Skip to main content
Vance Day, a former judge best known in Oregon for being suspended from the Marion County Circuit Court bench, has accepted a senior position in the U.S. Department of Justice.
Day confirmed his new position in an email to the Oregon Journalism Project.
“I was appointed to serve as Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General,“ Day writes. ”Emil Bove is currently the Acting Deputy Attorney General."
Day, a onetime trial lawyer, chaired the Oregon Republican Party from 2005 to 2009. In 2011, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat, named him to the Marion County bench.
In 2018, the Oregon Supreme Court suspended Day from the bench for three years without pay, for misconduct that included declining to marry same sex couples, allowing a felon to handle guns in his presence, and intimidating a college soccer referee.
That suspension followed a 2015 recommendation by the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness that he be permanently removed from the bench.
The Oregon Department of Justice brought, then dropped, criminal charges against Day related to his handling of a troubled former Navy SEAL who’d appeared in Day’s Veterans Treatment Court when the man refused to testify. The notoriety surrounding his suspension made Day a national figure in conservative legal circles.
Day attempted a political comeback in 2022, running for a seat on the Oregon Court of Appeals, but lost to incumbent Darlene Ortega 62% to 38%.
He began his work at DOJ on Feb. 18. “My assignments are just beginning to be handed to me,” Day says.
This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering rural Oregon. OJP seeks to inform, engage, and empower readers with investigative and watchdog reporting that makes an impact. Our stories appear in partner newspapers across the state.