Mary Kay Lanthier – Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont

Longtime public defender Mary Kay Lanthier has been tapped for a rare opening on the Vermont District Court bench.

Background

Lanthier received a B.A. from Amherst University in 1993 and a J.D. from the Northeastern University School of Law in 1996. Lanthier then completed a two year clerkship in the Vermont state court system and then joined Keiner & Dumont, P.C.

Lanthier then joined the Addison County Public Defender’s Office and after three years returned to private practice at Marsh & Wagner, P.C.

In 2007, Lanthier became the supervising attorney in the Rutland County Public Defender’s Office, where she still serves.

History of the Seat

Lanthier has been nominated for a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont to replace Judge Geoffrey Crawford, who will take senior status on August 9, 2024. Lanthier was one of three candidates recommended for the vacancy by Vermont Senators.

Legal Experience

Lanthier has spent most of her legal career in indigent defense, serving most recently as a supervising attorney in the Rutland County Public Defender’s Office, where she represents indifent defendants in state court. For example, Lanthier persuaded a judge to grant bail to Ashleigh Gursky, a teenager charged with aggravated assault on a police officer. See Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli, Judge Grants Teen’s Bail Bid, Rutland Herald, June 23, 2016, https://www.rutlandherald.com/news/judge-grants-teen-s-bail-bid/article_62f4b626-4f08-5e2e-87e1-d97a97fa085a.html.

Notably, Lanthier was part of the legal team challenging the detention of David Downing, arguing that Vermont law, which prevents a defendant from being held in jail more than 60 days without bail before trial, prevents him from being held without bail if there is no possibility that the trial can be set within 60 days. See State v. Downing, 247 A.3d 150 (Vt. 2020). The Vermont Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that the statute doesn’t prevent a defendant from being held without bail for sixty days even where there is no possibility that he can be tried within that time. See id.

Statements and Writings

As a law clerk, Lanthier published one of the papers that she had previously authored as a law student. See Mary Kay Lanthier, Children’s Right to Be Heard, 2 NU Forum 1 (1997). The paper discusses the rights of children in civil proceedings called “CHINS” or “child in need of services.” See id.

Overall Assessment

The Biden Administration has made a commitment to adding more public defenders to the federal bench, and have made significant strides in this regard. The nomination of Lanthier follows this pattern. While several of these nominees have drawn fierce opposition due to their background, most have been confirmed. Barring anything unusual, Lanthier should be able to be confirmed by the end of the year as well.

96 Comments

  1. I am looking forward to seeing her SJCQ to look at the timeline that led to her nomination. With the names of three other attorneys floated for this seat, her name didn’t publicly appear until less than 24 hours before her nomination. But she’s a good pick regardless & she should be well on her way to making Vermont a state with its entire active federal judicial seats occupied by woman.

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    • He did it on a small scale. I’m saying he needs to do it in a larger scale, much larger. Nobody should have to “check the box” on a job application if there only crime was using drugs. Particularly when his son has had issues.

      I’m not speaking for myself because I’ve never personally done drugs. I’m just passionate about the issue & don’t think it should be used to ruin people’s lives.

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      • I’m definitely in favor of it. I’ve done my fair share of drugs and other illegal activities. The way I look at it is the only thing different about me and those who have been convicted is that I was lucky enough that I didn’t get caught. No one should be punished for smoking a little marijuana.

        It’s a shame too, because even if the initial offense doesn’t get much of a sentence, a conviction can be used to make future sentences harsher, so you can see how this sort of thing can compound.

        Liked by 1 person

    • I think Dem voters care more about SCOTUS post-Dobbs, though they don’t care about circuit/district courts (and many voters on both sides don’t even realize that circuit/district courts exist).

      Biden announcing his SCOTUS shortlist for a potential second term is telling. Hillary did not do this in 2016 despite there being an open SCOTUS seat.

      Liked by 1 person

      • I don’t know what’s the big deal with Biden just releasing a list. As much a so hate to admit it, that was brilliant for Trump to do. It would be much easier for Biden to do than Trump (Who didn’t have any circuit court judges confirmed by a Republican senate for 10 years prior).

        Biden can just pick a dozen or so of his own circuit court judges. Throw in the US SG, a couple state Supreme Court justices & Kruger, & be done with it. We all know that’s the list. Pretending like he can’t discuss actual names is the old way of doing things.

