Sandra Segal Ikuta

Sandra Ikuta
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Incumbent
Assumed office June 23, 2006
Appointed by	George W. Bush
Preceded by	James Browning
Personal details
Born	June 24, 1954 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Alma mater	Stanford University University of California, Berkeley Columbia University University of California, Los Angeles

Sandra Segal Ikuta (born June 24, 1954) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Background

Ikuta received a master's in journalism from Columbia University in 1978. She had previously attended Stanford University for two years before moving to University of California, Berkeley to complete her undergraduate degree. She received her J.D. from UCLA School of Law in 1988. While there, she served as the editor of the UCLA Law Review. She went on to clerk for Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She became an associate of the law firm O’Melveny & Myers in 1990 and went on to become a partner in 1997. At the time of her nomination she had been general counsel of the California Resources Agency since January 2004.

Nomination and confirmation

She was nominated by President George W. Bush on February 8, 2006 to fill the seat vacated by Judge James R. Browning, who took senior status in 2000. Previously, Carolyn Kuhl had been nominated to that position, but she had been filibustered by Senate Democrats for a year until December 2004 when she withdrew her nomination. Ikuta was voted unanimously out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 26, 2006, and confirmed 81–0 by the U.S. Senate on June 19, 2006. She was the sixth judge appointed by Bush to the Ninth Circuit.

Ikuta now works alongside her former boss, Judge Alex Kozinski, for whom she clerked from 1988–1989. He testified on her behalf at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on her nomination.

Ikuta's first published opinion on the Ninth Circuit was United States v. Baldrich, issued December 27, 2006.

See also

• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States

External links

• Sandra Segal Ikuta at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
  
• Attorney Sandra S. Ikuta Nominated to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – February 9, 2006
• Ikuta's Resume – from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy
• United States v. Baldrich (first precedential opinion authored by Ikuta)