The newest federal magistrate judge in San Diego is a former federal prosecutor who later moved into criminal defense and civil litigation.
Benjamin Cheeks was sworn in Friday, court officials for the Southern District of California said. Cheeks fills the position left vacant by the retirement of Magistrate Judge Bernard Skomal.
Cheeks worked as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. He later moved to the West Coast and became a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego. Cheeks spent three years in that job.
He moved into defense work in San Diego, becoming a solo practitioner handling both criminal and civil cases. As such, he took a cross-section of cases, including fraud, bribery, money laundering, drug trafficking, firearms offenses and immigration-related offenses, federal court officials said. The website for his practice indicates his civil work included employment and civil rights cases.
Cheeks has served as a lawyer representative for the Southern District of California. He was also a member of the district’s Criminal Justice Act Advisory Committee and Standing Committee on Discipline.
According to the website from his criminal and civil practice, Cheeks is licensed to practice law in New York and California. He was also an adjunct law professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law.
Cheeks graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science and religious studies from University of Miami in 2000. He earned his law degree from American University, Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C., in 2003.
While district judges are nominated by the president and approved by the U.S. Senate for lifetime appointments, magistrate judges serve eight-year terms that can be renewed.
Cheeks was vetted by a local selection panel of both attorneys and non-attorneys and was appointed to the bench by a vote of the court’s district judges.
The position pays nearly $214,000 a year.