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  5. 30 nominees in the pipeline and by the time they come back from August recess in September there could be up to 10 more from blue states.

    Senate Dems really need to focus the 3.5 working weeks before recess confirming as many judges as they can since I just don’t trust their courage to hold stead in September.

    I’m hoping and thinking the lame duck will be when they vote for the nominees they can’t pass now bc by then senators will have nothing to lose either way. Only reason to justify why they haven’t pulled Mangi nomination.

    Liked by 1 person

      • Five weeks is still a long time to push through nominees. Besides, senators returning home usually aren’t significant numbers until maybe the last day or two of the session. And it very well may work to the D advantage for all we know.

        In 2021 for example, there were 99 votes for Samantha Elliott’s confirmation on December 15. Two days later during the vote-a-rama, there were more R defections than D, which enables smoother votes. In 2022 they didn’t do a ton of votes during the lame duck, but there was still 96 senators present for Dana Douglas’ confirmation vote on December 13.

        The upside to waiting for after the midterms for some nominees (like Mangi for example) is that Rosen, Tester, and Brown will either be on their way out of office or elected to fresh new six year terms. In either case, they are freed up to take firmer stances in favor of nominees. Even in the case of Manchin it likely gets easier because he won’t be in the middle of some Independent campaign for Governor/Senate and will most likely be on his way out of politics altogether.

        Sinema is a strange case is well, but my understanding behind the scenes is that she’s playing nice with Dems in order to take care of her future job prospects. I don’t think she’ll purposely tank any nominees (and she hasn’t so far).

        Liked by 1 person

    • I’d be on the lookout for the Senate working on the NDAA in July, which is what they worked on passing last year leading to the August break (I think it went to conference with the House and cleared all of Congress later on in the year). The Senate NDAA passed the Armed Services Committee by a near-unanimous vote (although Jack Reed, the SASC chair, voted against it). They may spend some floor time on this especially given the House passed their partisan, poison-pill-laden NDAA just recently.

      Biggest thing I’m watching in the Senate this week is if we get a cloture motion sent out today or tomorrow for an appeals court nominee to vote on Thursday afternoon and what Kashubai’s confirmation vote ultimately looks like. I still think it’ll be a party-line minus Manchin vote which if that is the case, maybe Schumer is banking on some Republican absences this week?

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  8. @Joe

    Schumer is teeing up the Reproductive Freedom for Women Act, a bill to codify Roe v. Wade. He’s also planning a vote to ban bump stocks. They’re gonna be similar to the contraception and IVF bills last week.

    I’m a bit mixed on these sorts of bills. They take up time but they do seem to make the Republicans sweat a bit. There was also an article after the contraception vote about how these bills are causing internal fighting among the Senate GOP bc Collins, Murkowski, Tillis, etc are like, why aren’t we as a party voting for these bills and then trying use the amendment process to insert positions that are more favorable but Thune and the GOP leadership prefer to vote no rather than have to deal with weeks of press about amendments. Murkowski even gave a statement where she was like these bills don’t really carry much weight, they’re just messaging bills, but I’m not sure exactly what sort of message they’re trying to sent by voting against protecting contraception and IVF. It might be a good way to help t further drive a wedge between C & M and the rest of the Party in an effort to help persuade them to work with the Dems.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Sounds like the bump stock is going to be a UC request that a Republican comes out and objects to? I haven’t seen anything about dedicating a floor vote to it. Also saw a tweet that the Roe v Wade bill was teed up but probably won’t be voted on this week? I figured it would, since the Senate won’t be in next week on what would be the second anniversary of Dobbs (no one seems to mention late June is typically the anniversary dates of big SCOTUS rulings, given how major cases are generally handed down last).

      I theorized my case of why Republicans could be short a few members this week. As far as they’re concerned, is it worth coming in on a week where you’re off on a Wednesday and would only vote on one or two things the Thursday after, especially when there’s a two week break on the horizon? On the flipside, the Kasubhai votes would be on Tuesday before any of that would happen.

      Liked by 2 people

  10. Good, all the attacks against Maldonado are BS designed to ensure McConnell gets another seat to flip on the 7th Circuit down the line like he did with a couple of other seats on there.
    If nothing else, McConnell’s obstruction under Obama after 2014 created more then 25 judicial emergencies yet we’re supposed to believe he cares about judicial matters being done in a timely matter.
    It’s BS and insulting BS at that.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. If they have the votes for Kashubai and Maldonado, is it safe to assume they also have the votes for Vargas. And maybe Murphy and Pennell?

