The Honorable Joseph E. Beshouri

Joseph E. Beshouri was installed as a Magistrate Judge on March 16, 2009.

Magistrate Judge Beshouri was born and raised near Detroit, Michigan. During his last years in high school and for a decade thereafter he played percussion professionally, first as a performing musician and then as a studio musician in Miami, Florida.

Judge Beshouri attended the University of South Florida, where in 1982 he received a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies. He received his law degree in 1986 from Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. During his last two years in law school, he practiced law as a student-attorney in the Criminal Division of the D.C. Law Students in Court program.

After graduating from law school, Judge Beshouri founded his own criminal practice, which continued for 23 years until his appointment as a Magistrate Judge. Licensed in both the District and Maryland, he represented individuals charged in Superior Court, in Maryland’s District and Circuit Courts, and in the U.S. Districts Courts for both the District of Columbia and Maryland. The cases Judge Beshouri defended were far-ranging, although his last decade in practice was focused on complex federal litigation, to include gang-racketeering, transnational and death-penalty cases. During that decade, he represented Sam Carson in United States v. Sam Carson, et al., a seven-month federal trial of six defendants charged in a 101-count RICO indictment, and Kenneth Simmons in United States v. Kenneth Simmons, et al., a six-month federal trial of six defendants charged in a 158- count RICO indictment.

During his last decade in private practice, Judge Beshouri served on occasion as an instructor with the National Institute of Trial Advocacy at the Georgetown Law Center.

Since his appointment as Magistrate Judge, Judge Beshouri has served in the Criminal and Civil Divisions, the latter including Small Claims, Landlord/Tenant, Tax Forfeiture, and Mortgage Foreclosure matters.

Magistrate Judge Beshouri is married to Dee Chamberlin Kerr. They have one child.