President Joe Biden on Wednesday renominated federal prosecutor Jabari Wamble to the federal bench, although for an open seat on the district court in Kansas instead of the federal appeals court.
Biden released Wamble’s nomination without any explanation about why he wasn’t put back up for a seat on the appeals court that came open when Mary Beck Briscoe took senior status.
Wamble, once captain of the University of Kansas track team, is now an assistant U.S. attorney in Kansas.
Wamble could replace Senior Judge Julie Robinson, who became the first African American to serve on the federal bench in Kansas after she was nominated in 2001 by George W. Bush.
Three of the five current federal judges in Kansas were nominated by former President Donald Trump, one was nominated by Bush and one was nominated by former President Barack Obama.
The president first nominated Wamble, the son-in-law of Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, last September.
Wamble, however, was never rated by the American Bar Association.
He was one of only five Biden judicial nominees not to get an ABA score.
The ABA didn’t explain why he wasn’t rated, and the White House never commented.
However, it was believed by some that a lack of an ABA rating, regardless of other credentials, could have hurt Wamble’s nomination because of the value that Democrats place on the bar association’s evaluation.
Neither U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran nor Roger Marshall had the power to block Wamble’s nomination to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
However, they have the ability to stop Wamble’s nomination to the district court bench, which potentially could be used by either senator to influence the Biden administration’s appointment to the appeals court.
A 2006 graduate of the University of Kansas Law School, Wamble started his career with the Johnson County district attorney’s office as an assistant prosecutor.
In Johnson County, Wamble conducted jury trials, negotiated pleas and sentencings in felony cases including assault and battery, drug possession, drunk driving, identity fraud, illegal weapons possession and property crimes.
In 2007, he joined the Kansas attorney general’s office, where he worked in the Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Division.
His work in the Kansas attorney general’s office included assisting in a case involving a physician connected to 68 prescription drug deaths and 150 overdoses who was later convicted.
Four years later, he joined the U.S. attorney’s office, where his responsibilities included serving as a point of contact for local, state and federal authorities for environmental investigations.
Wamble attended Oklahoma Christian School, a small, private school with roughly 35 students per class where he ran track, played basketball and competed in speech and debate.
He was the lone member of the school’s track team before attending KU, where he’s on multiple Top-10 lists for the fastest 200- and 400-meter dashes and also qualified for nationals as a member of the second fastest distance medley in school history.
