Judge Cindy Chung
Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
Cindy Kyounga Chung was born in 1975 in Omaha, Nebraska. She earned an undergraduate degree from Yale University and her Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School. She clerked for a judge at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
Chung served as an assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, then became an investigation counsel in the Official Corruption Unit. She later served in the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division as a trial attorney. She served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Western District of Pennsylvania before becoming the deputy chief of the Major Crimes Division.
President Joe Biden nominated Chung to be U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania in October 2021. She was confirmed by the Senate and assumed the office in November 2021.
President Biden then nominated Chung to be a judge for the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in July 2022. The nomination was returned to the president at the end of the congressional term in January 2023, and President Biden renominated her the same day. The Senate invoked cloture, and she was confirmed in February. She received her commission the following week.
In the News…
The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals determined that two of three charges against Congresswoman LaMonico McIver of New Jersey could proceed to trial. Representative McIver faces criminal charges for her behavior during an oversight visit to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility Delaney Hall in New Jersey.
The congresswoman requested a dismissal under the Speech and Debate Clause and the separation of powers. She stated that the government was prosecuting her “selectively and vindictively,” claiming a violation of her First and Fourth Amendment rights.
Circuit Judge Cindy Chung wrote for the majority, “The Speech or Debate Clause provides that ‘for any Speech or Debate in either House,’ Members of Congress ‘shall not be questioned in any other Place.’ … The ‘central role’ of the Speech or Debate Clause is ‘to prevent intimidation of legislators by the Executive and accountability before a possibly hostile judiciary.'”
Judge Chung continued, “The Speech or Debate Clause does not provide a blanket protection over ‘all things in any way related to the legislative process.'” The circuit court found “the nature of the conduct charged in Charge One is nonlegislative.”
The judge wrote regarding the second count, “the acts of pushing past and forcibly striking someone are unambiguously non-legislative: they are not integral to the legislative process.“
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Judge Chung today? You can let her know at:
The Honorable Cindy Chung
Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse
601 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
