Biden Public Defenders Turned Judges Begin to Make Mark on Bench

The two decades Kate Menendez spent as a federal public defender representing people who couldn’t afford an attorney in Minnesota taught her the importance of never kicking someone while they’re down.

It’s a lesson that stuck with Menendez, now a 52-year-old federal trial judge in the state, as she mulled the sentence of criminal defendant Greg Easley, who had been found guilty of possessing a machine gun while trafficking drugs.

Easley was raised by a single mother who struggled with substance addiction. He grew up in “extreme poverty” and was a victim of domestic violence, said his lawyer, Robert Richman, ...