Kenly Kiya Kato
Kenly Kiya Kato (born 1972) is an American judge who serves on the United States District Court for the Central District of California. She has been a district judge since November 17, 2023, after previously serving as a United States magistrate judge there from 2014 to 2023. She is of Japanese American heritage; her parents were among those interned in World War II.
Kato grew up in Los Angeles and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1993, summa cum laude, majoring in political science. She received her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1996, where she was an editor of the Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review.
Her legal career includes clerking for Judge Robert Mitsuhiro Takasugi (1996–1997), working as a deputy federal public defender in Los Angeles (1997–2003), practicing at Liner LLP (2003–2004), and running her own solo practice (2004–2014). She represented federal criminal defendants and worked on civil rights and labor disputes. She also served on the district court’s Merit Selection Panel and Standing Committee on Attorney Discipline before becoming a magistrate judge in 2014.
President Joe Biden nominated Kato to the district court on December 15, 2021, to fill the seat left by the late Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell. Her confirmation process included questions over a 1995 law-review book review and discussions about affirmative action, but she was eventually confirmed by the Senate on November 7, 2023, by a 51–46 vote, and received her commission on November 17, 2023.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 06:58 (CET).