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Thread: The Sudden and Unexplained Rapture of America’s Federal Judiciary

  1. #61
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    Retired Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein dies at 99

    Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein, a WWII veteran who served on the bench for more than five decades and worked on the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case died on Tuesday, his wife told the Daily News. He was 99.

    Judge Weinstein was nominated to the bench by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967 and worked in Brooklyn’s downtown federal courthouses for 53 years. He was a firm believer in the rehabilitation of convicted criminals, and always strived to give the shortest possible sentences.

    “I just about used up my reserves of energy and I felt that I could not really go on and have the assurance that I could give full attention and full energy to each one of these litigants. That being so, it seemed to me highly desirable to turn it over to the other judges on the court,” Weinstein told The News in his 14th-floor chambers, before he hung up the gavel.

    Born in Wichita, Kan., in 1921, Weinstein came to Brooklyn when he was 5-years-old.

    During the Depression, he acted in plays and posed as an artist’s model to feed his family.

    After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Weinstein enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and sunk a Japanese cruiser, he told The News.

    “I felt elated about it,” he said. “But in subsequent times, I’ve felt that the killing of 1,100 men was not warranted. I’ve instructed some Japanese lawyers and judges ... and I always have the feeling that those men were unnecessarily sacrificed at the war. I have no feeling of jubilation in killing Japanese men.”

    Weinstein graduated Brooklyn College and went on to Columbia Law School.

    He contributed research and briefs to aid his friend and mentor Thurgood Marshall in the Brown v. Board of Education case, but insisted to The News that his role was minimal.

    Many of Weinstein’s rulings made headlines, like when he blasted the NYPD in 2009 for the “widespread falsification by arresting officers.”

    The judge is survived by his wife, three sons and two grandchildren.

    “There are so many things one could say. We’ll just miss him being him,” said Weinstein’s wife, Susan Berk.

    https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...pae-story.html

  2. #62
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    We are finally free of the LBJ judges. Only 53 years after his term ended.
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  3. #63
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    It's insane that he was 99 and was still a federal judge that could determine cases. I forget which one of us originally brought it up (I believe it was imx complaining about Betty Fletcher and Stephen Reinhardt at the time), but the federal judiciary has so many geriatric members now and as a result continues to produce more issues than solve them well beyond the presidents and Congress that assigned them to their seats. Every other civilized country has an age limit for their judges except for us, and it's well beyond time to change that. Ridiculous.

    Furthermore, even after Trump left office, the 9th Circuit still remains the largest federal court in the country stacked with ultra liberal judges along with an insane amount of jurists, with nearly as many senior judges now as active ones. They should have split this circuit into a 12th over the past 4 years, and because of the liberals on it and lackluster motivation to do anything, Congress created headaches for states that needed to execute their death row inmates. Now we're stuck with Joe Biden appointing more ultra liberals that will sit for the next 30 years. More and more headaches to follow...
    Last edited by FFM; 06-15-2021 at 10:22 PM.

  4. #64
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    I was reading this decade old article from Slate on Richard Owen also a judge in New York like Jack Weinstein and Owen was fully senile for his last 8 years on the bench the period began in 2007 . He died while still on the bench in 2015 at 92, it's crazy that especially it's the left wing ones that seem to have this insane grip on not giving up their seats until they are rotting away. Republicans are now confirming Biden's judges after stalling on the last 50 Trump could've done. It's lookin really bad. It's gross seeing these ghouls appointed by men who have died over 50 years ago still lording over these courts and having these old grudges with certain issues.

    The article has this great piece for Judge Easterbrook now 72 years old.

    "The judge who patrols that highway most aggressively is Frank Easterbrook, chief of the Chicago-based 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. In the last four years, Easterbrook says, he has arranged for two colleagues to see neurologists. One was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and retired. The other insisted on returning to the bench after a stroke, but because he had difficulties “with executive function,” Easterbrook said, he removed all criminal cases from the judge’s docket. Easterbrook has even publicly called on lawyers to contact his chambers directly if they think a judge is exhibiting symptoms of dementia—a rare move by the bench to enlist the public in monitoring judges."
    Last edited by Mike; 06-15-2021 at 10:46 PM.
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  5. #65
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    Former U.S. District Court Judge Richard Kyle, who presided over major cases over 25 years, dies

    He was a no-nonsense judge who expected attorneys to show up on time, keep their questions of witnesses on point and not waste the jurors' time. He also had the reputation of treating both sides fairly.

    Senior U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle, who was known as "Sarge" to his friends and colleagues, did not "brook a lot of shenanigans," recalls Anita Terry, who clerked for him in 1999 and 2000. "He put the fear of god in the lawyers," she said. "He liked lawyers but he expected a lot out of them."

    But off the bench, he was "warm and sunny" to his staff and liked to chat about the news and politics or episodes of Seinfeld, Terry said.

    Kyle, a Twin Cities federal judge for 25 years until his 2017 retirement, died Tuesday at the age of 84. The cause was complications from Alzheimers, said his son, Richard H. Kyle Jr., a Ramsey County District Court judge.

    The elder Kyle presided over some of the biggest federal cases of his era including the criminal prosecution of renowned Twin Cities surgeon John Najarian, the fraud trial of Tom Petters,, and the defamation trial involving former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.

    "He was one of the leaders on the [Federal] court," said Chief Minnesota U.S. District Judge John Tunheim. Kyle led the renovation of the federal courthouse in St. Paul in 2006-2007, Tunheim said.

    U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen, was a veteran assistant U.S. attorney when she appeared before him in the first trial that Kyle conducted after he became a judge in 1992. "He would joke that I taught him how to try cases ... He was extremely humble while maintaining control. He didn't pretend to know things he didn't know," Ericksen said. "He had a good feel for evidence. He was comfortable in his role and clearly loved it."

    Kyle was born in St. Paul in 1937 to Richard and Geraldine Kyle and was a lifelong resident of White Bear Lake. He attended St. Paul Academy and Williams College, graduated with honors from the University of Minnesota and earned a law degree from the U's law school where he was president of the Minnesota Law Review.

    He was a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Edward Devitt, who was a mentor, later joined the law firm of Briggs and Morgan, and for two years served as the state's solicitor general.

    U.S. District Judge Michael Davis called Kyle "fiercely independent." He said despite Kyle's Republican politics — he'd later be appointed a federal judge by President George. H.W. Bush — he co-chaired the election campaign of state Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Wahl, Davis' mother-in-law. Wahl had been appointed by DFL Gov. Rudy Perpich. Davis said Kyle thought it inappropriate for people to challenge a sitting Supreme Court justice, in this case, Wahl, the first woman on the state's high court. She won re-election.

    U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson said he was eager to have Kyle join him on the federal court.

    "We would meet for breakfast to strategize how that would happen," Magnuson said. "I never got up so early in my life."

    Kyle was famous as an early riser. U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank said Kyle routinely arrived at the St. Paul courthouse at 6 a.m. or earlier.

    "He was a role model for any new judge or magistrate," said Frank. When Frank was appointed a federal judge in 1998, Kyle insisted on driving 185 miles to Virginia, Minn. where Frank had his state district court chambers. They had lunch and talked for four hours, Frank said.

    Kyle made headlines in 1996 when he dismissed many of the criminal charges against Dr. John Najarian, telling prosecutors they failed to prove he'd broken the law when he developed and administered an anti-rejection drug. Najarian had been a pioneer in transplant surgery and been chief of surgery at the University of Minnesota hospital. A jury acquitted Najarian of the remaining criminal charges. Kyle accused prosecutors of "going beyond the bounds of common sense" in bringing the charges.

    In 2010, he presided over the trial of Tom Petters, who was convicted of master minding a multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme. Kyle sentenced Petters to 50 years in prison. "This was a massive fraud and the defendant's involvement was front and center," Kyle said.

    In 2014, Kyle he was the judge at the defamation trial of former Gov. Jesse Ventura, who sued the estate of the late Chris Kyle, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL sniper, who claimed in a bestselling book that he punched and knocked down Ventura in a California bar. Ventura said it never happened. In an 8-2 decision, the jury sided with Ventura, awarding him $l. 8 million, but in 2016 the Eighth U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, ordering a new trial. Ventura settled out of court.

    If it irked Kyle, he didn't say. His son, Richard Kyle, said his father told him, "Don't be concerned with your reversal rate. Just do your job."

    Kyle did not have a lot of hobbies, his son said. "He did like to cut the grass, riding on his John Deere law mower, at the end of the day, with a scotch and water in his non-riding hand. It was his way of relaxing."

