Rosemary Barkett

Rosemary Barkett is a former federal appellate judge who served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from 1994 to 2013. Born in Mexico in 1939 to Syrian immigrant parents, she became a naturalized United States citizen and pursued a career in law after initially serving as a Catholic nun and educator. Before her appointment to the federal bench, Barkett made history as the first woman to serve on the Florida Supreme Court and later as that state's first female chief justice. Her nomination to the federal appellate court by President William J. Clinton, a Democrat, proved highly contentious, drawing significant opposition from conservative political figures and advocacy organizations. Following her retirement from the Eleventh Circuit, she continued her judicial career in international law.

Early life and legal career

Rosemary Barkett was born Rosemary Barakat on August 29, 1939, in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Her parents, Zaidal Assad and Mariam Barakat, were emigrants from Syria who had seven children survive to adulthood. As a native of Mexico, Barkett spoke only Spanish during her early childhood. In January 1946, when she was six years old, her entire family immigrated to Miami, Florida. Upon their arrival in Miami, the family changed the spelling of their surname from Barakat to Barkett. She became a United States citizen in 1958 at the age of eighteen.

At seventeen, Barkett joined the Sisters of St. Joseph, entering religious life as a Catholic nun. During her time in the religious order, she earned an Associate of Arts degree from Saint Joseph College of Florida. From 1960 to 1968, she worked as an educator, teaching elementary school and junior high school classes in several Florida cities, including Tampa, Jacksonville, and St. Augustine. In a 1990 interview with the Orlando Sentinel, she characterized the convent experience as being similar to a sorority, though without the social parties.

Barkett left the convent in 1967, the same year she completed her Bachelor of Science degree from Spring Hill College, graduating summa cum laude. She subsequently enrolled in law school at the University of Florida in 1970, where she distinguished herself academically. She became the first woman to win the Miller Memorial award, which recognized the outstanding senior graduate from the law school.

After completing her legal education, Barkett spent nearly a decade in private legal practice. In 1979, she received her first judicial appointment when Governor Bob Graham named her as a state circuit court judge. Her judicial career advanced steadily through Florida's court system. She became Chief Judge of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit of the State of Florida and subsequently served as an Appellate Judge on the Fourth District Court of Appeal of the State of Florida beginning in 1984.

In 1985, Governor Graham appointed Barkett to the Florida Supreme Court, making her the first woman to serve in that position. Her appointment marked a significant milestone and highlighted various institutional practices that had not previously accommodated female justices. Before her arrival, the floor housing the justices' chambers in the Supreme Court Building contained only two restrooms: one designated "Justices" and another marked "Ladies." Her tenure also brought changes to judicial titles; previously, justices had been addressed with the prefix "Mr. Justice." Barkett declined the suggested alternative "Madam Justice Barkett," explaining that she was unmarried and found the term inappropriate. She requested instead to be called simply "Justice Barkett," and the other justices subsequently dropped the "Mr." prefix from their own titles as well.

In 1992, Barkett's colleagues selected her to serve as chief justice, making her the first woman to hold that position in Florida. That same year, she faced a contentious merit retention election to remain on the state Supreme Court. Organizations including the National Rifle Association of America and Florida Right to Life conducted negative advertising campaigns against her retention. Despite this opposition, she received a favorable vote of 61 percent from Florida voters. During her tenure on the Florida Supreme Court, Barkett rendered approximately 12,000 decisions and authored roughly 3,000 opinions.

Federal appellate service

On September 24, 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Barkett to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which reviews cases from Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. The vacancy had been created by the departure of Judge Paul Hitch Roney. Her nomination immediately became the subject of intense political controversy and opposition from conservative politicians and commentators.

Senator Orrin Hatch, who served as the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, was among the prominent opponents of her nomination. The opposition focused substantially on criminal justice issues, with critics characterizing Barkett as being soft on crime and opposing capital punishment. Senator Strom Thurmond detailed the circumstances of murder cases in which Barkett had voted to overturn death sentences during her state court service. However, supporters noted that she had affirmed death penalty sentences 275 times while serving on the Florida Supreme Court. The controversy surrounding her nomination was covered extensively in publications including The New York Times and Mother Jones magazine. In a 1994 op-ed in The New York Times, columnist Anna Quindlen described the confirmation process and the focus on capital punishment cases.

Despite the opposition, Barkett received support from law enforcement organizations in Florida, including the Fraternal Order of Police, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, and the Correctional Peace Officers Association. The Democratic-controlled United States Senate confirmed her appointment by a vote of 61 to 37 on April 14, 1994. She received her commission the following day, on April 15, 1994, and assumed her position on the Eleventh Circuit.

Between 1994 and 1996, Barkett's name became a focal point in various political campaigns across the country, as conservative politicians used her confirmation as a campaign issue against their opponents. In Tennessee, Bill Frist successfully challenged incumbent Senator Jim Sasser in part by emphasizing that Sasser had voted to confirm Barkett. In California, Senate candidate Michael Huffington purchased full-page newspaper advertisements characterizing Barkett as a liberal activist judge and attempting to link her to his opponent, Dianne Feinstein, who had voted for the confirmation. Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole included Barkett among four judges he identified as part of a "judicial Hall of Shame" while campaigning on crime issues against President Clinton. Legal scholars later noted that much of the political advertising focused on a single dissenting opinion in which another member of the court had written the majority of the text.

Barkett served on the Eleventh Circuit until 2013, a tenure of nearly two decades. During this period, she was considered among the more liberal members of a twelve-judge circuit that predominantly leaned in a different ideological direction. Like other federal appellate judges, she typically heard cases as part of three-judge panels.

Jurisprudence and legacy

Barkett's career represents several significant milestones in American judicial history. She was recognized as the first woman to serve on the Florida Supreme Court and the first female chief justice of that court. Additionally, she was identified as the first Arab American and the first Hispanic judge of Syrian descent to serve on Florida's highest court, reflecting her family's Syrian heritage and her birth in Mexico.

Her path to the federal bench illustrated the increasingly contentious nature of judicial confirmations during the 1990s. The political battles surrounding her nomination foreshadowed later confirmation controversies for federal judicial appointments. The extensive use of her confirmation vote in subsequent political campaigns demonstrated how judicial appointments had become intertwined with broader partisan electoral strategies. Legal commentary, including analysis in law review articles, examined how political opposition to judicial nominees could focus on a narrow selection of decisions from extensive judicial records.

Throughout her state and federal judicial service, Barkett participated in thousands of cases spanning diverse areas of law. Her nearly two-decade tenure on the Eleventh Circuit contributed to the development of federal law in the three states within that circuit's jurisdiction. The Eleventh Circuit handles appeals in a wide range of matters, including civil rights, criminal law, immigration, and administrative law, among other areas of federal jurisdiction.

Following her retirement from the Eleventh Circuit in 2013, Barkett continued her judicial work in the international arena, serving as a judge of the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal at The Hague. This tribunal addresses claims between the two nations and their nationals arising from events before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Her appointment to this international body represented a continuation of her judicial career beyond the federal appellate bench and demonstrated the breadth of her legal expertise across different judicial systems and areas of law.