The Hon. Robert E. Morin (Ret.) is a senior judge for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton in December 1995. Morim was confirmed by the United States Senate on July 26, 1996. He was reappointed for a second fifteen-year term in 2011 and retired in April 2020, assuming senior status.
During his judicial tenure, he was chosen to serve as Chief Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in 2016 and remained in that capacity until his retirement.
Prior to his nomination, Morin was a partner at Fisher, Morin & Hansen in the District of Columbia since 1986. At the firm, he specialized in defending serious criminal and death penalty cases. Morin also taught Evidence and Capital Punishment as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School.
Before joining the firm, he was a trial attorney with the Office of the Public Defender in Maryland (1984 to 1986), where he represented defendants in death penalty cases. Morin relocated to the area after helping to establish the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia in 1982. The Center was designed to provide representation for indigent individuals charged in capital cases or under a death sentence, as well as train attorneys to provide representation in those matters.
Morin received a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Massachusetts in 1974. He then completed a J.D. at Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, in 1977.
After graduating from law school, Morin began his legal career as an associate at Furey, Doolan & Abell, where he handled civil and criminal litigation before becoming a clinical supervisor in the Criminal Divison of the District of Columbia Law Students in Court Program in Washington, D.C. As such, Morin was tasked with supervising third-year law students representing indigent individuals charged with crimes, as well as teaching classes in criminal procedure and trial techniques.
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Morin and his wife, Martha Tomich, have two children. Following his retirement, Morin joined the McCammon Group as a neutral in 2020.