Topic: Reggie Walton

Reggie Barnett Walton (born Donora, Pennsylvania, February 8, 1949) is a federal judge on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Walton's father worked two jobs in the steel town Donora in which the young Walton appeared in court three times over gang fighting. Walton credits an incident in which a friend nearly killed a rival with an icepick with convincing him to turn towards academics. He won a football scholarship to get his Bachelor of Arts degree from West Virginia State College in 1971, and then a law degree from The American University, Washington College of Law, in 1974. Judge Walton is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

Walton served as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia from 1981 to 1989 and from 1991 to 2001. He also served as associate director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. In 2001, he was nominated to be a federal bench by President George W. Bush, and subsequently confirmed by the U.S. Senate. In 2004, Bush appointed him to chair a the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, investigating ways to curb prison rape. In May 2007, Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. appointed him to a seat on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.