Sandra Ikuta | |
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| Senior Judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | |
| Assumed office November 7, 2025 | |
| Judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | |
| In office June 23, 2006 – November 7, 2025 | |
| Appointed by | George W. Bush |
| Preceded by | James R. Browning |
| Succeeded by | Eric Tung |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Sandra Caroline Segal (1954-06-24)June 24, 1954 (age 71) Los Angeles,California, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Edward Ikuta |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley (BA) Columbia University (MS) University of California, Los Angeles (JD) |
Sandra Caroline Segal Ikuta[1] (born June 24, 1954) is aseniorUnited States circuit judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Ikuta was born and raised inLos Angeles. She received herBachelor of Arts degree at theUniversity of California, Berkeley in 1976, having previously attendedStanford University for two years. Ikuta received aMaster of Science degree in journalism fromColumbia University in 1978. From 1978 to 1985 she was a writer and editor for many magazines and organizations which includeGuilford Press,City National Bank, Unique Publications, and Disney Channel Magazine.
Ikuta then attended theUCLA School of Law, where she was an editor of theUCLA Law Review. She graduated in 1988 with aJuris Doctor degree andOrder of the Coif honors. Ikuta clerked for Ninth Circuit JudgeAlex Kozinski from 1988 to 1989 and forUnited States Supreme Court JusticeSandra Day O'Connor from 1989 to 1990. She became an associate of the law firmO’Melveny & Myers in 1990 and went on to become a partner in 1997. At the time of her nomination, Ikuta had beengeneral counsel of theCalifornia Resources Agency since January 2004, "trying to protect natural resources and open space and preserve agricultural land."[2] She is a former alternate director of the Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council. Ikuta is married to Edward Ikuta and a member of theRepublican Party.[3]
Ikuta is an active member of TheFederalist Society, aconservative andlibertarian organization which holds panels, debates, and discussions, and she has been known to attend their national events.[4]
Ikuta was nominated to theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by PresidentGeorge W. Bush on February 8, 2006, to fill the seat vacated by JudgeJames R. Browning, who assumedsenior status in 2000. Previously,Carolyn Kuhl had been nominated to that position, but she had beenfilibustered bySenate Democrats for a year until December 2004 when she withdrew her nomination. Ikuta worked alongside her former boss, JudgeAlex Kozinski, for whom she clerked. He testified on her behalf at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on her nomination. Ikuta was voted unanimously out of theSenate Judiciary Committee on May 26, 2006, and theU.S. Senate confirmed her nomination on June 19, 2006, by an 81–0 vote.[5] She received her commission on June 23, 2006.[6] On March 17, 2025, it was announced that Ikuta would takesenior status upon confirmation of a successor.[7]
Ikuta sat on 26en banc panels between December 2014 and August 2020. During that time, Ikuta was theen banc court's most frequent dissenter. The judges most likely to agree with Ikuta were JudgesCallahan andBea, while the judges most likely to disagree with her were JudgesThomas,McKeown, andW. Fletcher.[8]
Ikuta's first published opinion on the Ninth Circuit wasUnited States v. Baldrich, issued on December 27, 2006.
She wrote theDukes v. Wal-Mart dissent in the Ninth Circuit, with reasoning that largely ended up being adopted by the Supreme Court.[9]
In May 2017, Ikuta dissented when the narrowly divideden banc circuit found that theUnited States District Court for the Southern District of California's policy of indiscriminately shackling criminal defendants in all pretrial hearings violated the Constitution'sDue Process Clause.[10][11] In March 2018, the circuit's judgment was vacated by a unanimousSupreme Court of the United States.[12]
On July 12, 2019, inCity of Los Angeles v. Barr, theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned anationwide injunction issued in 2018, thus upholding preferential treatment in awarding community policing grants to cities that cooperate with immigration authorities. In the opinion, Ikuta wrote, "Cooperation relating to enforcement of federal immigration law is in pursuit of the general welfare, and meets the low bar of being germane to the federal interest in providing the funding to "address crime and disorder problems, and otherwise... enhance public safety... one of the main purposes for which" the grant is intended. In her dissent, JudgeKim Wardlaw wrote, "[The Department of Justice's] decision to implement both the illegal immigration focus area and the Cooperation Certification is foreclosed by the text, structure, and purpose of the Community Policing Act."[13]
On February 24, 2020, Ikuta wrote themajority opinion upholding theTrump Administration rule withholdingTitle X funding from health-care providers that perform, promote, or support abortion with patients.[14] Theen banc Ninth Circuit sided with the government by a 7–4 vote. The majority acknowledged they knew that the gag rule's main purpose was to stop abortions; it nevertheless remained constitutional. The majority relied on the Supreme Court precedentRust v. Sullivan, which upheld a nearly identical rule during the presidency ofRonald Reagan. Ikuta was joined by Senior JudgeEdward Leavy and JudgesJay Bybee,Consuelo Callahan,Milan Smith,Eric Miller, andKenneth K. Lee. Leavy was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, Bybee, Callahan, Ikuta, and Smith by PresidentGeorge W. Bush, and Miller and Lee by President Trump.[14]
On December 4, 2021, Ikuta dissented when a 2–1 majority declined to block San Diego Unified School District's requirement that students be vaccinated by December 20.[15][16]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.| Legal offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 2006–2025 | Succeeded by |