WASHINGTON (ABP) — A longtime Missouri Baptist leader and state Supreme Court justice has been nominated to the federal bench.
In February, President Bush nominated Duane Benton to a vacant seat on the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Benton, 53, has been a Missouri Supreme Court justice since 1991. He served as that court's chief justice from 1997-1999. He was appointed by then-Gov. John Ashcroft (R).
Benton is a longtime deacon, trustee and Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church of Jefferson City, Mo. He also is a past member of the Missouri Baptist Foundation's board and currently a member of the Missouri Baptist Convention's Committee on Continuing Review.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Benton's confirmation April 8. Despite recent bitter partisan disputes over Bush's nominees in the Senate, Benton received high praise from senators of both parties.
“He's just one of the smartest people I've ever met,” said Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.). “He has a good sense of humor — and a good sense of humble, too.”
In a statement released at the hearing, the committee's ranking Democrat, Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.,) praised Benton for his judicial record, calling his opinions “quite good, laying out the facts and the law with no hint of any personal bias.”
Leahy also praised Benton for his fairness on death penalty cases, noting that in opinions he has written on capital-punishment cases, Benton has affirmed 12 and reversed nine death-penalty decisions. “I think it is telling that he is willing to see beyond what are always terrible facts in these cases to ensure that justice and important constitutional safeguards are preserved.”
However, Leahy contrasted the confirmation Benton will likely receive from the Republican-controlled Senate with the earlier treatment of one of his colleagues on the Missouri Supreme Court, Ronnie White. White was nominated by then-President Bill Clinton to a seat on the 8th Circuit, but his nomination was torpedoed by Ashcroft — then a senator — over a record similar to Benton's on death-penalty cases.
Benton is a graduate of Northwestern University, Yale Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the University of Memphis' business school. He also is a certified public accountant. His wife, Sandra Snyder Benton, is a registered nurse with the Jefferson City School District. They have two children.
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