C.J. Williams is a United States District Court Judge., appointed under Article III of the United States Constitution. As a District Court Judge, he has the responsibility of presiding over civil and criminal cases filed in the district. Before being appointed to this position in 2018, he served as United States Magistrate Judge from 2016-2018, where he presided over all pretrial matters in criminal cases (e.g., initial appearance, arraignment, detention, probable cause, suppression, competency, guilty plea, jury selection). In civil cases, he presided over all non-dispositive motions, settlement conferences, and jury selection. He has also served as an Assistant United States Attorney from 1997-2016, handling complex criminal and civil cases, trying more than 50 felony cases. From 2008 to 2016, he served as the Senior Litigation Counsel, responsible for training, handling or supervising all complex litigation, and advising trial attorneys. From 2010 to 2011, he served on a detail in Washington, DC, with the Capital Case Section, working on death penalty cases. Judge Williams has served as an instructor for the Department of Justice at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina, and has taught as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, University of South Dakota Law School, and the University of Iowa College of Law. He has published more than a dozen law review articles, authored a textbook entitled Advanced Evidence: Applying the Rules of Evidence in Pretrial and Trial Advocacy (2018) and co-authored another textbook entitled Federal Criminal Practice (2016).
