OKC bombing investigator named as Supreme Court nominee

After the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia last month, President Obama’s pick to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat is federal appeals court judge Merrick B. Garland.

Garland was the highest-ranking Justice Department official in April of 1995, and was assigned to Oklahoma City after the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing, according to the New York Times.

According to colleagues, Garland was eager to get on the scene of the bombing site and begin the starting stages of the case against Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Garland was on the ground examining the crime scene as bodies were still being recovered.

He ran the investigation from a command center in a telephone company building just blocks from the blast site. Garland oversaw search warrants, interacted with other law enforcement officials and met with surviving victims. According to the New York Times, he appeared in court for the preliminary hearings of McVeigh and Nichols.

Today, Garland, 63, is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and is President Barack Obama’s

“This is the greatest honor of my life, other than Lynn agreeing to marry me 28 years ago,” Garland said to audience’s applause in the Rose Garden.

Judge Garland “is a profoundly serious guy who really should be the kind of person you want to have on the Supreme Court,” Joseph E. diGenova, a United States attorney in the Reagan administration said to the New York Times. “If Obama wants to get a fantastic judge on the court, he’s got one ready to go in Merrick Garland.”

Republicans have pledged to block any attempt by Obama to fill the open spot on the bench before next January, but Obama called on the Senate to hold a fair confirmation hearing of his nominee and a fair vote, according to NPR.

“It is both my constitutional duty to nominate a Justice and one of the most important decisions that I – or any president – will make,” Obama said as he introduced Garland to the Rose Garden.

According to NPR, Garland attended Harvard Law School and was a clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. He went into private practice at a law firm, and then took a position as a federal prosecutor during President George H.W. Bush’s administration.

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