    Kyle is survived by his wife, Jane Kyle; three sons, Richard and Michael of St. Paul and Patrick of Minneapolis; two daughters, Kathleen Brusco of Burnsville and Darcy Kyle of Aspen Col.; two sisters, Sheila Cunningham of White Bear Lake and Geraldine Bullard of Lilydale; 10 grandchildren and one great grandson.

    A funeral service is scheduled next Thursday at 2 p.m. at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, 519 Grove St., Minneapolis. A reception will follow at the Landmark Center, 75 W. 5th St., St. Paul. Face masks will be required.

    https://www.startribune.com/former-u...ies/600071710/

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    Manhattan federal judge William Pauley dies at 68

    (Reuters) - U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III, who oversaw two decades of Manhattan federal court fights including the criminal case against longtime Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, has died. He was 68.

    Pauley died Tuesday morning "after a battle with an illness," Southern District of New York district court executive Edward Friedland said in an email.

    Pauley had taken senior status in 2018. He joined the court in 1998, appointed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

    He presided over a string of high-profile cases: In 2013 he ruled that the National Security Agency could lawfully record millions of Americans' phone calls, a decision a federal appeals court later overturned, and in 2016 he picked a monitor to ensure Deutsche Bank AG reported swaps data properly.

    In 2018 he sentenced Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer, to three years in prison for his role in making illegal hush-money payments to women to help Trump's 2016 election campaign and for lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Russia.

    SDNY Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain called Pauley "a great judge – wise, engaged, excited about his role in making sure that justice was served in every case – and a great friend and colleague" in a statement on Tuesday.

    Judge Colleen McMahon said in a statement that Pauley's "judicial record speaks for itself, but fewer are aware of his significant presence behind the scenes." He had chaired the court's security committee, working to keep courthouses safe, and was on its COVID-19 response team.

    "He was a wise counselor to anyone who asked him for advice. And that advice was invariably sound. He was a loving husband, a proud father of three fine young men, a good citizen of his community and a respected member of the Bar," McMahon said. "I will miss him every day."

    She and Pauley were nominated and confirmed to the bench on the same day.

    Before becoming a judge, Pauley was assistant counsel to the New York State Assembly minority leader and was a founding partner at Snitow & Pauley, a midtown Manhattan law firm that focused on complex federal civil litigation.

    Pauley, who was born on Long Island, started his legal career as a deputy Nassau County attorney. He graduated from Duke University School of Law.

    "A loving husband and father, he and his wife, Kimberly, regularly took part in court occasions and enjoyed family activities with their sons," the district court said in a statement Tuesday. "He will be missed greatly."

    https://www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...68-2021-07-06/

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    Walter McGovern, federal judge in Seattle for half a century, dies at 99

    Walter T. McGovern, a star prep athlete, World War II veteran and senior federal judge who played competitive tennis into his ninth decade, died on July 8. He was 99.

    “My father was a Seattleite,” said his daughter, Trina McGovern. “He loved the people of Seattle, and he loved Seattle.”

    “The Western District of Washington has lost a local treasure,” said Chief U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez in a statement. “He handled so many important cases in his long career that it is not hyperbole to say his rulings shaped our community.”

    Aside from his skills as an athlete and jurist, McGovern was the founder of the federal bar association in the district and during a 12-year stint as chief judge he implemented structural changes that U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik says “made us a national model of innovation and excellence.”

    McGovern was born on May 24, 1922, and named after an uncle who was a distinguished trial lawyer in San Francisco. McGovern grew up on Seattle’s Capitol Hill and attended the University of Washington, both as an undergraduate and for law school. According to his family, he met his wife, Rita Marie, when they were in the fourth grade, and they were married in 1946 at St. Anne’s Catholic Church.

    They would stay married for 71 years. She died in 2017.

    McGovern first found acclaim as a star basketball player at Seattle Prep, where he became the team’s all-time leading scorer, according to a 1991 Seattle Times article. He played at the University of Santa Clara before enlisting in the Navy to fight in World War II.

    As part of the Navy’s V-12 officer training program, McGovern was stationed at Gonzaga University, where he and 12 other enlistees became its first celebrated basketball squad.

