Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr.

Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 and confirmed by voice vote, Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr. was a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He earned a law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1960. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived

1936–2022

Appointed by

Jimmy Carter, 1977

Confirmed

by voice vote

Education

Yale 1957 · Vanderbilt Law School 1960

Succeeded

William Ernest Miller

Succeeded by

Julia Smith Gibbons

Federal judicial service

Party letters show the appointing president’s party, not the judge’s own. A voice vote means the chamber approved aloud. No senator-by-senator tally is recorded.

Confirmation vote

Voice vote

The Senate approved this confirmation aloud, with no senator-by-senator tally recorded. Recorded roll-call votes begin in 1989.

Education

Judicial Record

In our data, Merritt authored 1 published opinion for the court (2009). Most cited: United States v. Boring (46 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge.

Selected opinions

Showing the 1 most-cited of 1 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

Who appointed Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr.?

President Jimmy Carter appointed Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr. to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 1977.

Was Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr. appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?

Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr. was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.

What was Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr.'s confirmation vote?

Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr. was confirmed by voice vote on October 29, 1977. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.

Which court was Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr. on?

Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr. was a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

44 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Data as of 2026-08-10. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).