Washington D.C. – After political struggles from the Island, the president Joe Biden today appointed the Judge of Appeals Gina Mendez Miroto the federal magistrate Camille Velez Rivé and the secretary of Federal Court of San Juan Maria Antorgiorgi Jordan to fill the three vacancies on the US court in Puerto Rico.
Méndez Miró, Vélez Rivé and Antorgiorgi are candidates to occupy the seats left by Gustavo Gelpí, promoted to the First Circuit of Federal Appeals in Boston; Carmen Consuelo Vargas, who resigned; and Francisco Besosa, who due to age became a senior judge.
Biden had pending to fill those vacancies from the end of 2021. According to White House sources, the appointment process was slightly delayed due to the dedication that there was on the appointment and confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court of the United States.
He has chosen three women. President Biden made the announcement this morning – along with four other appointments to the federal judiciary in the United States – six months after the close of the 117th session of Congress, marked by the November legislative elections.
Referring to Méndez Miró, Biden indicated that his new list of candidates for the federal judiciary includes what would be “the first openly LGBTQIA+ federal district court judge in Puerto Rico.”
Méndez Miró has been a judge of the Court of Appeals of Puerto Rico since 2016. Before that, she was chief of staff of the then president of the Senate, Eduardo Bhatia, and deputy secretary of Justice for Human Resources.
She graduated as a lawyer from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) School of Law and has a master’s degree from Princeton University. She is married to Maite Oronoz Rodríguez, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico and who was considered for the position that Gelpí now occupies.
In Washington DC, Méndez Miró had the support of Puerto Rican Democratic congresswoman Nydia Velázquez (New York), and her colleague Grace Meng, among others, according to sources. His appointment was also promoted by former governors Sila María Calderón, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá and Alejandro García Padilla, elected officials from New York, and the presidents of the Senate of Puerto Rico, José Luis Dalmau Santiago, and of the House of Representatives, Rafael “Tatito” Hernández. Montanez.
“Gina Méndez Miró is a great appointment because it adds humanism, intellectuality and well-studied critical thinking to the Federal Court. She is a woman full of compassion, empathy and respect for the dignity of all human beings. It is a great day for the federal justice system in Puerto Rico and the United States,” said former Senator Bhatia.
For Vélez Rivé, meanwhile, the appointment is a promotion.
Vélez Rivé was one of the people included in Governor Pedro Pierluisi’s list of candidates. She has been a magistrate of the San Juan Federal Court since 2004. From 1998 to 2004 she was an assistant federal prosecutor in San Juan. She was also a legal officer for then-federal judge Francisco Rebollo López. She studied Law at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR).
“She has been a magistrate in federal court for almost two decades and has seen hundreds of matters related to police interventions with citizens, bail proposals and civil trials. When she starts as a district judge she once she is confirmed she will know firsthand how to run her room and how to resolve criminal and civil disputes because she already has vast experience. She will not get to learn and, with a district as packed with work as Puerto Rico, that is an asset”, said the lawyer and political commentator Leo Aldridge, praising the appointment of Vélez Rivé.
Antorgiorgi Jordán has been the secretary of the Federal Court of San Juan since 2019. From 2018 to 2019 she was the deputy secretary of the judicial forum to which she is now a candidate for judge. She was a partner at the law firm McConnell Valdés. She has a Master of Laws from Georgetown University.
The three appointees will go to a confirmation process in a Senate divided evenly, with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. Democrats control the Senate because US Vice President Kamala Harris is the president of the legislative body and can break any tie.
The appointments will be referred to the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Democrat Richard Durbin (Illinois), who is also number two in the Senate.
The White House also considered Mayte Bayolo, who works with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU); the legal advisor to the resident commissioner in Washington, Jenniffer González, Verónica Ferraiuoli; the former senator of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) and former president of the Democratic Party of the United States in Puerto Rico Roberto Prats; federal public defender Sulay Ríos Fuentes; and the American attorney residing on the Island Rachel Brill
Governor Pierluisi had Justice Camille Vélez Rivé among his candidates, but his allies publicly campaigned against Ríos Fuentes -whom they challenged for allegedly being an independentista-, and Brill. Other sources have rejected that Ríos Fuentes is an independentista.
Both Senator Carmelo Ríos, Secretary General of the New Progressive Party (PNP), and Congressman Darren Soto, a Democrat from Florida, publicly expressed themselves against the appointment of an independentista and a person who was not of Puerto Rican descent.
Governor Pierluisi had a meeting at the White House on January 31 about the vacancies, with legal counsel to President Biden, Steve Ricchetti, and the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, Julie Chavez Rodríguez, co-chair of the group interagency on Puerto Rico.
“Pierluisi demanded that the president (Biden) appoint people who not only have the necessary qualities and experience, but also know the Puerto Rican reality and enjoy broad support in our community. That is what is going to guarantee that they are confirmed in the federal Senate,” said the executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA), Carmen Feliciano, representative of the governor in Washington.
The appointments announced today by Biden include Bradley García as the first Latino candidate for the Washington DC Circuit of Appeals, considered the second highest court in the United States. García is number two in the office of the Legal Advisor of the federal Department of Justice.