Same-sex marriage—an issue that ramped up nationally following a pair of U.S. Supreme Court cases this year—swept into the district courts of Pennsylvania, each of which also changed leadership this year.
Each of the chief judges in Pennsylvania’s three federal trial courts passed the reins in 2013; the first was at the start of the year in the Eastern District. U.S. District Chief Judge J. Curtis Joyner announced in January that he’d leave that post after holding it for two years, making way for the first female chief in the district when U.S. District Judge Petrese B. Tucker took over in the spring. She started her seven-year term in May.
