9th Circuit Judge Pamela Rymer Dies
Corrected: Judge Pamela Rymer of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has died.
Rymer, 70, died after battling cancer, report the Associated Press and the Recorder. She continued to work after her diagnosis in 2009 and last heard oral arguments in July.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski praised Rymer’s dedication to work and passion for law, while Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw noted a more unusual passion, the Recorder says. “I will remember her for her clever wit, playful sense of humor, love of sports and all things Stanford, joyful celebration of holidays and, of course, her frogs,” Wardlaw said in prepared remarks.
Rymer had a large collection of stuffed frogs and kept some of them in her chambers, the Recorder says. She was a conservative judge who worked for the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign in 1964. With Rymer’s death, the 9th Circuit now has four vacancies, How Appealing reports.
Meanwhile, President Obama has nominated U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Nguyen to the 9th Circuit, according to a press release. She was born in Vietnam and fled Saigon as it was falling in 1975.
The nomination of Alaska Supreme Court Justice Morgan Christen to the 9th Circuit is pending. She was nominated in May, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.
Pronoun reference to Christen was corrected at 9:28 a.m.
