Allyson Duncan J.D. '75
Lawyers for alleged September 11 conspirator
Zacarias Moussaoui argue that testimony from Al Qaeda members held
by the U.S. government could vindicate their client. Prosecutors
for the Justice Department reply that making such witnesses available
would compromise national security. Who will resolve the matter?
Allyson Duncan J.D. '75 could play a major role. As the newest
member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Duncan
is eligible to sit on the three-judge panel that was to hear the
government's latest appeal in December.
The Fourth Circuit is also the Court of Appeals for another high-profile
terrorism-related case, Yaser Esam Hamdi v. Donald Rumsfeld (Hamdi
is the American citizen who was captured in Afghanistan and is
being held in a military brig in Virginia).
"She is going on that bench when she will be able to offer
a compassionately conservative voice to their deliberations," says
A.P. Carlton, president of the American Bar Association and a former
colleague of Duncan's at Kilpatrick Stockton LLP.
Duncan, a Republican, won't discuss specific cases, nor her jurisprudence.
Of her new position, she says, "I find it awe-inspiring." But,
she adds, "It's not a role that I sat down and thought about
assuming or pursuing."
Neither did she set out to gain the breadth of legal experience
that won her the respect of colleagues and approval from North
Carolina Democrats and Republicans (the two parties had failed
to agree on a nominee for the court of appeals for over a decade,
until President Bush nominated Duncan in April). "Pure fortuity," she
says.
It was fortune, then, that landed Duncan, three years out of law
school, at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where
she rose through the ranks to become the commission's acting legal
counsel under then-chairman Clarence Thomas. (She later testified
before Congress that she knew of no impropriety in his relationship
with Anita Hill.) Her Washington reputation served as the launch
pad for her career in North Carolina, where she served, in turn,
as a law professor, state utilities commissioner, state appeals
court judge, and partner in Kilpatrick Stockton.
She broke barriers along the way. Duncan was the first African-American
woman to serve on the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the first
African American to be elected president of the North Carolina
Bar Association. And now, she is the first African-American woman
to sit on the Fourth Circuit court.
"It's a significant distinction," says Duncan, adding
that she looks forward to the time when her kind of career path
is no longer considered remarkable for black women. To that end,
she plans to "nurture law clerks and get them accustomed to
the fact that this is a norm."
Otherwise, she says, she is not out to make history. To prepare
for her first cases, her plan is simple: "I will read what
arrives, until I am confronted with something that requires additional
research." That is challenge enough; she places her hand on
a two-inch-thick stack of papers on a corner of her desk and notes, "This
was yesterday."
Duncan, a self-described "tortoise," has experience plodding
through legal challenges. An early one came at Duke Law School. "I
spent the first year being convinced I was not cut out for it," she
says, "not because I didn't like it, but simply because I
didn't think I had the aptitude or the discipline. At one point
I sought counseling, and I thought I should probably just quit."
"Then I thought, 'Well, I'm here, let me just sweat it out
and see where this goes,' " she continues. "I just constitutionally
dislike giving up."
Good thing--because, Constitutionally, she has plenty of challenges
ahead.
--James Todd
Todd '98 is a freelance writer in Durham.
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