Pick for high court back on old bench

WASHINGTON—Merrick Garland, the judge nominated by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court, made his return to the courtroom on Wednesday to hear cases as a federal appeals court judge, not a Supreme Court justice.

Garland, the chief judge of the District of Columbia Circuit, stopped hearing cases in March after he was nominated to fill the seat of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February. But after Republicans blocked his confirmation, it was announced in mid-December that he’d again begin hearing federal appeals court cases.

President-elect Donald Trump is now expected to announce his own nomination to the court within the two weeks of his inauguration on Friday.

The two judges sitting with Garland on Wednesday also have been mentioned as possible future nominees to the Supreme Court, though by different parties.

Judge Sri Srinivasan, appointed by Obama in 2013, has been mentioned as a possible nominee by a Democratic president. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, named by President George W. Bush in 2006, has been mentioned as a possible Republican nominee, though he is not one of 21 potential nominees listed by Trump.

One subtle reminder of Garland’s unsuccessful nomination was literally staring him in the face Wednesday. Among the roughly three dozen people watching the proceedings was one lawyer with a familiar name: Eugene Scalia, a lawyer and one of Justice Scalia’s nine children.