QUESTIONNAIRE FOR NOMINEES BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, UNITED STATES SENATE

AFFIDAVIT

I, Jay Scott Bybee, being duly sworn, hereby state that I have read and signed the foregoing Questionnaire for Nominees Before the Committee on the Judiciary and that the information provided therein is, to the best of my knowledge, current, accurate, and complete.

SUBSCRIBED AND SWORN TO before me this 24 day of yo

May

2002

Chairman HATCH. Thank you so much.

If we could call our three other nominees to the witness table, and if you would all raise your hands. Please raise your hands to be sworn.

Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give before the Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?

Judge ERICKSON. I do.
Judge QUARLES. I do.
Judge FROST. I do.

Chairman HATCH. Thank you very much.

We are delighted to welcome all of you here. It is a signal honor to be recommended by this President or any President for a position in the Federal Courts, and we feel very grateful that the three of you are willing to accept these positions. We know there is a degree of sacrifice in serving in the Federal judiciary, and you do become kind of very much isolated after a while, but we are grateful to all of you for doing that.

Why do we not start with you, Judge Erickson, then you, Judge Quarles, and then you, Judge Frost. Introduce your family and friends here and make any statement you would care to make.

STATEMENT OF RALPH R. ERICKSON, NOMINEE TO BE DISTRICT JUDGE FOR THE DISTRICT OF NORTH DAKOTA Judge ERICKSON. Thank you, Chairman Hatch. I have no statement that I would like to make at this time, but I would like to introduce some members of my family that are present.

My wife, Michele, and my two daughters, Elizabeth, age 5, and Hannah, age 7; my sister Robyn Gonitzke and her daughterChairman HATCH. Good to have you here.

Judge ERICKSON. —her daughter, my niece Brittany.
Chairman HATCH. Brittany.

Judge ERICKSON. My brother Paul and my lovely sister-in-law Katie, and a very dear friend of mine, a member of the bar from North Dakota, who is also a priest and teaching in Baltimore, Father Phil Brown.

Chairman HATCH. Father, we are happy to have you here. We are happy to have all of you here, and we hope you enjoy these proceedings. I anticipate that you will.

Judge Quarles?

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM QUARLES, NOMINEE TO BE

DISTRICT JUDGE FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

Judge QUARLES. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.

I, too, have no prepared speech, but I would like to thank you and the members of the Commission for providing me and the rest of the nominees this opportunity to be heard this morning.

I also want to thank Senator Sarbanes and Mikulski. They spoke about the tradition that they have followed in recommending nominations to the District Court. They have both been extremely helpful and supportive, and I do want to thank them for that.

I also want to introduce my wife, Mary Ann Quarles, who is here.

Chairman HATCH. Happy to have you here, Mrs. Quarles.

Judge QUARLES. We spared you the trial of bringing our terrier Nellie here in the interest of a quieter hearing.

(Laughter.]

Judge QUARLES. Thank you for the opportunity, sir.

Chairman HATCH. Well, thank you, Judge. We welcome you, Mrs. Quarles, to the committee.

Judge Frost?

STATEMENT OF GREGORY L. FROST, NOMINEE TO BE DISTRICT JUDGE FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO Judge FROST. Mr. Chairman, thank you for having us here today and having this hearing.

I recognize the hard work that this Committee does. It's a privilege and an honor for me to be here, and I appreciate all of your hard work.

Although Senator DeWine, in his fine remarks, introduced my family and friends, I would like to reintroduce them because if I do not, I will hear about it later.

Chairman HATCH. That is very judicious of you.
[Laughter.]

Judge FROST. First, my wife, Kris. Thank you.
Chairman HATCH. Nice to have you here.

Judge FROST. My mother Mildred Frost and my mother-in-law Helen Dix are present.

Chairman HATCH. We are honored to have both of you here.

Judge FROST. My son Wes Frost and his friend Amanda Leonard are present.

Chairman HATCH. Good. Welcome to the hearing.

Judge FROST. Beth Thomson, my sister, and my sister-in-law Kim Thomson.

Chairman HATCH. Nice to you have Thomsons here.

Judge FROST. Shawn Judge, a friend, is here, and Sarah Barrickman, my law clerk, is here.

Chairman HATCH. Welcome. Glad to have you.

Judge FROST. Nancy Dillon is a friend who is here, Doug McMarlin, who I believe just arrived and is in the back of the room, is here.

Chairman HATCH. Welcome, Nancy and Doug.

Judge FROST. And then, finally, Mike Nicks, who is a practicing attorney in my hometown of Newark, Ohio.

Chairman HATCH. Nice of you to come, Mike. Glad to have you here.

Judge FROST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman HATCH. I am going to turn the hearings over to Senator DeWine. And I am hopeful I can get back, but until I do, Senator DeWine is going to be in charge.

Senator DEWINE. [Presiding] Let me welcome each one of you. Thank you very much for joining us. Let me assure you this will be a rather painless experience.