    Hard to evaluate those 3 since they didn’t really get any push back or questions but were party line out of committee.

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      • It’s weird, there’s nothing in agreement for it in the executive calendar. the Periodicals/Press Gallery Twitter feeds mention a vote at 2:15PM, but the Cloakroom feed only mentions the two 11:30AM votes. The Press Gallery feed also expects a vote on that firefighters aid bill tomorrow too.

        One thing that crossed my mind if there isn’t an agreement is that this is the first federal judge being voted on since the Trump conviction, where Mike Lee and several of his colleagues mentioned not consenting to expediting nominations. I know there were agreements for the Energy Commission nominees and the local DC judges, but this might be different as it’s for a federal judge. Something to keep in the back of your head with the Maldonado cloture vote on Thursday, if no agreement is reached afterwards, does Schumer need to keep the Senate open late Thursday and through Friday to let the 30 hour postcloture clock run to be good for a vote on the Monday they return after the two week break?

        Liked by 1 person

      • Schumer damn sure better keep the senate in session Thursday night, Friday & even Saturday if need be if Republicans are trying to withhold consent. I said over two years ago when there are no consequences for bad behavior then what is the incentive for them to stop.

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      • If it comes down to having to manually run off 30 hours, I’d bring the Senate back next Monday on the 24th to confirm Maldonado and then vote on the Roe v Wade bill, since that would be the 2-year anniversary of Dobbs.

        As far as today’s attendance went, 5 Republicans voted for Oler (Collins, Graham, Murkowski, Tillis, Romney), so I think the breakdown of the vote was 46D-45R, but that D attendance majority does include Manchin.

        Liked by 1 person

      • To be honest if Republicans really want to play games. I hope Schumer does what Harry Reid did to Ted Cruz right before the senate changed hands to a Republican majority in late 2013. Reid teed up about a dozen judicial nominees that would have carried over to the next year. Since Cruz tried some bs, Reid made him pay. Schumer should do the same.

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    • This was sent out this morning before any voting started, but as I thought earlier, it sounds like Schumer is banking on a few Republicans being out:

      https://x.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/1802703163012575644

      Schumer may need to rely on absences this week to confirm District Court nominee Mustafa Kasubhai, who’s likely to draw near-unanimous GOP opposition. Vote would likely be Thurs. With Senate out Weds (Juneteenth), there could be lots of absences on Thurs

      And then a follow-up tweet:

      Kasubhai was approved by Judiciary on a party-line vote in January. Manchin has said he won’t vote for noms that don’t have bipartisan support. So Kasubhai’s fate could come down to attendance.

      Liked by 1 person

  15. I just rewatched McConnell’s comments from the senate floor earlier today. His latest in his series of attacks was on Mustafa Kasubhai. He called him a Marxist & the other usually hits. At least this time he didn’t bring up Mangi nor offer another circuit court nominee to Biden so I guess he was rather tame today in his tan suit…lol

    Liked by 1 person

    • Really, does the term Marxist even mean a damn thing these days? If McConnell’s floor speech is meant for public consumption, who the hell is he trying to appeal to? The same folks that think KGB Putin is an OK guy? The term of the day is “cognitive dissonance” brought to you by Moscow Mitch. SMDH

      Liked by 2 people

  16. I just watched McConnell on the senate floor. He just ripped into Maldonado again. He called her unqualified & said Democrats are trying to check a diversity box. He’s going all in with his attacks.

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    • I now make it a point to go back & watch his comments daily now. Seeing McConnell complain about “unqualified” nominees getting confirmed is one of my guilty pleasures in life now.

      Funny he never brings up the 10 Trump nominees that were literally deemed unqualified to be federal judges. His boy Justin Walker was one of them. He had no problem less than a year later voting to confirm him to the second highest court in the land. I just need him to recommend a third circuit court nominee to Biden… Lol

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      • Some of those judges were unqualified, but the ABA shouldn’t be the barometer we use for that. They are known for placing a higher emphasis on working in corporate law and prosecution rather than having a diversity of experience. Republicans have the guts to tell them to take a hike, and this is the one ‘norm’ I’d like to see Democratic presidents dispense of.

