Dennis Shedd


Dennis Wayne Shedd is a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Background

Shedd attended Orangeburg Preparatory Schools in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Wofford College, his Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown University Law Center. He went on to become chief counsel and staff director for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary while in the employ of Senator Strom Thurmond. He moved to South Carolina to practice law in 1988. During that time, he served as an adjunct professor of law at the University of South Carolina School of Law.

Federal judicial service

Service on district court

President George H. W. Bush nominated Shedd on October 17, 1990 to the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. Shedd was confirmed and then received commission on October 30, 1990. He served as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina until his appointment to the Fourth Circuit.

Service on court of appeals

Shedd was nominated by President George W. Bush on September 4, 2001 and confirmed 55-44 by the United States Senate on November 19, 2002. Shedd was the second judge nominated to the Fourth Circuit by Bush and confirmed by the Senate. He assumed senior status on January 30, 2018.

Notable decisions

In 2007, Judge Shedd wrote for a fractured panel which found that the procedural default doctrine prevented the court from hearing the constitutional claims of a death row inmate. On May 25, 2017, Judge Shedd wrote a dissent when the en banc circuit upheld a lower court's injunction against the President's travel ban by a vote of 10–3 in Int'l Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump.