Richard Clifton

Who is Richard Clifton?

Richard Randall Clifton is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on September 4, 2001 to fill a seat vacated by Cynthia Holcomb Hall, and confirmed by the United States Senate 98-0 on July 30, 2002. He was Bush's first appointment to the Ninth Circuit.

In 2006, he was one of the judges on the panel that upheld the imprisonment of journalist Josh Wolf.

Clifton received an A.B. at Princeton University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, he clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Herbert Choy. Following his clerkship, he was in private practice in Honolulu, Hawaii until his appointment to the federal bench. He also taught for several years at the Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii as an adjunct professor.