Event: A Conversation about State Constitutional Law with Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton and Justice Evan A. Young
Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2023
Time: 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: Belo Mansion, 2101 Ross Ave., Dallas, Texas 75201
CLE Credit: CLE credit is pending
State constitutions are a vital, yet often underappreciated, element of America’s legal system—providing valuable lessons for both the protection of individual liberties and the separation of powers. Please join us for a conversation about the importance of state constitutional law, featuring Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Justice Evan A. Young of the Texas Supreme Court.
Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton: The Honorable Jeffrey S. Sutton assumed the position of Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Saturday, May 1, 2021. He succeeded Judge R. Guy Cole, Jr., who had served in the role since 2014. Chief Judge Sutton, whose chambers are in Columbus, Ohio, is the eighteenth judge of the court to serve in this capacity.
Chief Judge Sutton was nominated to the court by President George Walker Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate in April 2003. He earned his law degree from The Ohio State University College of Law in 1990 and subsequently clerked for the Honorable Thomas Meskill of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, as well as two Supreme Court Justices, the Honorable Lewis F. Powell, Jr., and the Honorable Antonin Scalia. Chief Judge Sutton was in private practice in Columbus from 1992 to 1995 and 1998 to 2003, and served as Solicitor General of Ohio from 1995 to 1998. He has also served as an adjunct professor of law at the Ohio State University College of Law and as a visiting lecturer at Harvard Law School.
Chief Judge Sutton has authored books and articles on a wide variety of topics, including two recent books on the importance of state constitutional law—51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law and Who Decides: States As Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation. Before his confirmation to the court, he argued twelve cases in the United States Supreme Court and numerous cases in the state supreme courts and the federal courts of appeal. He served as the Chair of the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 2012 to 2016, and served as the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules. In 2006, Judge Sutton was elected to the American Law Institute, and in 2017 he was elected to its Council.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit maintains appellate jurisdiction over nine district courts in the states of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. The court is authorized a complement of sixteen active judges and is headquartered at the Potter Stewart United States Courthouse, located in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Justice Evan A. Young: Evan Young is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas. After law school, he clerked for Judge Wilkinson at the Fourth Circuit and Justice Scalia at the Supreme Court. He then served as Counsel to the Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorneys General Gonzales and Mukasey. While on the Attorney General’s staff, he accepted a detail to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad where he was the Deputy Rule of Law Coordinator. In that position he worked to assist the Iraqi government in its efforts to strengthen its legal regime, including, for example, its courts and prison system. He returned to Texas in 2009 and entered private practice, which focused on trial and appellate litigation. He argued cases before both the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Texas, as well as many federal and state appellate courts. He left private practice on November 10, 2021, when he was sworn into office by Governor Greg Abbott. Justice Young was elected to a full term in November 2022.