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  19. As I said yesterday, I always go back to the judicial obstruction McConnell engaged in after Republicans took control of the Senate in 2015.
    Many courts got brought to breaking points (New Jersey was hit hard) yet he wants us to believe he cares about judicial backlogs with Maldonado?
    Give us a break.
    As to your other point Dequan, what McConnell means with unqualified is they aren’t right wing hacks.
    McConnell has to be furious in this case because it was a chance to replace the last true liberal Republican on the courts with a right wing hack and he won’t get to do that now.
    Finally, as we’ve said before, anyone who thinks the names McConnell has suggested would get treated any better by Republicans are fools.
    This is about obstruction, nothing more.

    Liked by 1 person

      • Of course we know the nominee can be confirmed another day. The point is whatever day that is, had Democrats showed up to work today, ANOTHER nominee could have been confirmed whatever day this nominee is eventually confirmed.

        Republicans are obstructing at an unprecedented rate. With the senate out so many weeks this year, we don’t have the luxury of wasting hours of floor time when they are actually in session. That’s the point more so than one postponed vote for a nominee that will eventually get confirmed.

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    • I truly can’t believe the Mustafa Kasubhai cloture motion has been withdrawn with two Republicans out. Democrats need to do better. I’m not sure why four Democrats are out but absent a death in the family, it’s pretty much inexcusable.

      This country has well over 330 million people. We only get 100 US senators. If you are one of those 100, you need to make it to work. Too much is at stake. And this year more than just about any other, they have time off. Whatever they need to do, needs to be done Friday – Monday evening.

      This is why Schumer needs to file cloture for an extra nominee. Now we lose half a day because of bad attendance. They are off for two weeks after this week. They should work Friday and/or Saturday to make up the time.

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      • Although I’m frustrated, too, I’m also sure that the same people would have also complained, if Schumer had not filed cloture of Kasubhai or another judicial nominee, embarrassment would have been even bigger, when he would have failed to invoke cloture as it happened at Arianna Freeman. So withdraw it before saved him from that.

        Maybe that’s just a taste of what we have to expect in an election year.

        Liked by 1 person

  24. Yea…why scedule the vote when you don’t know who’s going to be there, especially when you already know it’s going to be a party line vote minus Manchin.
    Also, if Biden loses Michigan, this won’t be the reason why.

    Liked by 1 person

  25. They had to cancel the Dale Ho vote once to, at least he was ultimately confirmed. But this is just frustrating. They have 2 weeks off starting next week. They signed up to be a US Senator, and well, part of the job description is to show up and vote.. It’s just lazy

    Liked by 2 people

  27. Isn’t Durbin the Majority Whip? Isn’t he in charge of attendance? So if he was gonna be out, shouldn’t they have know that?

    Also, don’t even get me started on Fetterman missing more early week votes. PA is not that far from DC.

    These Senators were out yesterday and today and tomorrow is a holiday. Are they planning on coming in on Thursday? Wondering what this means for Maldonado’s vote.

    The thing that really kinda pisses me off about this is that if the Senators were gonna be out, fine. They could have scheduled a vote for one of the other DC Superior Court Judges or Robin Meriweather. It just feels like a wasted opportunity.

    Liked by 1 person

  28. So the Thursday schedule looks to be the Maldonado cloture vote. Not sure what they’ll vote on in the morning, like I mentioned last night there’s still some ambassador they could vote on whose cloture has been invoked (surprised they didn’t vote on that in its place today).

    If Schumer wanted to re-file cloture on Kasubhai for Thursday morning, would tomorrow count towards the 48 hours of the cloture ripening if the Senate is not in session? Not that I’d expect him to re-file cloture so soon. Durbin was out today and yesterday but would think he’d want to be back Thursday for chair the SJC hearing.

    The attendance today based off the Oler vote looks to be 48D-47R, but Manchin is in attendance so we would have needed either one more Republican out or one more Democrat in to vote on Kasubhai, if the VP was even in town.

    Liked by 1 person

  29. Is it time for our weekly reminder that Schumer does not know what he’s doing when it comes to setting up judicial confirmation votes?

    Schumer must have gotten enough senators to agree to support Kasubhai. That’s an important step he accomplished. Congrats, Schumer!

    Now for the next step, making sure those senators actually show up to vote, especially with a lot of prior notice. Fail. But hey, there’s always July, right?

