James Harvie Wilkinson III (born September 29, 1944) is an American jurist who serves as a United States circuit judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. His name has been raised at several junctures in the past as a possible nominee to the United States Supreme Court. Early and family life Wilkinson was born in New York City, New York to J. Harvie Wilkinson Jr. and his wife. He was raised in Richmond, Virginia, where he attended St. Christopher's School during the state's Massive Resistance crisis concerning desegregation of the public schools. His father (CEO of State Planters Bank, later part of Crestar Bank) joined with Norfolk and Western Railroad CEO Stuart Saunders and Richmond School Board President (and later Supreme Court Justice) Lewis F. Powell and others to support Governor J. Lindsay Almond when he decided to break with the Byrd Organization and adhere to the decisions of the Virginia Supreme Court and a three judge federal panel on January 19, 1959, which declared certain new laws designed to maintain segregation unconstitutional. Wilkinson attended the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, then Yale University, where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall, chairman of the Conservative Party of the Yale Political Union, and later the Political Union's president. He graduated with honors from Yale with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967, then published his first book, Harry Byrd and The Changing Face of Virginia Politics, 1945–1966 (1968) Wilkinson enlisted in the United States Army in 1968 and served until 1969. Upon leaving the army, Wilkinson began law school at the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville. In 1970, after completing only one year, Wilkinson took a leave of absence to run (at age 25) for a Virginia seat in the United States House of Representatives. He ran as a Republican against 3-term incumbent Democrat David E. Satterfield III and later joked about losing by a significant margin, noting that Satterfield had a billboard urging voters to send Wilkinson back to law school. Wilkinson then resumed his legal studies and graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1972 (when Satterfield faced no opposition) and soon passed the Virginia bar exam. Wilkinson and his wife have two children. His daughter Porter Wilkinson also clerked for the United States Supreme Court, serving in the chambers of Chief Justice John Roberts in 2007–2008. Early legal, teaching