LePage nominates seven for judgeships, including former AG Schneider

Gov. Paul LePage on Friday nominated two District Court judges for the Superior Court bench and five other people for District Court judgeships.

One Superior Court nominee, Daniel I. Billings, is LePage’s former chief legal counsel. One nominee for the District Court is William Schneider, a former Maine attorney general.

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WILLIAM SCHNEIDER

Billings, who lives in Bowdoinham, was appointed by the governor to a District Court judgeship in 2012.

The other Superior Court nominee is Robert E. Mullen of Waterville. He was appointed to the District Court by Gov. Angus King in 1996 and was deputy chief judge for the Maine District Court from 2002 to 2005 and again from 2010 to the present.

Schneider, of Durham, was Maine attorney general from 2011 to 2013. He ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2012 before joining the Governor’s Office of Policy and Management.

The other nominees for District Court judge are Andrew Benson of Athens, who has been the senior homicide prosecutor in the Maine Attorney General’s Office since 1999; Barbara Raimondi of Auburn, who has been in private practice since 1985; Lance Walker of Falmouth, who has been in private practice since 2001; and Eric Walker of Belmont, the deputy district attorney supervising Waldo, Knox, Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties.

A week ago, LePage renominated four District Court judges: Michael Cantara, Charles Dow, Valerie Stanfill and Rick Lawrence. He also renominated two Superior Court justices, Andrew Horton and Nancy Mills, and one Supreme Judicial Court justice, Andrew Mead.

The Legislature’s Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on the nominees.

Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at:

[email protected]

CORRECTION: This story was updated at 9:25 a.m. on Feb. 8, 2014 to correct the name of one of the judges and the year he was appointed to District Court.

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