Moore ready for federal job as magistrate
She is taking over post held by Ray for the past 23 years
On Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Benecia Moore, who has spent 13 years as a federal prosecutor, will trade her briefcase for a judge’s robe to become the Eastern District of Arkansas’ newest federal magistrate.
Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s gave Moore a steady diet of legal dramas on television, such as “L.A. Law,” “The Practice,” “Law & Order” and others, which she said fueled her ambition to go into law as a profession.
“It made a legal career, at least in my mind as a child, a very glamorous career,” she said. “But going through school I was always involved in student government — both in high school and in college — and I minored in political science and I just think I always knew I was going to go to law school. Plus, my dad is a doctor and after one biology class I was like, that is not the path for me.”
On Thursday, Moore will inherit retiring U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Thomas Ray’s docket as she takes his place on the bench. A magistrate judge for 23 years — 13 as chief U.S. magistrate judge, Ray, whose retirement is official Wednesday, will be recalled immediately to serve part time as needed, according to an administrative order filed by Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. in July. In that administrative order, Marshall announced that U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Kearney would take over as the newest chief magistrate, appointed to serve a fouryear term that began Aug. 1.
Moore graduated in 2000 from Boston University with a bachelor of science cum laude in public relations, and received her juris doctorate in 2003 from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she served on the editorial board and was articles editor of the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law. After law school, she served as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Petrese B. Tucker in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and then for Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Lavenski R. Smith on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Moore then practiced law at Quattlebaum, Grooms & Tull, PLLC for several years before joining the U.S. attorney’s office in 2011. She has served in various roles in that office, and is currently the deputy criminal chief and the public information officer as well as the Project Safe Neighborhoods coordinator. Moore has been an adjunct professor at the UALR William H. Bowen School of Law since January.
She was one of five candidates nominated by an 11-member merit panel composed of eight attorneys and three non-attorneys with her selection ratified by a majority vote of the sitting district
court judges in Arkansas’ Eastern District.
Moore’s selection was met with enthusiasm from her co-workers and defense attorneys, who said her reputation as an even-handed and hard-working prosecutor should serve the district well.
Federal Public Defender Lisa Peters, who oversees an office of 13 attorneys, seven investigators, a mitigation specialist, an appellate counsel, two research and writing specialists and an 11-member support staff, praised Moore’s selection, calling her a “solid choice” for the position, which she said is the general consensus of the defense bar.
“As AUSA, Benecia was a careful listener who considered our clients’ circumstances, she exuded integrity and honesty, strove to be fair, and was a pleasant, even-keeled adversary,” Peters wrote in an email to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “I have no doubt those attributes will serve her well on the federal bench.”
Peters said Moore, as the first Black woman selected to serve on the federal bench in the Eastern District of Arkansas, is especially deserving of the honor.
“The Bar is extremely fortunate to have someone of her caliber and experience who will bring another dimension to the Bench,” Peters said.
U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ross, the third U.S. attorney Moore has served under during her tenure, said although he is pleased with her new position, her departure will leave a difficult void in the office.
“She managed the brunt of the Project Safe Neighborhoods caseload for several years when it was at its peak,” Ross said. “She’ll be difficult to replace but even so, we are excited for her.”
Project Safe Neighborhoods is a federal initiative intended to create partnerships between federal, state and local law enforcement authorities to identify and address violent crime. Under Ross and his predecessor, Cody Hiland, the office has used Project Safe Neighborhoods to identify and prosecute violent felons through the use of federal firearms statutes.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Bryant, who serves as the point person prosecuting crimes against children, said Moore’s even temperament and dedication to justice should serve her well on the federal bench.
“Benecia is very reflective in what she does and she’s very dedicated to her job, but even more so, she’s dedicated to doing the right thing,” Bryant said. “I think that goes for everything she does.”
Bryant said that in two sex-trafficking cases she and Moore teamed up to prosecute, Moore’s empathy and willingness to listen and provide counsel when needed proved invaluable on a professional and a personal level.
“We’re close in age and our families, our kids are close in age,” Bryant said, “and it’s important to be able to go to someone to talk things through, not just about the case but about our feelings about what happened, to have someone listen. She’s someone I go to multiple times a day seeking advice, but our loss is everyone’s gain, including ours if you think about it, because Benecia has a great judicial temperament.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Ray White agreed.
“She’s got a great disposition and she’s willing to do whatever needs to be done, not just with her cases but in helping other people with their cases, too.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Fields said Moore’s personality and work ethic are positive attributes for her new position.
“She’s never refused to assist anyone,” Fields said. “She’s an excellent addition to the bench.”
Moore’s brother, Alex Betton, who works as an assistant public defender with the Federal Public Defenders Office in Little Rock, said his sister — who is 22 months his senior — had a lot to do with his decision to follow the law as a career. Betton attended graduate school at Temple University in Philadelphia at the same time Moore was in law school at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, and he said he would often go study with her at the Penn library. He said one day a case she was studying caught his eye — Her Majesty the Queen v. Dudley and Stephens, an 1884 British maritime case involving a shipwrecked yacht with four people aboard and cannibalism.
“I was reading Henry James and she was reading about some individuals who were stranded and at some point started eating each other, kind of like the Donner Party at sea,” Betton said. “I was like, man, the truth really is stranger than fiction. After that I went and took the [Law School Admission Test].”
Betton said he was not surprised at his sister’s selection.
“If you look at what my sister has done in her career, at her accomplishments, she is exactly where she is supposed to be,” he said. “This is the natural evolution for somebody who has the unique experience she has.”
Moore said that although she was not looking to leave the U.S. attorneys office, when the opening was announced, she decided to put her name in for consideration, and her primary focus as a judge, she said, will be the same as her focus as a prosecutor — to get the right result in the interest of justice.
“It’s not an easy job we have as prosecutors,” she said. “We represent the public, the community and the victims, but part of our constituency is the defendant as well. We’re not doing justice if we don’t do everything we can to make sure we get it right.”