Judge Bios

Corinne Beckwith, formerly with the Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia, was sworn in an as an Associate Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on Friday, February 3, at 4 p.m., in the ceremonial courtroom of the Historic Courthouse, 430 E Street, NW. The Honorable Eric T. Washington, Chief Judge of the D.C. Court of App, presided; DC Superior Court Judge Maribeth Raffinan administered the Oath of Office. Corinne Beckwith was appointed to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in 2011 by President Barack Obama.

Corinne Beckwith, formerly with the Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia, was sworn in an as an Associate Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on Friday, February 3, at 4 p.m., in the ceremonial courtroom of the Historic Courthouse, 430 E Street, NW. The Honorable Eric T. Washington, Chief Judge of the D.C. Court of App, presided; DC Superior Court Judge Maribeth Raffinan administered the Oath of Office. Corinne Beckwith was appointed to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in 2011 by President Barack Obama.

Ms. Beckwith was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and attended the public schools there. She received her bachelor’s degree from Kalamazoo College, where she served as editor of the college newspaper and graduated with honors in English in 1985. After receiving her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois in 1987, Ms. Beckwith worked as a newspaper reporter at the Midland Daily News in Midland, Michigan, and also taught journalism and English composition at Central Michigan University.

Ms. Beckwith changed course in 1989 and left journalism for law school. She attended the University of Michigan Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the Michigan Law Review. After receiving her law degree in 1992, Ms. Beckwith served as a law clerk to Judge Richard D. Cudahy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and then for Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Prior to her appointment to the D.C. Court of Appeals, Ms. Beckwith spent her legal career as a public defender, handling the appeals of indigent criminal defendants who had been convicted of serious offenses. She first worked as an appellate attorney at Michigan’s State Appellate Defender Office in Detroit, where she also taught a criminal appellate practice course at Wayne State University Law School and volunteered as a cooperating attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. Ms. Beckwith returned to Washington in 1999, and from then until December of 2011, she worked as a staff attorney and then a supervising attorney in the Appellate Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. Ms. Beckwith has briefed and argued appeals before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, the Michigan Court of Appeals, the Michigan Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court, where in 2004 she won the civil rights case of a prisoner whom the Supreme Court appointed her to represent.

Ms. Beckwith is married to Brent J. Futrell, a graphic designer, and they live on Capitol Hill.