Stephanos Bibas

On June 19, 2017, President Trump nominated Bibas to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, to fill the seat vacated by Judge Midge Rendell, who took senior status on July 1, 2015. On October 4, 2017, a hearing on his nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee. On October 26, 2017, his nomination was reported out of committee by an 11–9 roll call vote. On November 2, 2017, his nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate by a vote of 53–43. He received his judicial commission on November 20, 2017.

Bibas is the 15th-most-cited law professor by the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. courts of appeals, and state high courts as well as the 5th-most-cited professor of criminal law and procedure by law professors.

From 2006 to 2017, Bibas was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He received the Robert A. Gorman Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2008. Bibas previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School and the University of Iowa College of Law and was a research fellow at Yale Law School.

Bibas then attended Yale Law School, where he obtained his Juris Doctor (1994) and was a member of the Yale Law Journal. At Yale Law, Bibas joined the moot court team and won awards for the best oralist and best team, and also served as a symposium editor on the Yale Law Journal.

From 1994–1995, Bibas clerked for Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He also clerked for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Anthony Kennedy from 1997–1998, where he was a co-clerk with Raymond Kethledge.

Bibas has made several donations to Republicans. He and his wife Juliana Denise Bibas, a writer, have four children. He has been a member of the Federalist Society since 1991. He has also served as a deacon of the Russian Orthodox Church since 2015.

At Columbia, Bibas continued to develop his debate skills through the Philolexian Society and Parliamentary debate. He graduated from Columbia when he was 19 with a Bachelor of Arts (1989) in political theory, summa cum laude. He then went on to attend Oxford University, graduating two years later with a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts (1991) in jurisprudence. While at Oxford, Bibas won the 1st place speaker award in the World Debate Championships.

Stephanos Bibas (born 1969) is a United States Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, who previously was a professor of law and criminology at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is a noted scholar of criminal procedure with expertise in criminal charging, plea bargaining, and sentencing. As a professor, Bibas examined how procedural rules written for jury trials have unintended consequences when cases involving jury trials are the exception, rather than the rule, with 95 percent of defendants pleading guilty. Bibas also studied the role of substantive goals such as remorse and apology in criminal procedure.