Carl E. Stewart's work as a chief judge included deciding who got invited into the conversation. Speaking at Notre Dame in 2020, he described broadening participation in the Fifth Circuit's judicial conferences. Invitations went to minority bar associations, public defenders, solo practitioners and rural lawyers, with an organizing committee helping plan the gatherings.
Stewart was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, on January 2, 1950, and earned his undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Dillard University in 1971 and his law degree from Loyola University New Orleans in 1974. He served as a captain in the Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps, then worked as a local, state and federal prosecutor before entering private practice. Louisiana voters elected him to the Caddo Parish District Court in 1985 and later to the Louisiana Court of Appeal.
In 1994, he joined the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the federal appeals court covering Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. He became the court's first African American chief judge when he took that office on October 1, 2012, and served in the role until 2019. He also served on the Judicial Conference of the United States, and in 2017 Chief Justice John Roberts appointed him to that conference's executive committee.
His service reached beyond his own court. He chaired the federal Advisory Committee on the Rules of Appellate Procedure and served as president of the board of the American Inns of Court Foundation. In 2019, a selection committee chaired by retired Justice Anthony Kennedy chose him for the Devitt Award, presented at the Supreme Court that October and described by its sponsors as the nation's highest honor for an Article III federal judge. Accepting it, he said he was grateful "to have been nominated and supported for this very special award in this my 25th year on the federal bench." His civic work beyond the courthouse has included creating educational enrichment centers in impoverished neighborhoods and promoting the rule of law in other countries.
