Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has nominated Sabita Singh, who is now the special counsel for criminal rights enforcement in the office of the US attorney in Boston, to be a district court judge.
If confirmed, Singh will be the first such high level Asian-American appointment to the state bench.
Of the four nominees that Romney -- a potential Republican presidential candidate -- appointed to the Massachusetts trial court last week, three, including Singh, are minority women.
In 2005, the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts had assailed Romney for not nominating enough women or minorities to be judges.
In the first two years of his tenure, 17 of his 19 nominations to the bench had been men, and only two were minorities.
Romney said Singh and the other nominees are highly qualified with a demonstrated commitment to public service.
'I am particularly pleased that three of today's four nominees are minority women because of the special effort we have made,' Romney said in a written statement.
The Bihar-born Singh immigrated to the US with her parents as a child.
She grew up in rural Pennsylvania and majored in the administration of justice, after which she clerked with the Massachusetts Superior Court.
Singh worked on some high profile cases during her tenure in this office.
These included the Eddie O'Brien juvenile murder case out of Somerville where she ultimately secured a conviction for first-degree murder.
Singh declined to be interviewed by rediff.com because 'of the sensitivity of the confirmation process,' which, however, is expected to be a formality.
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