DENVER (AP) – President Barack Obama has nominated a federal public defender for the districts of Colorado and Wyoming to be a federal judge in Denver.

If the Senate confirms Raymond P. Moore for the U.S. District Court in Denver, he would replace Wiley Daniel, who plans to become a senior judge in January. Senior judges essentially provide volunteer service to the courts and typically have smaller caseloads.

Daniel was the first African American named to a federal district court judgeship in Colorado.

Moore is a 1978 Yale Law School graduate who worked in private practice with the Denver law firm of Davis, Graham & Stubbs. He also spent four years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Colorado and was an assistant federal public defender in Colorado from 1993 through 2003.

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