President Biden Nominates Indo-Guyanese Judge Errol Rajesh Arthur for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia

President Joe Biden has nominated Judge Errol Rajesh Arthur for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Arthur, an Indo-Guyanese immigrant, is among nine nominations announced on Dec. 15.

Arthur has served as a Magistrate Judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia since 2010. He has served in the Criminal Division, Domestic Violence Division, and Family Court. He is currently Presiding Magistrate Judge and serves on the Chief Judge’s Judicial Leadership Team. He has presided over numerous bench trials in neglect and abuse cases, as well as arraignments and detention hearings in both juvenile and adult cases.

Before his appointment to the D.C. Superior Court, Arthur joined the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS) as a staff attorney in 1999, and he opened his own law practice in 2002. While at PDS and in private practice, he represented individuals in the D.C. Superior Court, Maryland’s Circuit and District Courts, the United States Parole Commission, and the District of Columbia Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. In 2008, he was appointed as Chairman of the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics, and he served as an adjunct professor and supervising attorney with the Howard University School of Law’s Criminal Justice Clinic.

A native of Washington, Arthur graduated from St. John’s College High School in 1990, and he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Maryland in 1994. He received his law degree from the Howard University School of Law in 1998. Following law school, Judge Arthur clerked for the Honorable Mary A. Gooden Terrell on the DC Superior Court.

In a press release, the D.C. chapter of the South Asian Bar Association (SABA-DC) said “Arthur brings a unique perspective to the bench, and is “deeply committed to pro bono work.”

Additionally, SABA said, “Arthur has a longstanding commitment to legal education and mentorship.” He serves as a visiting faculty member of Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop. Additionally, he served on the executive board of the Washington Bar Association’s Judicial Council, where he chaired its annual internship program to ensure diversity in the next generation of attorneys and jurists.