Senate confirms Hialeah native and Braman’s nephew as federal judges in Miami

Two former prosecutors — a daughter of Cuban immigrants and a nephew of a wealthy businessman — were confirmed Tuesday as federal judges by the U.S. Senate to fill two of three long-vacant judicial positions in the Southern District of Florida, one of the busiest regions for criminal and civil cases in the country.

Jacqueline Becerra, who grew up in Hialeah, was confirmed by a 56-40 vote. A graduate of the University of Miami and Yale University Law School, Becerra currently is a magistrate judge in Miami and previously worked as a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office and as a partner with the Greenberg Traurig law firm.

The Senate also confirmed David Leibowitz, who served in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan before working as general counsel for his uncle’s auto empire, Braman Motors, based in Miami. The vote was 64-33.

A third former prosecutor, Melissa Damian, who worked in the U.S. attorney’s office before serving as a U.S. magistrate judge in Miami, was confirmed Wednesday by a 77-20 vote. Damian, a graduate of Princeton University and UM law school, clerked early in her career for former U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro, who championed her bid for the federal bench.

The addition of the three new federal judges will help address a demanding caseload in the Southern District, where each judge oversees an average of 1,085 criminal and civil cases a year — two and a half times the national average, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

“It’s unfortunate because it puts two and half times more pressure on the current and senior judges in the Southern District than others in the rest of the country,” said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias, an expert on judicial nominations. “They are under water and drowning ... As for litigants, their cases are getting delayed, especially civil cases.”

Florida delay

All three South Florida candidates were nominated by President Joe Biden in November, late into his first term, the result of his Democratic administration pushing a cross-section of judicial nominees in states with two Democratic senators or a Democratic senator and a Republican senator.

In Florida, Biden took longer than usual because of the formidable influence of two GOP senators, Marco Rubio in Miami and Rick Scott in Tampa, according to judicial experts.

As senators, they have the power to back or block judicial nominees in the confirmation process. In Rubio’s case, the senior senator backed the nomination of Leibowitz, thanks in part to politics. His uncle, Norman Braman, donated between $5 million and $10 million to Rubio’s presidential campaign in 2016, records show.

Becerra and Damian currently sit as U.S. magistrate judges in South Florida, a venue known for handling prominent cases, including Bush v. Gore, the Elián González saga and the ongoing prosecution of Donald Trump over his handling of classified documents. Becerra is currently overseeing a case involving the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.

Becerra’s Cuban roots

Becerra, 53, has deep roots in the Miami-Dade and Cuban-American communities.

“My parents both came to the United States after the Cuban revolution,” Becerra said in a 2021 Federal Bar Association interview. “They were not given the opportunities to study, so they just worked and built a family. They ended up raising four college-educated women. They instilled in me the belief that even a Cuban-American girl from Hialeah could achieve the goals to which she set her mind.”

Leibowitz, 52, a corporate attorney in Miami for the past decade, was on a short list of candidates to be nominated by former President Donald Trump, but he did not get appointed to the federal bench before Trump lost to Biden in the 2020 election.

When Leibowitz got the nod from Biden in November, a White House official stressed that it was based on his qualifications, not his relationships, calling him “a highly qualified candidate.”

“He has extensive credentials including a JD from the University of Pennsylvania and a PHD from the London School of Economics. Leibowitz has served at the state level for 15 years — from Rhode Island to Massachusetts to New York,” the White House official said.

Black leaders upset

Biden’s picks of Becerra, Leibowitz and Damian — all with Ivy League credentials — left leaders in the Black community disappointed with his decision not to select one of the Black candidates for the three federal judicial openings in South Florida. Among them: a spot created in January 2023 with the death of U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke in Miami, the first Black woman appointed to the federal bench in Florida.

However, the recent transfer of U.S. District Judge Robert Scola to senior status has created another vacancy in Miami that is likely to be filled by a Black candidate, including one who was on the short list of nominees recommended by both GOP and Democratic nomination panels in South Florida. The leading candidate to fill Scola’s vacancy is: Detra Shaw-Wilder, a Black lawyer at Miami-based Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, a commercial law firm that was involved in securing a settlement for the families of the Surfside building-collapse victims.

U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Black Democrat representing Miami, said in a statement that she was “disappointed” by Biden’s decision to not nominate a Black woman to fill Cooke’s seat.

“To many, it’s as if the administration has overlooked the wishes of the Black community and the challenges and disparities that we face in the justice system,” Wilson said in November. “It is my hope that the Administration makes good on its promise to advance the cause of justice, equality, and opportunity for all. As judicial openings become available, I will continue to work with the White House and hold them to their commitment to prioritize the appointment of Black women to the federal bench.”

The Judicial Diversity Initiative, a coalition of Black bar associations, also released a statement echoing Wilson’s frustration. “This disappointment is deepened by the fact that the White House appears to have overlooked multiple, qualified and well-regarded Black women attorneys and judges in the Southern District,” read the statement, signed by eight attorneys.

Biden, who in 2022 nominated the first-ever Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court — picking Ketanji Brown Jackson, who grew up in Miami — will have another opportunity to name a new judge to the federal bench in Miami with Scola’s move to senior status.

On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed a Black magistrate judge, Julie Sneed, as federal judge in the Middle District of Florida, which includes Orlando. The vote was 54-44.