Five and a half months after beginning his duties as the newest U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Denzil Price Marshall Jr. of Jonesboro was formally sworn in Friday at a ceremony that attracted an overflow crowd to the Little Rock courthouse named after his mentor.
Marshall, 47, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 5, becoming the first Obama administration nominee from Arkansas to be confirmed to a judicial post. He immediately went to work and began hearing cases inthe Richard Sheppard Arnold United States Courthouse.
As a young lawyer fresh out of Harvard Law School, Marshall clerked for Arnold, a judge on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, from 1989 to 1991.
Arnold died in September 2004, at age 68, before the completion of a new fivestory addition to the historic courthouse in downtown Little Rock that he knew would bear his name.
Marshall now holds court in a renovated space of the older structure, one floor below Arnold’s former cham-bers. He was helped into his judicial robe during Friday’s ceremony by Arnold’s widow, Kay Kelley Arnold, as his wife, Polly, and the couple’s two daughters looked on.
Marshall had already been officially sworn in by Richard Arnold’s brother, U.S. Circuit Judge Morris “Buzz” Arnold, in mid-May in a private ceremony without any fanfare.
Those who gathered Friday for a solemn yet jovial ceremony included members of the Arkansas Court of Appeals, where he became a judge in 2007 after working in private practice for 12 years at the Barrett & Deacon law firm in his hometown of Jonesboro.
Marshall’s former law partners, as well as Arkansas Supreme Court justices past and present, also attended, as did representatives of the Quapaw Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, whose Eagle Scout Honor Guard opened the ceremony for the former Boy Scout with a presentation of colors.
U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, a lawyer who along with U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln suggested Marshall for the position in March 2009, repeated Friday what he told his fellow senators about Marshall, whom he has known for more than 20 years.
“Two words describe Price Marshall: impartiality and integrity,” Pryor said.
He said that Marshall was “born with a good mind,” and that his parents instilled in him good values and a good work ethic. Those things, combined with Richard Arnold’s mentoring, “forged him into the man he is and the judge he will be for the rest of his days,” Pryor said.
James D. Bradbury, a partner at the Jonesboro law firm, told the crowd of more than 350 people who spilled out of a second-floor ceremonial courtroom and a first-floor “overflow” room where the proceedings were shown on closed-circuit monitors, that Marshall “was a formidable advocate” at the defense-oriented firm, as well as a friend and fishing partner.
John B. Robbins, former chief judge of the Arkansas Court of Appeals, said Marshall has a “keen intellect” and “a writing style that is unique and user-friendly,” while hispersonality is “very modest and humble.”
“When he started in 1991, we knew we had something special,” added Barry Deacon, senior partner at the Jonesboro firm. He said that Marshall “quickly became the go-to guy in our firm for complicated legal issues and legal analysis beyond the norm.”
Soon, he said, “Price developed a reputation within the state of Arkansas of being if not the top, one of the top appellate lawyers. ... He built a niche in our firm with his appellate practice.”
Marshall’s former law partners said Marshall always made it clear that he wanted to be a judge, and they always knew that wish would come true.
Deacon said Marshall is known for his love of language, so much so that one of his prized possessions, now in his federal chambers, is a 20-volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary.
When Marshall finally got his turn at the microphone, wearing a bow tie like those worn by Richard Arnold, he quickly refuted a previous report that he had attended Harvard alongside President Obama.
“He would not know anything about me but for our two senators who sent my name to him,” Marshall said.
“You have my word,” he told the crowd. “I will do my best.”
After the ceremony, Pryor said in an interview that he hasn’t heard from the White House about the progress of selecting nominees for two other federal judgeships in Arkansas, one in the Eastern District and one in the Western District.
Pryor said he has no reason to believe that, despite a long delay, the White House isn’t still considering three people whose names he and Lincoln submitted last year to fill the full-time position vacated by U.S. District Judge James Moody in the Eastern District after Moody took senior status.
They are attorneys Chris Heller, Denise Hoggard and one of Moody’s law clerks, Amelia “Amy” Russell.
Pryor said that as far as he knows, the only contender for the vacancy in the Western District is Susan Hickey of El Dorado, a longtime law clerk for U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/23/2010