    “Gonzaga wasn’t much of a basketball school until the arrival of the Navy men,” according to a 2016 Spokane Spokesman-Review article. McGovern, described as a “smooth ballhandler,” was a starter on the team that went 21-2 — another account had it at 23-2 — beating the University of Washington in a championship series.

    After the war, McGovern turned down an offer to play professionally with the Washington Capitols, according to the 1991 Times article. He finished his education and obtained a law degree, spending about a decade in private practice before becoming a Municipal Court judge in the city, according to the Federal Judicial Center.

    McGovern rose quickly as a jurist, beating an incumbent judge to win a seat on the King County Superior Court. Gov. Dan Evans appointed McGovern to the state Supreme Court in 1968, according to the judicial center, although McGovern said he did not much enjoy appellate work.

    In 1971, then-President Richard Nixon appointed McGovern to the U.S. District Court. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate later that year and began a 50-year career as a federal judge.

    “When I was a young trial lawyer, I always heard that if you’re going to be a judge, the greatest position in the world is to be a federal trial judge,” McGovern told a friend, according to a statement issued by the district.

    As a federal judge, McGovern presided over cases that garnered national attention, including the prosecution of members of a white-supremacist group called The Order in 1985. The members had been charged with assassinating a Jewish radio host, stealing millions in robberies to fund a civil war against the government, and were convicted of crimes ranging from murder to racketeering.

    “He cared about the cases he presided over and, most important, the people who walked into the courtroom,” Martinez said.

    “He controlled the courtroom not with an iron fist but through sheer force of his personality,” he added. “Away from the courtroom he was a gentle man with a sense of humor who never took himself too seriously.”

    After taking senior status in 1987, a form of semiretirement, McGovern played competitive tennis. Michael Mullally, president of the Seattle Tennis Club, said McGovern was a member for more than 60 years.

    “I learned to play tennis because that’s what my wife wanted me to do,” McGovern said in a video uploaded to YouTube by a fitness organization in 2015.

    He had a knack for the sport, winning the United States Tennis Association national tournament for nonagenarians in doubles in 2014. The next year, he and his partner won the first set, 7-5, lost the second, 4-6 and ultimately lost the match in a 10-point tiebreaker, as the winner, Alan Woog, told The Times.

    In the YouTube video, McGovern described an intense exercise routine on days when he didn’t play tennis, running at least a mile on the treadmill. The goal, he explained was to “keep myself fluid in all respects: arms, legs, and head.”

    “Even at the age of 95, he was still better and funnier than any of us, both on the courts and in the courthouse,” Mullally said. “He will truly be missed.”

    http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...udiciary/page7

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    Longtime federal judge Fred Van Sickle dies at 78

    EAST WENATCHEE — Longtime judge Fred L. Van Sickle of East Wenatchee died Sept. 2 at age 78.

    Van Sickle served as a federal judge for more than 30 years after 20 years spent as a prosecutor and Superior Court judge in North Central Washington.

    In 1991, President George H. W. Bush nominated Van Sickle to the U.S. Eastern District Court in Spokane to serve as a federal judge.

    “Praised at the time as one of Washington’s outstanding superior court trial judges, Judge Van Sickle brought a true understanding of rural Washington to the many difficult and complex civil and criminal matters, including several high-profile cases,” wrote Chief United States District Judge Stanley A. Bastian in a news release.

    He described Van Sickle as someone “highly respected by his colleagues for his calm and deliberate presence in the courtroom.”

    Van Sickle earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1965 and then his law degree from the University of Washington in 1968. He served as Douglas County prosecutor from 1970 to 1975 when he was appointed a superior court judge for Grant and Douglas, a position he held until 1979. He then served as superior court judge for Chelan and Douglas counties from 1979 until he moved to the federal bench.

    Van Sickle was the district’s chief judge from 2000 to 2005. From 2005 until his death, he served as a senior judge with an office in the Wenatchee Valley. Bastian wrote that this allowed him to continue overseeing cases, while “enjoying skiing, biking, and fishing with his family and grandchildren in the rural Washington he served so diligently.”

    https://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/...8e123f441.html

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    Retired federal judge Marianne Battani dies after long illness: 'We have lost a gem'

    U.S. District Judge Marianne O. Battani, whose 40-year legal career covered Detroit's era of corruption, price-fixing in the auto industry, a Nazi war criminal, and an attack on U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, has died of cancer.

