About me
Judge David O. Carter serves on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. A UCLA graduate, he served as a Marine First Lieutenant in the Vietnam War, earning a Bronze Star for valor and a Purple Heart.
Judge Carter was nominated on June 25, 1998. He received his commission on October 22, 1998.
Prior to serving on the Federal bench, Judge Carter began his legal career as an Assistant District Attorney with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office in 1972, where he became the senior deputy district attorney in charge of the office’s homicide investigations. Subsequently he joined the Orange County Superior Court, after a brief period as a Municipal Court Judge.
Judge Carter has overseen several cases involving international terrorism, including United States v. Afshari, et al. (2009), which involved nine defendants charged with providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, and United States v. Leung (2005), which involved a Chinese spy charged with unauthorized appropriation of classified documents related to national defense. Since 1994, he has been a visiting professor teaching The International Law of Narcotics Trafficking and Terrorism at the University of California, Irvine.
Judge Carter has been a lecturer and advisor for numerous international counter-terrorism programs, including: the Judiciary of Bosnia on behalf of the U.S. State Department; the Sandiganbayan (Philippine Appellate and Supreme Courts) on behalf of the American Bar Association Asia Law Initiative and USAID; the Supreme Court and High Court of Malawi on behalf of the United States Treasury Department; the National Congress of Mexico on behalf of USAID; the Judiciary of Armenia on behalf of the U.S. State Department; the Judiciary and Attorney General of Afghanistan on behalf of the U.S. State Department; judges in South Asia on behalf of the United Nations; the Judiciary of Indonesia on behalf of the U.S. State Department; and others. He is a United States Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, receiving a Bronze Star for Valor and a Purple Heart.
B.A., University of California, Los Angeles, 1967; J.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1972