M. Margaret McKeown
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Judge M. Margaret McKeown (born May 11, 1951, in Casper, Wyoming) is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Judge McKeown received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wyoming in 1972, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and her juris doctor from Georgetown University Law Center in 1975. She has also received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Georgetown and studied at the University of Madrid. Judge McKeown is an adjunct professor at the University of Washington Law School and at the University of San Diego School of Law. She is best known in academia for her work in intellectual property law.
The first female partner with the law firm of Perkins Coie in Seattle, Washington, and Washington, D.C., Judge McKeown served in the White House under President Jimmy Carter. She was nominated for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Bill Clinton on March 29, 1996 and then renominated by Clinton on January 7, 1997. McKeown was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 27, 1998 by a vote of 80-11.
On September 6, 2007, Judge Margaret McKeown penned a judgement (for a three-judge panel) which affirmed a lower court ruling that banned display of the Sunrise Rock cross in the Preserve. She ruled that it was an impermissible governmental endorsement of religion: the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution bars the government from favoring any one religion, as it specifically applied to a white metal Latin cross in the Mojave National Preserve in southern California between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.[1]
[edit] External links
- [1]: Appellate Counsellor profile of Judge McKeown
- [2]: Citation accompanying Judge McKeown's honorary LLD
- [3]: Faculty page for the University of San Diego Law School
