Thompson

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will consider President Obama’s nomination of Rhode Island Superior Court Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

The 10 a.m. hearing will be led by Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse by order of committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont. Whitehouse, who sits on the committee, recommended her nomination with Sen. Jack Reed.

Under the typical process, Thompson will briefly address the committee and then respond to questions. Committee members will then have a week to submit follow-up questions to Thompson. If the committee votes for her nomination, it will advance to the full Senate for consideration.

Whitehouse expressed his support for Thompson on Tuesday.

“Judge Thompson has a long and distinguished record as a lawyer and a judge in Rhode Island,” Whitehouse said in an e-mail. “I look forward to chairing her confirmation hearing, where my colleagues will have the opportunity to learn about her exceptional qualifications. I am confident that the committee will support her nomination and that the full Senate will confirm her.”

President Obama nominated Thompson in September. If confirmed, she would become the first black and the second woman to serve on the Boston-based appeals court. She would replace Senior Circuit Judge Bruce M. Selya.

President Obama has not yet moved on the senators’ U.S. District Court in Rhode Island recommendation of John J. “Jack” McConnell Jr., a Providence lawyer prominent in state Democratic politics. McConnell would replace retired U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres, if nominated and confirmed.

Thompson did not receive the full support of an American Bar Association committee that evaluates all nominees to the federal bench.

The majority of the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which rates all prospective federal judges, gave Thompson a qualified, or satisfactory, rating after a review of her work and extensive interviews with other professionals in the field. At least five members of the same body, however, thought she did not meet the committee standards in one or more areas. She is the only one of the president’s 27 nominees to receive unqualified votes from the panel.

One of the judges to receive a split rating previously, however, is Judge Richard A. Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, a highly esteemed judge. That rating, in the 1980s, won the committee criticism as left-leaning.

Thompson attended Pembroke College, then the female college of Brown University. She graduated from Brown after the two schools merged and earned a law degree from Boston University Law School. She is married to state District Court Judge William C. Clifton. The couple has three children.

She made history in 1988 when she became the first African-American woman named to state District Court. She was appointed to Superior Court in 1997.

Thompson, 58, put her name in for the U.S. District Court and 1st Circuit seats, inspired, she said at the time, by the fact that an African-American had not been appointed to either court and that only one woman has served on each.

kmulvane@projo.com