    When Dems lose the WH and senate later this year and we have Republicans in charge of judicial selection next year, Dems will not have credibility to complain about being forced to stay in session for long periods and on weekends/close to holidays to vote on Fed Soc hacks, since they were satisfied with the just over 200 judges they got while they were in power and decided to start phoning it in for the rest of the year.

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  30. My guess is the Sinema and definitely the Durbin absence was unscheduled. Fetterman had that car crash last week and Menendez of course is in court.

    It’s a shame, because Schumer likely scheduled this knowing the ND senators were out of town, but not the opportunity has been wasted. At least we know they have 50 votes whipped for this one, though.

    At this point I just hope Maldonado’s vote Thursday isn’t in jeopardy.

    Liked by 1 person

  32. Sinema has been pretty vocal amount not being a fan of the amount of time the Senate is in session as it is. Considering she’s a lame duck, I would expect she’ll be missing quite a few votes for the rest of the Congress.

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  33. As expected, the SJC business meeting on Thursday was canceled. The nominees from the 6/5 hearing were added to the agenda so they’ll be held over and be able to be voted out with the 5/22 nominees on 7/11. Not sure if we’ll get the nominees posted for the hearing tonight or tomorrow, although there shouldn’t be any surprises there I would think.

    Liked by 1 person

  34. Schumer wrapped up. Military promotions confirmed on by UC (think those are the only nominations getting voice votes or UC through the election, if I understand the Mike Lee letter correctly). The Maldonado cloture vote is still on track for a 1:45PM vote on Thursday. Apparently no vote Thursday morning, figured they could at least confirm that ambassador who had cloture invoked but not confirmed yet.

    Liked by 1 person

  35. Not terribly surprising by Andrew Desiderio says,

    “Senate out tomorrow for Juneteenth…….I’m told several senators, particularly on the GOP side, have no intention of coming back on Thurs”.

    I know it’s not gonna happen but be nice if they did a Friday Maldonado confirmation vote just to put that to bed.

    Liked by 1 person

  37. https://alaskabeacon.com/briefs/alaska-gov-dunleavy-will-be-asked-to-pick-fourth-state-supreme-court-justice/

    Governor Dunleavy (R) will get to appoint a 4th Justice to the Alaska Supreme Court. Hopefully it will be another liberal/non-conservative. It helps that the Alaskan Judicial Council has narrowed his choices to have all liberal/moderate candidates, so he is typically forced to pick one. His past nominees:

    • Dario Borghesan- worked for ACLU, donations to Democratic candidates
    • Jennifer Henderson- former Wardlaw clerk, overruled Dunleavy’s veto of abortion funding as a superior court judge
    • Jude Pate- donations to Democratic candidates, public defender

    Liked by 1 person

    • He doesn’t have a whole lot of a choice in the matter. The AJC doesn’t send up any conservatives to him, which has made Dunleavy pretty pissed, and TBH justifiably so. I mean if you are going to let the Governor make the appointment, this is a bad system. It’d be better if the AJC just made the appointment themselves.

      Liked by 1 person

      • It’s about time a red state has some restrictions on who they can put on their Supreme Court. Both Delaware & New Jersey has partisan balance traditions that force Democrat governors to put Republicans on the highest court. Kentucky changed the law to prevent the current Democrat governor from appointing a replacement for the US senate with a Democrat. So, I shed no tears for the Republican governor of Alaska to have to put left of center or even out right liberals on their Supreme Corut. Hell sounds like they are getting better picks for that court then many of the district court judges we got out of blue states like New Jersey. 

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      • Alaska is one of the states that has one form or another of the Missouri Plan (it varies from state to state). This is a method of judicial selection based on merit (as defined by the self-interested lawyers who sit on the selection panels). And don’t think the results are always like the one in Alaska where you have a semi-decent bench.

        Case in point: Florida. Florida is a Missouri Plan state and it’s supreme court is as right wing as Oklahoma’s, another Missouri Plan state. You win some, you lose some.

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      • I have no problem with the Missouri plan, the goal is to make it merit based and remove politics from the process. That’s great. But if you are going to do that, remove the Governor from the system too. Let the committee pick the judge and then it goes up for a retention vote.
        The big problem with Alaska is that you just get a pissed off Governor who has to pick from three people he hates and will bring opposition to the whole process.

        The reason why FL and OK Supreme Courts are that right wing is that the Governor gets to appoint people to the committee. So they are stacked with FedSoc lawyers.

        Liked by 1 person

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