Women’s History Month Profile: U.S. District Court Judge Natasha Merle

This month, DPIC celebrates Women’s History Month with weekly profiles of notable women whose work was significant in the modern death penalty era. The first entry in this series is U.S. District Court Judge Natasha Merle. 

Judge Natasha Merle was nominated to the bench by President Biden in 2021 and became his 100^th confirmed judicial appointment. She has served on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York since August 2023. 

Judge Merle graduated with a B.A. from the University of Texas, Austin with honors and received her law degree from New York University, cum laude. Before her appointment to the bench, Judge Merle dedicated most of her legal career to advocating for civil rights in the criminal justice system and protecting voter rights. Judge Merle’s career began as a law clerk for Judge Robert L. Carter of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York from 2008 to 2009. From 2009 to 2011, she was a staff attorney at the Gulf Region Advocacy Center (GRACE). Judge Merle then became an assistant federal public defender in Arizona at the Office of the Federal Public Defender. She also served as a law clerk for Judge John Gleeson of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York from 2012 to 2013.  From 2013 to 2015, Judge Merle was a litigation associate and civil rights fellow at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.

In 2016, Judge Merle joined the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) as assistant counsel, ultimately becoming the Deputy Director of Litigation in 2021. At LDF, she was a part of the legal team representing Texas death row prisoner Duane Buck.  During Mr. Buck’s trial, his counsel negligently proffered expert testimony from a psychologist who claimed that Mr. Buck was more likely to commit subsequent violent criminal acts because he was Black. The jury sentenced Mr. Buck to death. Despite the Texas Attorney General’s confession of error regarding the expert’s testimony in other death penalty cases, Mr. Buck’s repeated appeals were denied by Texas courts. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied Mr. Buck’s request, Judge Merle co-authored the briefs that were essential to Mr. Buck’s successful appeal to the United States Supreme Court. 

The Supreme Court ruled 6-2 in favor of Mr. Buck. The majority opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts characterized the expert’s testimony alleging that race predicts future dangerousness as toxic. “[W]hen a jury hears expert testimony that expressly makes a defendant’s race directly pertinent on the question of life or death, the impact of that evidence cannot be measured simply by how much air time it received at trial or how many pages it occupies in the record. Some toxins can be deadly in small doses,” he wrote. “[O]ur law punishes people for what they do, not who they are.” Mr. Buck was later resentenced to life in prison. 

Judge Merle was also lead counsel in the 2017 case NAACP LDF v. Trump. LDF, along with voter rights and racial equality organizations, argued that President Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, created by executive order, was formed to discriminate against voters of color. Judge Merle also led LDF’s Prepared to Vote campaign, a non-partisan campaign that educates voters, specifically voters of color, to protect their right to vote and prepare them for election day.