President Joe Biden nominated Riverside Superior Judge Sunshine Sykes to a judgeship at the California Central District Court.
If approved, Sykes will be the first Native American federal judge in California, the first federal judge from the Navajo nation, and the fifth Native American federal judge in the United States, according to the White House announcement.
Sykes began serving as a Riverside Superior Court judge in 2013, and presides over the civil litigation department, and is the presiding judge of the appellate division, the White House announced.
Previously, Sykes was a Riverside County deputy county counsel from 2005 to 2013, and a contract attorney for the Southwest Justice Center’s Juvenile Defense Panel from 2003 to 2005. She graduated from Stanford Law School in 2001, and from Stanford University in 1997.
