Macon native Martin will be new 11th Circuit judge

Beverly Baldwin Martin, a former U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, was confirmed by the Senate, 97-0, on Wednesday morning as a new judge for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Martin, who’s now a U.S. District Court judge for the Northern District of Georgia, was nominated by President Obama last June for the seat vacated by R. Lanier Anderson. She is a fourth-generation attorney and was the first female U.S. attorney in Georgia.

Born in Macon, Martin received a bachelor’s degree from Stetson University in 1976 and her law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1981. She was in private practice from 1981 to 1994, and she also served as a part-time assistant attorney general in Georgia from 1984 to 1994.

She was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Georgia from 1994 to 1997, and U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Georgia from 1997 to 2000. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said he has no doubt Martin will do well in her new post.

“I’ve had the good fortune of knowing Judge Beverly Martin for several years, and can think of no one with more integrity, professional competence and appropriate judicial bearing to sit on the nation’s second-highest bench,” he said. Circuit courts of appeal are intermediate appellate courts in the federal court system. The 11th Circuit handles appeals from district courts in Georgia, Florida and Alabama.