After a years-long, often-controversial quest to serve on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- a step below the Supreme Court -- Boyle is out.

President Bush on Tuesday declined to renominate Boyle, a U.S. district judge who lives in Edenton, to the higher court. In doing so, Bush acknowledged that if he couldn't get Boyle through when Republicans ran Congress, he has no chance now that Democrats are in control.

Three other controversial judicial nominees withdrew their names, but Boyle refused. He said in an interview Tuesday that it wasn't his prerogative.

"I didn't quit," said Boyle, whose case may be the longest nomination-in-waiting in U.S. history. "In terms of me throwing in the towel or quitting, that's not what I'm going to do. I'm not going to let them beat me down."

Boyle was first nominated in 1991 by the first President Bush. The current President Bush nominated Boyle in May 2001 and then renominated him five more times over the years.

All the time, Boyle said Tuesday, he paid little attention to shenanigans in Congress, focusing on his judicial work.

"I never asked for it, and I never ran away from it," Boyle said. "I'm happy doing what I'm doing."

Boyle, a Jesse Helms protege, has been praised by lawyers of both parties in North Carolina as a fair, if tough, judge. But he was lambasted by police groups and civil rights groups and had a higher-than-average rate of overturned decisions in higher courts.

The GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee finally passed Boyle's nomination along in June 2005, but it languished for months waiting for a vote of the full Senate. Then last spring, an online magazine reported that Boyle had presided over cases involving companies in which he held stock.

"You could say his nomination got in trouble because it got in trouble," said Wade Smith, a Raleigh lawyer and Democrat who supported Boyle's nomination. "It seemed to feed on itself."

Democratic leaders threatened a filibuster. Sen. Elizabeth Dole of Salisbury, a member of the Senate GOP leadership, unsuccessfully pushed his case.

"It is a real shame that those on the other side of the aisle for so many years blocked his confirmation by the Senate," Dole said in a statement Tuesday.

White House spokeswoman Jeannie Mamo said the administration was "extremely disappointed" in the outcome.

"Over 5 1/2 years, he's never received a fair up-or-down vote on the Senate floor," Mamo said.

It was quite the day for Boyle on Tuesday. He had a morning dental appointment. He returned to his Elizabeth City office to learn of a wire service report quoting unnamed Republicans saying that Boyle had "withdrawn his name."

This was news. Boyle said he never submitted a withdrawal letter.

He saw it coming

In fact, Boyle already knew of the White House's decision. It came as no surprise.

"I watched the election returns," Boyle said. "How could you not be confirmed with a 10-vote majority and expect to be confirmed when you're in the minority?"

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Bush made "the right decision." The controversies took up valuable time last year, Leahy said, and impeded progress on other judicial nominees.

"The White House saw the writing on the wall," said Leslie Proll, director of the Washington office for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, which fought the nominations.

Bush received withdrawal letters from William Haynes, the Pentagon's top counsel, and William G. Myers III of Idaho. Another nominee, Michael Wallace of Texas, withdrew his name last month.

In July, the 15-seat panel will have five open seats, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor. So far, he said, the circuit has been able to handle the caseload.

But the 4th Circuit, which hears appeals from Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, also has only one judge from North Carolina.

"I think, on balance, it would be more positive for people in North Carolina to have an equal or fair representation on the court," Boyle said.

As for his stretch as a nominee, Boyle himself can do the math.

"I was nominated seven times by two presidents over 15 1/2 years," Boyle said. "And I was a pending nominee in the first and second sessions of four Congresses. I challenge you to find anyone in the history of the Senate nominated seven times."