Colorado’s federal trial court announced on Monday that it has named public defender Timothy P. O’Hara and prosecutor Cyrus Y. Chung to be its newest magistrate judges, filling one current and one pending vacancy.

Unlike district judges, who the president nominates and the U.S. Senate confirms, magistrate judges serve eight-year terms following an appointment by their life-tenured counterparts.

O’Hara will succeed S. Kato Crews, who won Senate confirmation in January to a district judgeship after serving more than five years as a magistrate judge. Chung will take the bench in January 2025, following the retirement of Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty.

Although multiple members of Colorado’s current federal bench have experience in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, only two have served as federal public defenders: U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak and U.S. District Court Senior Judge Raymond P. Moore. In addition, the Biden administration appointed Judge Veronica S. Rossman to the federal appeals court based in Denver as part of its focus on selecting judges with historically underrepresented backgrounds.

“We are so pleased and honored to see another distinguished attorney in our office appointed to the bench,” said Federal Public Defender Virginia L. Grady in statement. “Tim has devoted his career to the Constitution’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel for all. He is one hell of a trial attorney, and a brilliant student and teacher of the law. I am confident that he will bring his tireless work ethic to the court, and to the people of the District of Colorado.”

Richard J. Holwell, a retired federal trial judge in the Southern District of New York, said he remembered Chung well from his time as a law clerk.

“He was a brilliant clerk who drafted thoughtful and well-reasoned opinions,” said Holwell. “Perhaps of more importance to his new position, he was a serious person of sound judgment and always pointed me in the direction of a fair result.”

Colorado’s federal court has seen significant turnover in less than four years, with President Joe Biden appointing five of the seven active district judges. For the first time, he selected sitting magistrate judges for lifetime appointments, elevating Crews, Nina Y. Wang and Gordon P. Gallagher to the district bench.

Prior to the latest round of appointments, the court has also welcomed three full-time and one part-time magistrate judge out of nine total seats. While magistrate judges typically focus on preliminary and administrative tasks in cases, they are able to handle many of the same duties as their presidentially appointed counterparts, including presiding over civil cases on their own.

As a public defender, O’Hara represented defendants facing charges that included drugs, firearms, a bomb threat at a Parker grocery store, sexual abuse and murder. Last year, O’Hara filed an unsuccessful motion to prevent the government from extraditing a man to Costa Rica for the attempted killing of his wife, arguing the evidence was lacking and Costa Rica’s murder statute was “fundamentally different” from any comparable U.S. law.

O’Hara teaches a course about jury selection at the University of Colorado’s law school and was previously a public defender in Chicago’s Cook County.

Prior to his time in Colorado, Chung worked at the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts. Once at Colorado’s U.S. Attorney’s Office, the cases Chung prosecuted included a defendant who pleaded guilty to aiming a laser pointer at a police aircraft, a defendant who threatened to kill a public official and detonate bombs in Crowley and Otero counties, plus more traditional narcotics cases. In 2022, then-U.S. Attorney Cole Finegan selected Chung to oversee the federal response to election-related threats.

Jason R. Dunn, the U.S. attorney who hired Chung in 2019, recalled that Chung was a finalist alongside a more experienced prosecutor from within Colorado. But Dunn said Chung received the job after explaining in his interview how he wrote a software program to solve a financial crimes investigation.

“We really thought Cyrus had a unique ability to think outside the box and think creatively about how to approach cases,” Dunn said. “He is very humble, very hardworking and very thoughtful. I think those three traits alone will get you a long way to being a successful member of the judiciary.”

According to the clerk of the district court, the two men’s background checks are expected to take between four and six months, after which they may take the bench. The clerk declined to share how many applicants were considered for the vacancies.