Merrick Garland: Wiki, Bio, Age, Education, Profession, Wife, Oklahoma City Bombers, Retirement, notable cases, Height, Weight: Merrick Garland is the United States Attorney General since 2021. He played a leading role in the investigation and prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers. Merrick is an ex-Harvardian and has worked in various prestigious positions alongside powerful personalities. Recently, he named former federal prosecutor Jack Smith special counsel for two criminal investigations by the Department of Justice of former President Donald Trump. Keep reading this article to know more about his life, career, tenure, controversies, education, family, wife, children, notable cases, Supreme court nomination, height, weight, birthday, hometown, parents, Zodiac, and other personal details.
Merrick Garland Birthday, Age, Zodiac, Hometown
Merrick Garland was born on 13th November 1952 in the city of Chicago in the Illinois State of U.S. He is currently, 70 years old. Based on his date of birth, his Zodiac Sign is Scorpio.
Merrick Garland Parents, Grandparents, Cousins, Religion
Merrick’s Mother, Shirley Garland was a director of volunteer services at Chicago’s Council for Jewish Elderly, and his Father, Cyril Garland ran a small business called “garland Advertising”. The Garlands who previously might have been known as the Garfinkels were immigrants from Russia who left the country in the early 20th century to flee the antisemitic pogroms that were very common in Russia at that time. Merrick was brought up in Conservative Judaism.
His Grandparents used to live in the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire before they fled to the United States to have a better life for their children. Two of his grandmother’s siblings died in the Holocaust. He is also related to the six-term Iowa Governor and former Ambassador to China Terry Branstad, who is his second cousin.
Merrick Garland Wife, Children, Current Address
Merrick Garland married Lynn Rosenman at the Harvard Club in Manhattan in 1987. Lynn Rosenman graduated a cum laude from Harvard University and received a Master of Science degree in operations management from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her father was a partner in the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore while her Grandfather, Samuel Irving Rosenman, was a justice of the New York Supreme Court. Lynn advised government and nonprofit groups on voting systems security and accuracy issues in 2018.
They have two daughters together, Rebecca and Jessica who are both Graduates of Yale University. Jessica was hired by Justice Elena Kagan as one of the Law Clerks before Joe Biden’s election and Merrick’s appointment as Attorney General. As such, the court declared that Jessica Garland will not serve as Kagan’s law clerk while her father remains as attorney general due to the potential conflicts that might arise.
Garland currently lives in Bethesda, Maryland along with his family.
Merrick Garland Education, School, University, Apprentice
Merrick did his schooling at Niles West High School in Skokie, Illinois. In this school, he was the president of the Student Council, a member of the debate team, and acted in Theatrical productions. He graduated from his school as the Class Valedictorian and was a Presidential Scholar as well as a National Merit Scholar.
After that, he pursued his higher studies at Harvard University in social studies. Though initially, he wanted to study physics, he decided early in his college life that he wants to become a Lawyer. Right from his college life, he partnered with his future Boss, Jamie Gorelick. During his college Summer holidays, he used to write speeches for Congressman Abner J. Mikva. Later on, when Mikva was appointed to the D.C. Circuit, he would rely on Merrick for hiring law clerks. He also Used to write news articles and Theatre reviews for the Harvard Crimson magazine. He was also a tutor at the Quincy House at Harvard University. For his honors thesis, he wrote a 235-page long thesis on Industrial Mergers in Britain in the 1960s. Finally, he graduated from Harvard and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa.
After that, he attended Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review magazine. Garland assigned himself to edit a submission by U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan on the topic of the role of state constitutions in safeguarding individual rights, as an editor which later helped him to win a clerkship with the justice. He graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard in 1977.
Garland’s Clerkship, Arnold and Porter
After graduating, he started his career working as a judicial law clerk for Judge Henry Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Justice William Brennan at the U.S. Supreme Court. Merrick then worked as a special assistant to U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti.
Garland started working at Arnold & Porter Law Firm where he later became a partner. He worked as counsel to an insurance company suing to reinstate an unpopular automatic seat belt mandate, for Motor Vehicles Manufacturers Ass’n v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. . He won the case in both the District of Columbia Circuit Court and the Supreme Court.
in 1989, he became an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia so that he can do more trial work. As such he looked after a lot of criminal cases involving the Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry’s possession of cocaine. Later on, he again worked for Arnold & Porter for a short time, before he joined the new Clinton administration as deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice. The next year, he became the principal associate deputy attorney general of Jamie Gorelick with whom he had a long-term connection.
He also served as co-chair of the administrative law section of the District of Columbia Bar, as a member of the American Law Institute, and as the President of the Harvard Board of Overseers.
Merrick Garland Tenure as Judge, Chief Judge, Attorney General
Merrick Served as Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 20th March 1997 to 11th March 2021 and was appointed by Bill Clinton. He succeeded Abner J. Mikva in this position. He served as the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 12th February 2013 to 11th February 2020 after succeeding David B. Sentelle. Garland retired from Federal Judicial Service on 11th March 2021 to take upon the position of 86th Attorney General of the United States on 11th March 2021 after being nominated by President Joe Biden and is currently serving in the role.
