Federal Judicial Service
On February 2, 1987, Reagan nominated Sentelle to a position on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to replace Antonin Scalia. Sentelle was confirmed by the United States Senate in an 87-0 vote on September 9, 1987. Sentelle's judicial clerks are known as Sentelle-tubbies.
On the D.C. Circuit, Sentelle voted to overturn the convictions of Oliver North and John Poindexter, along with Judge Laurence Silberman. He served on the Special Division of the Court which appointed Kenneth Starr under the renewed Independent Counsel statute, replacing Robert B. Fiske, who had been appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno special prosecutor to investigate the allegations against President Bill Clinton with respect to the Whitewater Affair.
In 2007, in Boumediene v. Bush, 375 U.S. App. D.C. 48, Judge Sentelle concurred with Judge Arthur Raymond Randolph, relying on Johnson v. Eisentrager, to uphold the Military Commissions Act of 2006's suspension of habeas corpus for enemy combatants as constitutional. Judge Judith Ann Wilson Rogers dissented.
Read more about this topic: David B. Sentelle
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