Diane S. Sykes
Diane Schwerm Sykes (born December 23, 1957) is an American jurist and lawyer who serves as the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She served as a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 1999 to 2004. Early life. Sykes graduated from Brown Deer High School in 1976 and then earned a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism at Northwestern University in 1980, and a Juris Doctor at Marquette University Law School in 1984. Between college and law school she worked as a reporter for "The Milwaukee Journal". Legal career. After  law school, from 1984 to 1985, Sykes clerked for Judge Terence T. Evans of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. From 1985 to 1992, she worked in private practice as a litigator for Whyte & Hirschboeck, a medium-sized law firm in Milwaukee. Sykes won election to a newly created trial judge seat on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court in 1992, serving in the misdemeanor, felony, and civil divisions. She left the trial court in 1999 when she was appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, to fill a vacancy for Justice Donald W. Steinmetz. After being  appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, she was elected to the Supreme Court in April 2000, defeating Louis B. Butler, who was later appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by Governor Jim Doyle in 2004. Federal judicial service. President George W. Bush nominated Sykes to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on November 14, 2003. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved her nomination (14–5) on March 11, 2004, and she was confirmed 70–27 by the United States Senate on June 24, 2004. She became Chief Judge on July 3, 2020. In 2005, President George  W. Bush seriously considered nominating Sykes to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court of the United States. In 2017, Sykes was on President Donald Trump's list of potential Supreme Court justices. On June 7, 2017, Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas's 1st congressional district commented on her conservative judicial philosophy: "There are only two reliable originalists on the [Seventh Circuit], Michael Kanne and Diane Sykes." Notable cases. In May 2015, the Supreme Court reversed a unanimous panel opinion Sykes joined which had found that Article Three of the United States Constitution forbids bankruptcy courts from creating jurisdiction  over a claim through the litigants consent. In "Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran" (2016), Sykes wrote for a unanimous court when it found that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act did not grant terrorist attack victims the right to attach a foreign state's property. That judgment was unanimously affirmed by the Supreme Court in February 2018. In April 2017, Sykes dissented when the "en banc" Seventh Circuit, by a vote of 8–3, found that LGBT Americans were protected from sex discrimination by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In her dissent, Sykes argued the court should  have applied a "textualist decision method" instead of the majority's "sex stereotyping" reasoning or the "judicial interpretive updating" Judge Richard Posner promoted in his concurrence. In April 2018, Sykes wrote for the unanimous court when it found that the Americans with Disabilities Act did not require an employer to grant a multi-month leave of absence as a reasonable accommodation. In December 2017, Sykes supported the 4—3 "en banc" decision to reverse an earlier federal magistrate judgment that a confession had been unlawfully coerced from Brendan Dassey. The dissenting opinion described this decision as "a travesty of justice". In  July 2018, Sykes wrote for the unanimous panel when it found that a new Illinois law that required previously convicted sex offenders to relocate their residences away from newly opened daycares did not violate the Constitution's Ex Post Facto Clause. Personal life. In 1980, she married Charlie Sykes, who was a conservative talk show host on WTMJ Radio in Milwaukee. The couple had two children and divorced in 1999. Sykes is a member of the Federalist Society.