Merrick Garland Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
In 2016, due to a vacancy created due to the death of Antonia Scalia, Then-President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland for filling the vacancy as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. However, the Republican Senate Majority refused to hold a hearing or vote on his nomination. This gave rise to huge controversy. Merrick’s nomination lasted for 293 days till President Donald Trump, nominated Neil Gorsuch to the vacant seat and the Republican Senate majority confirmed him. This refusal by the Republican Senate Majority on Garland’s nomination mostly stemmed from the apparent rivalry between the Democrats and the Republicans. Barack Obama was a democrat, while Donald Trump was a Republic.
Merrick Garland Oklahoma City Bombers
Merrick became principal associate deputy attorney general to Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick in 1994. He supervised high-profile domestic Violence cases during that time such as the Oklahoma City bombing, Ted Kaczynski, and the Atlanta Olympics bombings. During the Oklahoma Case, he insisted to be sent to Oklahoma to observe the crime scene and to oversee the investigation in preparation for the prosecution. He was at the preliminary hearings of the two main bombers, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Garland wanted to lead the trial team but was unable to do so as he was needed in the Justice Department Headquarters. However, he helped pick the team and supervised it. He was involved in Major Decisions especially in the choice to seek the death penalty for McVeigh and Nichols. He earned a lot of praise for how he handled the case.
Merrick Garland Notable Cases
He has shown deference to environmental regulatory agencies such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to process the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository license case, in the DEA’s classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug case. In the case of criminal cases, he has mostly favored prosecutors as is evident from his 14 cases where his decision favored the prosecutor in 10 of them.
He has worked on Whistleblower laws such as the False Claims Act and worked in cases like United States ex rel. Yesudian v. Howard University (1998) and United States ex rel. Totten v. Bombardier Corp. (2004). He has also taken up cases pertaining to matters of National Security such as al Odah v. United States (2003), Parhat v. Gates (2008), and many more. He has also taken a number of amendment acts. Other famous cases undertaken by him are Alexander v. Daley (2003) and Hutchins v. District of Columbia (1999).
Merrick Garland US Capitol Attack
On January 6, 2021, following then–U.S. President Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Trump called to action several of his supporters claiming that the election had been “stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats”. He infuriated his supporters by repeating false claims of election irregularities and demanded Vice-President Mike Pence and Congress reject Biden’s victory.
The case proceeded and the Attack was investigated thoroughly by the Department of Justice in order to be sure whether to charge Donald Trump with crimes related to the Capitol attack and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Merrick Garland promised that investigation, in this case, will be done without any fear or favor. The investigators specially questioned the witnesses on trump’s role and several call recordings of Donal Trump were retrieved regarding the Capitol Attack. Investigators directly questioned witnesses about Trump’s efforts.
However, it was criticized by the people saying that the investigation was not fast enough. Garland in response to this said “moving urgently to learn everything we can learn about this period, and to bring to justice everybody who is criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power … which is the fundamental element of our democracy”. However the investigations have not come to an end and this month, a few days after Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign, Garland appointed Jack Smith to serve as special counsel for the investigations of Trump.
Here is a full bio of Merrick Garland’s age, sex, height, weight, hair color, eye color, body measurements, family, parents, father, mother, children, daughter, son, wife, marital status, relationship status, profession, positions of responsibility, address, hometown, birthday, Zodiac, education, school, University, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity snd other personal details.
Merrick Garland Information Table
| Name | Merrick Brian Garland | |
| Current Position | 86th United States Attorney General | |
| Gender | Male | |
| Profession | Lawyer/Judge | |
| Height (approx.) | in centimeters – 167.6cm
meters – 1.68m feet inches – 5ft 6in |
|
| Weight (approx.) | in kilograms – 60kg
in pounds – 132lbs |
|
| Figure Measurements | Not Available | |
| Eye Colour | Black | |
| Hair Colour | White | |
| Date of Birth | 13th November 1952 | |
| Age (as of 2022) | 70 years | |
| Birth Place | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | |
| Zodiac sign/Sun sign | Scorpio | |
| Nationality | American | |
| Hometown | Chicago | |
| School | Niles West High School | |
| College/University | Harvard University | |
| Educational Qualification | Graduate | |
| Religion | Conservative Judaism | |
| Ethnicity | American | |
| Positions of Responsibility | 86th United States Attorney General
Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit |
|
| Address | Bethesda, Maryland | |
| Hobbies/Interests | Acting, debate | |
| Marital Status | Married | |
| Affairs/Boyfriends/Girlfriends | Not Available | |
| Sexuality | Straight | |
| Parents | Father: Cyril Garland
Mother: Shirley Garland |
|
| Siblings | N/A | |
| Husband/Wife/Spouse | Lynn Rosenman Garland | |
| Children | Rebecca Garland
Jessica Garland |
|
| Net Worth | $6-23 million(as of 2016) |
Social Media Accounts of the Attorney General
Check out Instagram Posts related to him Instagram.
Lesser Known Facts about Merrick
- He is colorblind, and he follows a list to match his outfits.
- He paid for his Law School by working in a shoe store, selling his own comic books, and tutoring undergraduates.
- His wife, Lynn is also from Harvard.
- His grandparents fled from Russia in order to save themselves from the Holocaust.
FAQs on the Attorney General
1)What is his religion?
He is Jewish and follows the teaching of Conservative Judaism
2)Where did he study Law from?
He studied Law at Harvard Law School.
3)DId he conclude on the Trump Case?
No the final decision on the Trump Case is still pending.
4)Is he colorblind?
He is Partially Colorblind.
Also Read: Gianni Infantino: Wiki, Bio, Age
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Categories: Biography
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