Judge Jacqueline Nguyen is President Obama’s second try at seating an Asian American on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after Goodwin Liu’s nomination was blocked by GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Nguyen, 46, is unlikely to face a GOP block. She was approved for her current seat on the Federal District Court for the Central District of California by a Senate vote of 97-0 in December of 2009. Her record as a big-firm corporate litigator, federal prosecutor and a judge of both state and federal courts precludes the charges of judicial inexperience and extreme liberalism that caused Liu’s nomination to languish for two years before he withdrew from the nomination in late May. Liu was promptly nominated to the California Supreme Court by Gov. Brown and won easy approval at the end of August.
It was through an earlier nomination by President Obama that Nguyen had become the first Vietnamese American federal judge. She is also the first of his federal judicial nominees to win a second nomination from him for a seat on a higher federal bench.
“Judge Nguyen has been a trailblazer, displaying an outstanding commitment to public service throughout her career,” said Obama as he announced her Circuit Court nomination.
Jacqueline Nguyen was born Hong-Ngoc Thi Nguyen in 1965 in Da Lat, Vietnam. Her father was a South Vietnamese army major who worked with U.S. intelligence personnel. Jacqueline was 10 in 1975 when Saigon fell to Ho Chi Minh’s North Vietnamese army. Her family fled to the U.S. and spent the first several months in a tent at Camp Pendleton marine base north of San Diego before settling in the La Crescenta-Montrose area of Los Angeles.
Her mother cleaned dental offices at night and peeled apples for a pie company while her father worked night-shifts at a bank and as a gas station attendant. After saving up money they opened a doughnut shop in North Hollywood where Jacqueline worked during high school and college. By studying between customers Jacqueline earned a full academic scholarship to Occidental College in Eagle Rock. She graduated in 1987 with a degree in English literature, then earned her JD from UCLA Law School in 1991. She was promptly hired as a business litigator by the Los Angeles firm of Musick, Peeler & Garrett where she worked until the end of 1994.
In 1995 Nguyen joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District as a prosecutor in both the general crimes and public corruption and government fraud sections. She was a member of the office’s Organized Crime Strike Force from 1999 to 2000, handling a wiretap investigation of a Russian gang that was trafficking sex slaves from the Ukraine, among other cases.
In 2002 Nguyen was appointed a judge on the L.A. County Superior Court. On July 31, 2009 President Obama nominated her to the federal District Court based on a recommendation by Senator Dianne Feinstein. Nguyen appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 23 and was passed for a vote by the full Senate on December 1, 2009 where she was confirmed 97-0.
Nguyen is married to Pio S. Kim, a federal prosecutor.
