Judge Reggie B. Walton

CLEO 1971

“CLEO afforded me both the confidence that I could tackle the rigorous demands of law school and provided me the initial foundation I needed to become a successful member of the legal profession. Without CLEO, my path to the success I have achieved would have undoubtedly been considerably more difficult.”

Judge Reggie B. Walton was born in Donora, Pennsylvania on February 8, 1949. He graduated from West Virginia State University in 1971. While at State, he was a three year letterman on the football team and played on the 1968 nationally ranked conference championship team. He was also the Chief Justice of the Student Court during his senior year at State. Judge Walton received his Juris Doctor from the American University, Washington College of Law, in 1974. Judge Walton assumed his current position as a U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia in 2001. He was also appointed by President George W. Bush in 2004 as the Chair of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, a commission created by Congress to identify methods to curb the incidents of prison rape. The U.S. Attorney General substantially adopted the Commission’s recommendations for implementation in federal prisons; other federal, state and local officials throughout the country are considering adopting the recommendations. Former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist appointed Judge Walton to the federal judiciary’s Criminal Law Committee in 2005, on which he served until 2011. In 2007, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Walton to a 7-year term as a Judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and he was subsequently appointed Presiding Judge in 2013. He completed his term on that court on May 18, 2014. Upon completion of his appointment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Walton to serve as a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management.

Judge Walton previously served as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia from 1981 to 1989 and 1991 to 2001. From 1989 to 1991, Judge Walton served as President George H. W. Bush’s Associate Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the Executive Office of the President, and also as the Senior White House Advisor for Crime. Judge Walton served as the Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1980 to 1981, and was an Assistant U.S. Attorney there from 1976 to 1980. From 1979 to 1980, Judge Walton was the Chief of the Office’s Career Criminal Unit. He was a staff attorney in the Defender Association of Philadelphia from 1974 to 1976. Judge Walton has been the recipient of dozens of local, national, and international honors and awards, including recently the National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service Medal, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency Seal Medal, which is that agency’s highest civilian honor. He has presided over notable trials, including those of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and of former Major League Baseball player Roger Clemens. Judge Walton was also one of 14 judges profiled in a 1994 book titled “Black Judges On Justice: Perspectives From The Bench,” the first effort to assess the judicial perspectives of prominent African-American judges in the country. Judge Walton traveled to Russia in 1996 to instruct Russian judges on criminal law in a program funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and the American Bar Association’s Central and East European Law Initiative Reform Project. He is also an instructor in Harvard Law School’s Advocacy Workshop and a faculty member at the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada. Judge Walton has been active in working with the youth of the Washington, D.C. area and throughout the nation. He has served as a Big Brother and often speaks at schools throughout the Washington Metropolitan area concerning drugs, crime, and personal responsibility. Judge Walton and his wife are the parents of one daughter.