office 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 ...

. Casper is the first black female judge to serve on the federal bench in Massachusetts. Casper is also notable for presiding over the criminal trial of

Whitey Bulger James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger Jr. (; September 3, 1929 – October 30, 2018) was an American organized crime boss who led the Winter Hill Gang in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, a city directly northwest of Bos ...

Early life and education

Casper was born in

East Patchogue, New York East Patchogue (, ) is a census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 22,469 at the 2010 census. The CDP is a proximate representa ...

. Casper received 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 year ...

from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the col ...

in 1990 and her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1994.

Career

Casper started her professional career as a law clerk for Edith W. Fine and J. Harold Flannery of the Massachusetts Appeals Court. During the period of 1995 through 1998, she was an attorney with the firm of

Bingham McCutchen Bingham McCutchen LLP was a global law firm with approximately 850 attorneys in nine US offices and five international offices. It ceased operations in late 2014, when several hundred of its partners and associate lawyers left the firm to join Phi ...

, where she conducted civil litigation. In 1999 Casper became an Assistant United States Attorney in Boston and was the deputy chief of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force starting in 2004. She served as an assistant United States attorney in Boston from 1999 until 2005 and taught legal writing at Boston University School of Law from 2005 through 2007. Casper served as the deputy district attorney for the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office in

from 2007 until her confirmation as a federal judge.

Federal judicial service

Casper was nominated by 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 ...

on April 28, 2010, to a seat on the

vacated by Judge

Reginald C. Lindsay Reginald C. Lindsay (March 19, 1945 – March 12, 2009) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Education and career Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Lindsay received a Bachelor of ...

. She 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 December 17, 2010, and received her commission on December 20, 2010. At the time of her appointment, she was the first

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

woman to be a federal judge in Massachusetts and one of the youngest federal judges in the United States.

Notable cases

In 2013, Casper presided over the trial, conviction, and sentencing of Boston's infamous organized crime boss,

. In 2020, Casper was assigned the ''Equal Means Equal et al v. David Ferriero'' case. A lawsuit brought to require the Archivist of the United States to certify the Equal Rights Amendment as part of the U.S. Constitution. On August 6, 2020, Casper ruled that the Plaintiffs did not have standing to sue the Archivist to compel him to ratify the ERA and she therefore could not determine the merits of the case. Casper thereby granted the Defendants' Motion to Dismiss.''See'', Equal Means Equal et al v. Ferriero, United States District Court, District of Massachusetts, Memorandum and Order, Case No. 20-cv-10015-DJC, date=August 6, 2020

Personal

Casper married her husband, Marc N. Casper, in 1994.WEDDINGS; Denise Jefferson, Marc N. Casper
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' (August 21, 1994). He is President and CEO of

Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is an American supplier of scientific instrumentation, reagents and consumables, and software services. Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, Thermo Fisher was formed through the merger of Thermo Electron and Fisher Sc ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Casper, Denise Jefferson 1968 births Living people 21st-century American judges 21st-century American women judges African-American judges American judges American women lawyers American lawyers Assistant United States Attorneys Harvard Law School alumni Judges of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts People from East Patchogue, New York United States district court judges appointed by Barack Obama Wasserstein Fellows Wesleyan University alumni