WASHINGTON —  President Bush on Tuesday announced four picks for the federal bench, including one to fill a vacancy created when Justice Samuel Alito Jr. joined the Supreme Court.

Bush nominated Shalom D. Stone to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a post formerly held by Alito. He also named Robert J. Conrad Jr. to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Catharina Haynes to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and John Daniel Tinder to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The nominations must be approved by the Senate.

Stone, a native of Fort Dix, N.J., has been with Walder Hayden & Brogan, a firm in Roseland, N.J., since 1991. Before that, Stone, a graduate of New York University School of Law, worked at the New Jersey law firm of Sills Cummis Tischman Epstein & Gross.

Conrad, a native of Chicago, has been a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina since 2005, and its chief judge since 2006. Before that he was a partner of Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP. He also has worked for the Justice Department's campaign finance task force and was a U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.

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Terrence Boyle had been nominated for the 4th Circuit but his appointment provoked opposition from Democrats who cited his rulings in civil rights and disability cases, as well as his higher-than-average reversal rate by higher courts. Bush decided not to renominate him.

Haynes rejoined the litigation department of Baker Botts LLP in Dallas this year after serving eight years as a judge of the 191st District Court for Texas in Dallas. She was an associate, then partner of Baker Botts from 1988 to 1998. She is a native of Melbourne, Fla., and earned a law degree from Emory University.

Since 1987, Tinder, a native of Indianapolis, has been a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. His earlier positions include: U.S. attorney for the Southern District, associate at the law firm of Harrison & Moberly LLP, adjunct professor at Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis and chief trial deputy in the Marion County prosecutor's office.

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