E-Paper
Who is Deborah Boardman? Federal judge slammed over 'lenient' sentence in Kavanaugh assassination plot
Deborah Boardman gave 8 years jail to Nicholas Roske, who goes by Sophie, after he was found guilty of trying to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Judge Deborah Boardman is facing flak from conservatives on social media for an apparent ‘lenient’ sentence for the person found guilty of trying to assassinate US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Boardman, a Joe Biden appointee, gave the defendant Nicholas Roske, who goes by Sophie, eight years in jail.
Mike Davis, former chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, said on X “Maryland U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman—a Biden appointee—is a national disgrace.”
“She only sentenced to 8 years, instead of 30, someone who attempted to murder Justice Kavanaugh and his family in their home. Make no mistake: Today’s Democrats want conservatives killed,” he added.
Also Read | Apple removes US immigration enforcement tracker from app store
The Department of Justice now plans to appeal the decision, with Attorney General Pam Bondi making the announcement on X.
“The attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a disgusting attack against our entire judicial system by a profoundly disturbed individual. The Justice Dept will be appealing the woefully insufficient sentence imposed by the district court, which does not reflect the horrific facts of this case,” she said.
Who is Judge Deborah Boardman?
Deborah Boardman is a District Judge born and raised in Maryland. She attended the Frederick County public schools and graduated summa cum laude from Villanova University.
After college, she was Fulbright Scholar in Amman, Jordan. Boardman got her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law and she was a member of The Virginia Law Review there. Upon graduating, she worked as a law clerk for the Honorable James C. Cacheris of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Boardman then worked as an associate at Hogan & Hartson LLP (now Hogan Lovells) in Washington, DC for six years, practicing complex commercial litigation. With an active pro bono practice, Boardman was selected as a senior associate at the firm's pro bono department.
In 2008, she joined the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the District of Maryland and was named First Assistant Federal Public Defender in 2015. She served a 11-year tenure with the Federal Defender’s office, during which time Boardman represented individuals charged with federal crimes in the courthouses of Greenbelt and Baltimore.
She was appointed a US Magistrate Judge for the District of Maryland in 2019. Boardman continued in this position till 2021, at which time she was nominated by then-president Joe Biden to be a US District Judge. She was confirmed by the Senate on June 23, 2021 and commissioned on June 25, 2021. She's had some notable rulings, and was among the first district judges to grant a preliminary injunction that blocked President Donald Trump's Executive Order 14160 – which sought to end birthright citizenship in the US, from taking effect on Feb 19.