    She was 77.

    Battani died at her Oakland County home on Thursday surrounded by friends and family. Her passing comes nine months after the Detroit native stepped down from her role as a federal judge.

    “It has been my great joy to work with you and to create so many friendships,” Battani, said in a farewell letter to her colleagues before going on inactive status on Dec. 31.

    Six months earlier, Battani had announced that she was stepping back from her judge duties to fight cancer. At the time, she oversaw one of the largest automotive price-fixing civil cases in U.S. history.

    “Marianne was a remarkable public servant throughout her 41 years as a judge in the courts of Michigan and the United States,” said U.S. District Judge David Lawson, who joined the federal bench with Battani. “Her sense of right and wrong was uncanny. For me and many of us on the Eastern District bench, she was a source of wise counsel and sage advice. She embodied all the best qualities that we hope to see in our finest judicial officers. We have lost a gem of a person.”

    Battini was nominated to the federal bench In 1999 by President Bill Clinton. Over the years, she oversaw a rich docket of civil and criminal litigation that on occasion, revealed her sense of humor.

    In 2010, while sentencing Detroit political consultant Sam Riddle in a corruption case, Battani asked him if he had any final words to share.

    Riddle asked if he could have his $5,500 Breitling watch back - a watch the feds say he received as a bribe from a Southfield jewelry owner, so they seized it.

    "I earned that watch!" Riddle argued in court.

    Battani quipped back: "There will be plenty of clocks to look at where you're going Mr. Riddle."

    Public corruption kept Battani busy over the years.

    In 2005, Battani sentenced Wilbourne Kelley III, former Wayne County deputy chief operating officer under Ed McNamara’s administration, to 44 months in prison for extortion, bribery, embezzlement, and lying to the FBI.

    In 2010, Battani sentenced Riddle to 37 months in prison in a scheme involving ex-Detroit councilwoman Monica Conyers, who also got a 37-month prison sentence for bribery. The government accused Riddle and Conyers of shaking down businesses for thousands of dollars.

    That same year, Battani gave a much more lenient sentence to convicted Cobo contractor Karl Kado of West Bloomfield, who faced up to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to lying on his tax returns. She gave Kado three years probation instead, due to his cooperation, and ordered him to pay $146,874 in restitution, a $30,000 fine and perform 20 hours of community service per week for a year.

    Battani made international headlines in 2007, when she revoked the U.S. citizenship of 85-year-old Troy resident John (Ivan) Kalymon because he shot Jews in 1942 while serving in a Nazi-sponsored police unit during World War II in Ukraine. Battani ruled that Kalymon lied about his war records when applying for U.S. citizenship. He died before authorities were able to deport him.

    Battani played a role in the 2017 property dispute between Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., and his neighbor, Rene Boucher. Battani, who was the visiting judge in the case, sentenced Boucher to 30 days in prison after he assaulted Paul and broke his ribs,

    In another noteworthy case, J Battani sentenced former restaurant owner Roger Tam, 56, to nine months in prison in 2018 after a house fire killed five undocumented Mexican workers who were living in Tam's basement. Three of the workers were teenagers. According to court testimony, Tam used the workers for cheap labor at his Novi restaurant, Kim's Garden, which has now been demolished.

    Battani also ordered Tam and his wife, Ada Lei — who was spared prison time — to pay $174,000 to the victims’ families.

    The first in her family to graduate from college, Battani earned a degree with honors in mathematics from the University of Detroit in 1966. She would later graduate with a law degree from Detroit College of Law in 1972.

    One of the proudest moments in her life was adopting her daughter, Amanda, from Paraguay.

    Born and raised in Detroit, Battani grew up with a first-generation Italian father who “had a fit,” when she told him about going to college. After she obtained the degree, Battani said her father was one of the “proudest men around” of her education.

    "He knew he had said no (about going to school) and he knew I had insisted, and I made my way," Battani previously said. " He was very proud of that."

    Prior to joining the federal bench, Battani served on the Detroit Common Pleas Court, Wayne County Circuit Court, and worked in private practice for eight years, according to her biography.

    Funeral arrangements are being handled by A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Directors.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...cid=uxbndlbing
    Last edited by FFM; 09-10-2021 at 05:14 PM.

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