Fifth Circuit / Appointed 1979 / Served to 2004

Reynaldo Guerra Garza

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

Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and confirmed by voice vote, Reynaldo Guerra Garza was a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He earned a law degree from University of Texas School of Law in 1939. He previously served on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived
1915–2004
Appointed by
Jimmy Carter, 1979
Confirmed
by voice vote
Education
University of Texas 1937 · University of Texas Law 1939

Federal judicial service

YearCourtAppointed byVote
1961Southern District of Texas
succeeded James V. Allred
Kennedy (D)Voice vote
1979Fifth CircuitCarter (D)Voice vote

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

Brownsville Junior College (now Texas Southmost College)A.A.1935
University of TexasB.A.1937
University of Texas School of LawLL.B.1939

Judicial Record

Caseload & case types

In our data, Garza was assigned 103 district-court cases (1985–1998). Median time from filing to termination: 825 days across 103 closed cases.

Contract29%
Personal-injury torts22%
Prisoner & habeas17%
Civil rights10%
Labor & ERISA7%
Other federal statutes4%
Other12%

Case assignment is from CourtListener’s PACER-derived docket records: a partial sample, not a complete caseload, reflecting the judge last assigned each case. How we count.

In our data, Garza authored 40 published opinions for the court (1961–1979). Most cited: Adair Pipeline Company v. Pipeliners Local Union No. 798 (29 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 15 most-cited of 40 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 Reynaldo Guerra Garza?
President Jimmy Carter appointed Reynaldo Guerra Garza to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 1979.
Was Reynaldo Guerra Garza appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?
Reynaldo Guerra Garza was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.
What was Reynaldo Guerra Garza's confirmation vote?
Reynaldo Guerra Garza was confirmed by voice vote on July 12, 1979. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.
Which court was Reynaldo Guerra Garza on?
Reynaldo Guerra Garza was a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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