Associate Justice Linda Strite Murnane
Linda Strite Murnane is currently serving as an Associate Justice on the High Court of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a two-year appointment which began in November 2022. Her unique career path includes ten years as a military judge and chief circuit military judge for the United States Air Force, and eight years working in Chambers and the Registry for the United Nations at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. While serving with the United Nations, she served as the Acting Head of Chambers, Acting Deputy Registrar, Chief, Court Management and Senior Legal Officer. Her teams were responsible for the judgments in Milutinovic, et al., Prlic, et al. and Seselj trials and the pre-trial work in the cases of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. She presided at the first Air Force courts-martial in Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom in areas designated as combat zones, presiding at cases conducted in Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
Among her awards, she received the Legion of Merit from the United States Air Force, the Judge Advocate Association’s Outstanding Career Judge Advocate Award for the Air Force, the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, the ABA International Law Section’s Mayre Rasmussen Award and the Ohio State Bar Association’s Nettie Cronise Lutes Award, each of which relate to advancing opportunities for women in areas in which they are underrepresented. She received the National Association of Women Judges’ Mattie Bell Davis Award and in 2023 received the organization’s Justice Vaino Spencer Award. She received the Franklin Flaschner Award from the National Conference of Specialized Court Judges at the ABA 2023 Annual Meeting for her contributions to the Judicial Division.
Judge Murnane currently serves on the Board of Governors of the American Judges Association.