For the second time since Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s election, a federal judge rescinded his decision to take senior status after confirming that Democratic President Joe Biden had run out of time to fill the seat.
U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn, appointed by Democratic former President Barack Obama in Asheville, North Carolina, announced in 2022 his plan to assume senior status—a semi-retirement role—once a successor gained confirmation.
However, Biden did not nominate anyone for the position. This week, Cogburn’s name disappeared from the federal judiciary’s official list of judges intending to vacate their seats at future dates.
James Ishida, the circuit executive for the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, confirmed late Wednesday that Cogburn decided to remain in active service and notified the White House in writing. The 4th Circuit oversees Cogburn’s court, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.
Cogburn reversed his decision shortly after U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley, based in Columbus, Ohio, withdrew his own plans to take senior status days after Trump won the November 5 election. Marbley, appointed by Democratic former President Bill Clinton, made his decision public earlier.
Senior status allows judges aged 65 or older with at least 15 years of federal service to transition to reduced caseloads while still hearing cases. This arrangement enables presidents to appoint new full-time judges to replace those who take senior status.
Over the past two decades, research shows judges increasingly timed their decisions to align with a president of the same party as the one who appointed them.
On the same day Cogburn disclosed his reversal, the judiciary announced that U.S. District Judge Frank Whitney, another Western District of North Carolina jurist, decided to take senior status effective Sunday. Whitney, appointed by Republican former President George W. Bush, became one of the first judges since Trump’s election to announce plans to assume senior status.
Cogburn, 73, declined to comment, as did the White House. Cogburn, who joined the federal bench in 2011, made notable decisions, including a 2014 ruling that struck down North Carolina’s gay marriage ban.
Biden missed an opportunity to nominate a candidate for Cogburn’s seat, limiting his efforts to diversify the federal bench. The Western District of North Carolina has yet to see a woman or person of color serve as a life-tenured judge.
Any nominee for Cogburn’s seat would have required approval from North Carolina’s two Republican senators, including Senator Thom Tillis, a Senate Judiciary Committee member. Tillis criticized the White House’s process for selecting judicial nominees, particularly Ryan Park, whose nomination to the 4th Circuit no longer seems likely to proceed following a bipartisan lame-duck agreement on judicial nominations.
Tillis’ office declined to comment on Cogburn’s decision but previously called it “partisan politics” for judges who had submitted retirement plans to reverse their decisions.
