Obama nominates Merrick Garland to U.S. Supreme Court

Washington D.C. — President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced his nomination of federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court position left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia a month ago.

Obama spoke Wednesday morning in the White House Rose Garden.

"This is not a responsibility that I take lightly," he said, adding that he spoke with a wide group of people ranging from advocacy groups to the Senate Judiciary Committee in his search for a new justice.

He said Garland is well-known in Democratic and Republican circles for his "decency, honesty, integrity (and) even-handedness."

An hour before his announcement,

reported that Garland, chief justice for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, would be the nominee. The wire service cited unnamed congressional sources.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, confirmed the nominee's name, according to

.

Earlier Wednesday, the president announced his intention to reveal his Supreme Court nominee in an email to supporters.

He said his search was focused on three main criteria: a potential justice's "rigorous intellect," his or her ability to recognize the limits of the Supreme Court's role and a "keen understanding that justice is not about abstract legal theory, nor some footnote in a dusty casebook."

He appeared to anticipate continued pushback from Republican lawmakers, some of whom have said that they will not support Obama's nominee and encouraged him to wait for the next president to decide who will fill the vacancy.

"I'm confident you'll share my conviction that this American is not only eminently qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice, but deserves a fair hearing, and an up-or-down vote," Obama wrote.

"In putting forward a nominee today, I am fulfilling my constitutional duty. I'm doing my job. I hope that our senators will do their jobs, and move quickly to consider my nominee. That is what the Constitution dictates, and that's what the American people expect and deserve from their leaders."

Cox Media Group