Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD lauded the confirmation of Judge Robert L. Wilkins to fill a long-vacant seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In 2010 Judge Wilkins was unanimously confirmed to sit as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in November Wilkins fell victim to a Republican filibuster.

“I had the pleasure of introducing Judge Robert L. Wilkins to the Judiciary Committee some months ago. Tonight I am pleased that the Senate has finally voted to allow such a qualified nominee to sit on the Nation’s second highest court,” said Senator Cardin. “As a plaintiff, as a jurist, and someone with a lifelong record of public service, Judge Wilkins has shown himself as eminently qualified to fill a seat on the important D.C Court of Appeals.”

Judge Wilkins served as the lead plaintiff in Wilkins, et al. v. State of Maryland, a civil rights lawsuit against the Maryland State Police for a traffic stop they conducted of Judge Wilkins and his family in 1992. The American Bar Association gave the judge Wilkins a rating of “unanimously well qualified”- the highest possible from the nonpartisan peer review.

Senator Cardin introduced S. 1038, the End Racial Profiling Act–ERPA–which would codify many of the practices established by the  Maryland State Police to root out the use of racial profiling by law enforcement after Wilkins, et al.

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