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Greencastle native in line to be Justice Scalia successor?
A 51-year-old Greencastle native may be in line to succeed the late Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.
The name of Jane Louise Kelly, born and raised in Greencastle, was one of a handful of possibilities being tossed around as potential successors by national media reports Monday in the aftermath of Scalia's death.
Kelly currently serves as United States circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in eastern Iowa.
The New York Times identified Kelly as a potential Supreme Court nominee to succeed Justice Scalia, who died Saturday. She has, after all, a track record as an apparent favorite of President Barack Obama.
On Jan. 31, 2013, President Obama nominated Kelly to serve in her current position as circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Her nomination to the seat vacated by Judge Michael Joseph Melloy was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 96-0 vote on April 24, 2013.
A 1983 Greencastle High School graduate, Kelly showed academic prowess early on, being named co-valedictorian of her Tiger Cub class with Michele Lewis.
According to a 1978 City of Greencastle Directory, Jane Louise Kelly (born in 1964) and her sister Lisa Anne (two years older) were listed as the children of Richard Kelly, a DePauw University psychology professor and one-time director of the Bureau of Testing and Researching, and Judith C. Kelly, a part-time DePauw instructor. The Kellys were living at 612 Ridge Ave. at the time.
After graduating from GHS, Kelly went on to graduate summa cum laude from Duke University in 1987 with a bachelor of arts degree.
She received her Juris Doctor cum laude in 1991 from Harvard Law School where her graduating class included President Obama.
According to Wikipedia, following graduation, she clerked for Chief Judge Donald J. Porter of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota in Sioux Falls, S.D.
She then clerked for Judge David R. Hansen of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. She worked briefly as a visiting instructor at the University of Illinois College of Law while working on her LLM (which she did not complete).
Becoming an assistant federal public defender in the Northern District of Iowa in 1994, she served as the supervising attorney in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, office from 1999 to 2013.
Kelly made national news in 2004 when she was attacked and brutally beaten while jogging in a Cedar Rapids park. Kelly was left barely conscious in a creek. Her male assailant was never identified and she resumed her legal duties in 2005.
Meanwhile, one of the Republicans Kelly will have to get past to reach the Supreme Court spot, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee that oversees the nomination process.
While Grassley reportedly championed Kelly's quick Senate confirmation during her bid for the U.S. Court of Appeals, he's now spouting the GOP line.
"Given the huge divide in the country," Grassley told the press, "and the fact that this president, above all others, has made no bones about his goal to use the courts to circumvent Congress and push through his own agenda, it only makes sense that we defer to the American people who will elect a new president to select the next Supreme Court justice."
Other candidates reportedly considered in the running for Scalia's Supreme Court seat, according to national media sources, include:
-- Sri Srinivasan, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
-- Amy Klobuchar, U.S. senator from Minnesota.
-- Merrick Garland, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
-- Paul Watford, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
-- Jacqueline Nguyen, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
-- Pam Karlan, Stanford Law School law professor.