Two new judges will be added to the felony one calendar, adjudicating the most serious of cases, in January.
Those judges are Rhonda Reid Winston, who is taking over Calendar Three from Judge Ronna Beck and Judge Jennifer Anderson who is taking over Calendar Four from Judge Herbert Dixon.
Winston was appointed to the DC Superior Court in 1994 by President William Jefferson Clinton. Her official bio states:
In 1979, Judge Winston began her legal career as a staff attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, and she has extensive experience litigating criminal cases in the District of Columbia Superior Court. She spent nine years with the Public Defender Service and, during her tenure there, served as its Special Litigation Counsel and Deputy Director.
Judge Winston has also served as an assistant district attorney in the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor in New York City, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law in the Criminal Justice Clinic at Georgetown Law Center, a trial attorney in the Baltimore District Office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and Deputy Director of the District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency.
Anderson nominated to the DC Superior Court by President George W. Bush in November 2004; she was sworn in in September 2006. Her official bio states:
In March of 2000, Judge Anderson was promoted to Deputy Chief of the Felony Trial Section. Despite being a supervisor, Judge Anderson continued to try homicide cases. One of her more notable cases was the successful prosecution of Carlton Blount
and others for the murder of two students after a fight at a Wilson High School basketball game. These senseless killings caught the attention of the entire city and, indeed, even President Clinton sent condolences and mentioned their death in a speech on school
violence. In 2001, in recognition of her work on the Blount case, she was the recipient of the Director’s Award which is a nationwide award given by the Department of Justice for superior performance in a specific case.In March of 2002, Judge Anderson became the Chief of Homicide and Major Crimes for the Third Police District. Later that same year, the British Council awarded Judge Anderson an Atlantic Fellowship in Public Policy. As part of the fellowship, Judge Anderson spent ten months in the United Kingdom based at the Institute of Comparative Legal Studies and the London School of Economics, School of Law.
D.C. Superior Court currently has five Felony 1 calendars to handle the district’s most serious cases.
Each year, the Chief Judge reviews and makes adjustments to the calendar assignments. These decisions are based on caseload, calendar size and judicial experience.
When a new case enters the system, it is randomly assigned to one of five calendars. When a calendar changes hands, all of the cases transfer over to the new judge.
The Felony 1 calendar handles the most serious felonies, including murders. Most judges appointed to the Felony 1 calendar serve two years before being rotated to another assignment.
