كلية الحقوق

Garland attended Harvard University for his undergraduate and legal education. After serving as a law clerk for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge William J. Brennan Jr. on the Supreme Court of the United States, he practiced litigation at Arnold & Porter and served as a federal prosecutor in the US Department of Justice, where he played a leading role in the investigation and prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, nominated Garland to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in March 2016 to fill the vacancy created by the death of Antonin Scalia. Although Republicans themselves spent years perceiving Garland's proposal as an acceptable Democratic choice, the Republican majority in the Senate refused to hold a hearing or vote on the nomination, which took place during the final year of Obama's presidency, with the Republican majority insisting that the next president-elect should fill vacancy. The Senate's unprecedented refusal to consider the nomination was highly controversial. Some Republican lawmakers have suggested leaving the court with only eight seats if Hillary Clinton is elected, saying they would block Garland or any other candidate and keep the seat vacant for at least one more presidential term. Garland's nomination lasted 293 days and ended on January 3, 2017, at the end of the 114th Congress. The vacant seat appointed to him by President Donald Trump was filled by Neil Gorsuch.