Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton
Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
Jeffrey Stuart Sutton was born in October 1960 in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He earned an undergraduate degree in history from Williams College. He worked as a paralegal in Washington, D.C., later spending a summer as an archaeological intern at a dig site in Jordan as part of the U.S. Department of State cultural exchange program. Returning to the U.S., he taught at a private school in Columbus, Ohio. He earned a Juris Doctor from Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law. He clerked at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and later at the U.S. Supreme Court under Justice Antonin Scalia.
He entered private practice. Sutton was Solicitor General of Ohio, later serving as an adjunct professor of law at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard Law School.
Sutton was nominated by President George W. Bush to a seat on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. That nomination never came before Congress, and it was almost two years later when he was confirmed by the Senate. He received his commission in May 2003, and became Chief Judge in May 2021.
In the News…
Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton penned a unanimous opinion that granted a stay of a district court’s nationwide preliminary injunction that would have blocked the Department of Homeland Security from implementing enforcement priorities and policies that the HHS Secretary set forth in a memorandum.
Judge Sutton also issued a concurring opinion that expressed his “considerable skepticism” about so-called “nationwide” or “universal” injunctions.
“Call them what you will—nationwide injunctions or universal remedies—they seem to take the judicial power beyond its traditionally understood uses, permitting district courts to order the government to act or refrain from acting toward nonparties in the case,” he wrote. “The law already has a mechanism for applying a judgment to third parties. That is the role of class actions, and Civil Rule 23 carefully lays out the procedures for permitting a district court to bind nonparties to an action. Nationwide injunctions sometimes give State victories they did not earn and sometimes gives States victories they do not want. They always sidestep Rule 23’s requirements.”
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Did you pray for Judge Sutton today? You can let him know at:
The Honorable Jeffrey S. Sutton
Chief Judge
Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse
100 E. Fifth St.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
