The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has appointed Katherine Tang Newberger as the next Federal Defender for the District of Maryland.
Before her appointment, she served as the First Assistant Federal Public Defender for the District of Maryland, where she has practiced since 2005.
Katherine oversaw the District of Maryland’s response to the passage of the First Step Act, litigating Section 404 and compassionate release motions with unparalleled success: As of September 2021, Maryland had more grants of compassionate release than any other district in the country according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Katherine graduated summa cum laude from Northwestern University, where she was the Valedictorian of the Medill School of Journalism. She graduated from Yale Law School and went on to clerk for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Her appointment date will be November 3, 2026.
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