Dennis Wayne Shedd (born January 28, 1953) is a former

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. ...

of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maryland ...

Background

Shedd attended Orangeburg Preparatory Schools in

Orangeburg, South Carolina Orangeburg, also known as ''The Garden City'', is the principal city in and the county seat of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. The population of the city was 13,964 according to the 2010 United States Census and declined to 1 ...

. He received his

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 ...

degree from

Wofford College Wofford College is a private liberal arts college in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It was founded in 1854. The campus is a national arboretum and one of the few four-year institutions in the southeastern United States founded before the America ...

, his Juris Doctor from the

University of South Carolina School of Law The University of South Carolina School of Law, also known as South Carolina Law School, is a professional school within the University of South Carolina. The school of law was founded in 1867, and remains the only public and non-profit law scho ...

and a

Master of Laws A Master of Laws (M.L. or LL.M.; Latin: ' or ') is an advanced postgraduate academic degree, pursued by those either holding an undergraduate academic law degree, a professional law degree, or an undergraduate degree in a related subject. In mos ...

from the

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 ...

. He went on to become chief counsel and staff director for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary while in the employ of Senator Strom Thurmond. He moved to South Carolina to practice law in 1988. During that time, he served as an adjunct professor of law at the University of South Carolina School of Law.

Federal judicial service

Service on district court

President George H. W. Bush nominated Shedd on October 17, 1990, to the

United States District Court for the District of South Carolina The United States District Court for the District of South Carolina (in case citations, D.S.C.) is the federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of South Carolina. Court is held in the cities of Aiken, Anderson, Beaufort, Charle ...

. Shedd was confirmed on October 27, 1990. He received his commission on October 30, 1990. His service as a district court judge was terminated on December 10, 2002, when he was elevated to the 4th Circuit Court.

Service on court of appeals

Shedd was nominated by 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 ...

on September 4, 2001, and 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 November 19, 2002, by a 55–44 vote. He received his judicial commission on November 26, 2002. Shedd assumed

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

on January 30, 2018. He retired from the court on May 2, 2022.

Notable decisions

In 2007, Judge Shedd wrote for a fractured panel which found that the

procedural default Procedural default is a concept in American federal law that requires a state prisoner seeking a writ of ''habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful deten ...

doctrine prevented the court from hearing the constitutional claims of a death row inmate. On May 25, 2017, Judge Shedd wrote a dissent when the ''

en banc In law, an en banc session (; French for "in bench"; also known as ''in banc'', ''in banco'' or ''in bank'') is a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of a court (before the entire bench) rather than by one judge or a smaller p ...

'' circuit upheld a lower court's injunction against the President's travel ban by a vote of 10–3 in ''

Int'l Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump ''International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump'', 857 F. 3d 554 (4th Cir. 2017), was a 2017 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting '' en banc'', upholding an injunction against enforcement of Execut ...

''.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shedd, Dennis Wayne 1953 births Living people 20th-century American judges 21st-century American judges Georgetown University Law Center alumni Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Judges of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina People from Orangeburg County, South Carolina United States court of appeals judges appointed by George W. Bush United States district court judges appointed by George H. W. Bush University of South Carolina alumni Wofford College alumni University of South Carolina faculty