Western District to get new chief judge designate

The designation of chief judge for the U.S. District Court’s Western District of Arkansas will change hands today from Judge P.K. Holmes III in Fort Smith to Judge Susan O. Hickey in El Dorado.

Holmes will complete his seventh year as chief judge of the district today and must turn over the duties of the position to the next senior judge younger than 64 who hasn’t served as chief judge, according to Title 28, Section 136 of the U.S. Code.

The chief judge oversees the administration of the federal court of western Arkansas and its 93 employees. The chief judge’s main duties are assignment of cases among judges of the six divisions in the 34-county district, Holmes said.

The transition will not affect the caseload of either judge, Holmes said. He said the duties of chief judge accounted for 15 to 20 percent of his schedule.

Holmes said he had no plans to step down or take senior status and will retain his normal duties as district judge.

Holmes became chief judge in 2012 when he succeeded Judge Jimm Hendren, who had served as chief judge in the district for 14 years.

Holmes was designated chief judge a little more than a year after he was confirmed as a judge by the U.S. Senate in 2011. He was nominated for the judgeship by President Barack Obama on Jan. 5, 2011, to fill the seat vacated by Judge Robert T. Dawson.

He earned his law degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law and was in private practice from 1978 to 1993 and from 2001 to 2011. He served as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas from 1993 to 2001.

Hickey was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a judge for the Western District of Arkansas in October 2011 after being nominated by Obama in April 2011, according to her biography on the Federal Judicial Center website.

She filled the seat vacated by Judge Harry F. Barnes, for whom she served as law clerk in 1997 and 1998 and from 2003 to 2010.

After earning her law degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law, she worked as a staff attorney for Murphy Oil Corp. in El Dorado.

She served as state circuit court judge in the 13th Judicial Circuit in 2010 and 2011.

Other judges in the Western District of Arkansas are Timothy L. Brooks, senior judges Barnes and Dawson, Chief Magistrate Judge Erin L. Wiedermann, and magistrates Judge Barry A. Bryant, Judge Mark E. Ford and Judge James R. Marschewski.