I am not familiar with two of your States, the judicial system, but each one of you, I assume, is the initial trial court judge; is that correct? Each one of you has the felony trials?

Judge ERICKSON. That's correct.

Judge QUARLES. Yes. As Senator, I believe, Mikulski said, we have two trial levels in the State of Maryland; one is the District Court level, which is essentially misdemeanors and certain civil matters. The next level, the level in which I serve, is the Circuit for Baltimore City. Those are the jury trials, serious felonies, and general civil jurisdiction.

Senator DEWINE. Judge Erickson, that would be the same?

Judge ERICKSON. Yes, our District Court is a general jurisdiction court. I like to say we take cases from dog-at-large to murder.

Senator DEWINE. Of course, Judge Frost, our Common Pleas is basically the same.

Judge FROST. Felony jurisdiction and all civil cases over $10,000. Senator DEWINE. Let me ask each one of you, and maybe I will start with you, Judge Frost, what, during your time on the bench, you have learned that you think will prepare you to serve on the District Court? When I look at your background for each one of you, what stands out, of course, as your experience?

I think there are many ways and many different backgrounds that people bring when they come to the District Court judge, and there is no one given set of backgrounds that is preferable over another, but the advantage each one of you has I think is that you do have a record and that we can look at that record, and we can judge you, and your peers can judge you, and we can ask your peers how do they do on the bench, and so that is at least the advantage that we have with each one of you.

So let me start with you, Judge Frost, and I would just ask you what you have learned in your time on the bench that you think will help you to be a better District Court judge?

Judge FROST. Thank you, Senator.

Senator DEWINE. And maybe some of the mistakes you have made and what you have learned.

Judge FROST. Thank you, Senator DeWine.

You do learn from your mistakes. There is no doubt about that. I think one of the main lessons I have learned is just to simply, on the 20 years of trial-level benches that I have been serving, is to treat everyone fairly, to allow the attorneys to do their job, to have firm control over the docket, which is I think important and will be just as important on the District Court, and to work hard. I expect a lot out of the attorneys who appear before me and, conversely, I think they expect a lot out of me, and so hard work is also that.

And then, finally, patience, patience, patience.

Senator DEWINE. Judge?

Judge QUARLES. One of the blessings of working at the Circuit Court for Baltimore City for 6 years is that it is a very busy court. We have 24 judicial circuits in the State of Maryland. Our circuit handles 24 percent/24 to 25 percent of the criminal matters, and an equally large number of the civil matters.

In any particular week, we have a thousand trials that are scheduled in the felony courts. That is 10 judges who have a thousand trials scheduled per week. Obviously, they cannot all be heard.

In the time that I have served, I have served in the various divisions of that court, and whether the matter has been simple or

complicated, whether it has been a relatively minor misdemeanor appeal from the District Court or, as in the case that I presided over 2 years ago, a quintuple murder, each of the cases is important to the people involved in them, and I think that's one of the things for judges to remember is that there is no routine case to the litigants or to the victims or to those who are there.

The only experience or impressions of the courts are formed by these people who are there, and these things are very important to them and their lives, and they're under a particularly great amount of stress. As a judge, you have, of course, the responsibility of deciding the immediate case fairly.

You also have a sort of systemic responsibility to make sure that each litigant, each witness, each observer of the court leaves with a sense that, regardless of the outcome of the case, it has been tried fairly, the matter has received serious attention and that they have had an opportunity to be heard.

I would hope to carryover those feelings and those understandings into the Federal District Court.

Senator DEWINE. Good.

Judge Erickson?

Judge ERICKSON. I would echo much that Judge Frost and Judge Quarles have said here this morning. It seems to me that one takes the bench with the attitude that every case is important, that everyone has the opportunity to be heard, that the lawyers will be afforded the opportunity to argue their case fully, that you'll be prepared, that you will have done the work necessary to take the bench prepared to make a decision that's just, fair and equitable in its premises.

I also think that one of the things that a judge really needs to keep in mind is a legal maxim that the law is no respecter of persons. The law doesn't care whether you're the most important or influential person who lives in the land or you're a person that's homeless and living under a bridge. The law only cares that you're given a fair and full opportunity to be heard and that the decision rendered is consistent with the law.

And as a judge, if you can do those two things, treat everyone the way you want to be treated and make sure that everyone has a fair opportunity to be heard, I think that, in the final analysis, things will work out the way they are supposed to.

Senator DEWINE. Judge Erickson, could you comment about settlement procedures and how you do that now and how you would anticipate doing that on the Federal bench; pretrials, how do you move a civil docket.

Judge ERICKSON. We work very hard at trying to get our civil cases settled. We have settlement conferences in which the judge who is not trying the case actually sits down and tries to assist the parties in arriving at a resolution of the case.

There is a more formalized procedure that exists in the Federal District, in the District of North Dakota. In that case, the Magistrate Judge spends a great deal of time working on settling those cases. There is an active ADR program in our district that has, in fact, been well-spoken of around the country, and I would certainly embrace those principles.