U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt of Houston took senior status on March 2nd, leaving three federal trial benches in the Southern District of Texas for President Barack Obama to fill.
Hoyt, who was appointed to the bench in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan, was the second ever African American to serve on a U.S. District Court bench in Texas. He did not immediately return a call for comment.
Hoyt will join the ranks of senior judges helping the busy Southern District of Texas keeping its docket moving while the White House looks for suitable replacements, says Ricardo Hinojosa, chief judge of the Southern District of Texas.
“We have three vacancies now. We have Judge [Janis] Jack in Corpus Christi, Judge [Hilda] Tagle in Brownsville and Judge Hoyt in Houston,” Hinojosa says. “We’ve been fortunate with our senior judges in that they have taken a good size load. Some of them taken a full load . . . We look forward to new nominations coming down and having new judges join us,” he says.
--- John Council
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