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

  1. #71
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    Former federal judge Jorge Solis, who got his start in Abilene, dies at 70

    Jorge Solis, whose legal career led him to become chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, got his start in Abilene in a variety of prominent roles.

    Solis, who died Friday at 70, will be honored at McMurry University's Distinguished Alumni Awards on Friday during homecoming.

    Born May 1,1951, in San Ygnacio, he and his family moved to Abilene on Dec. 26, 1955.

    "Starting elementary school unable to speak English to ultimately mastering language through writing and speech, he focused on academic success from an early age," a release from McMurry stated.

    Solis graduated from Abilene High School in 1969, then went to then-McMurry College, where he earned a degree in history and political science in 1973.

    According to his obituary, his dream was to attend the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, and he was "so excited" when he was accepted.

    He graduated with his Juris Doctor in 1976.

    Career begins

    After law school, he was an assistant criminal district attorney for the Taylor County District Attorney's office from 1976-81.

    After a short time in private practice, he was elected in 1982 as the first Hispanic district attorney for Taylor County, serving in that position from 1983-87.

    He served as a special prosecutor for the Narcotics Task Force in 1988.

    Solis ran for Taylor County judge of the 350th District Court and won, serving from 1989-91.

    In June 1991, he was nominated by President George H.W. Bush and subsequently confirmed by the U.S. Senate for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas vacated by Robert W. Porter.

    He served as a federal judge for 25 years, retiring as chief judge May 1, 2016.

    In 2018, he joined the law firm of Kattan Muchin Rosenman LLP, where he was employed at the time of his death. The Chicago-based firm has a Dallas office.

    James Eidson, 42nd District Court judge, said in McMurry's award statement that Solis was the most logical thinker and analyst out of anyone he knew, characteristics that served the Judge well in crafting logically and legally sound opinions.

    Solis was well-qualified and deserved of every position he earned, Eidson said.

    Honors due

    On Friday, Solis will be given McMurry's 2021 Distinguished Alumnus Award at dinner honoring alumni who have made significant contributions to their profession, society, and McMurry itself.

    A member of McMurry's board of trustees since 2020, Solis provided "wise counsel and contributed to the advancement of McMurry’s mission of positively impacting the lives and attitudes of incoming students," a statement from the school says.

    “Judge Solis’ commitment to his country through his career personifies service above self and embodies the McMurry core value of servant leadership,” said Sandra S. Harper, the McMurry's president. “We are saddened to have lost this inspirational leader. We are honored that he chose to give back to McMurry, serving as a trustee to help advance the mission of his alma mater.”

    Steve Sundby, McMurry's board chairman, “McMurry is proud to recognize Judge Solis as a distinguished alumnus of the University,” said

    “My fellow trustees and I are honored to have worked with him on the board," he said. "We all share a common vision of forwarding McMurry’s academic reputation, and we recognize the importance of advancing visibility as a Hispanic-serving institution.”

    On the case


    The website of Kattan Muchin Rosenman states Solis worked with the firm's litigation practice, focusing on trademark, oil and gas and securities litigation and arbitration.

    During his judicial tenure, Solis presided over "hundreds of trials involving patent, trade secret, trademark, oil and gas, antitrust and securities litigation," the site says.

    A biography for him on FedArb, an alternative dispute resolution firm, notes that in 2008, he presided over the Holy Land financial terrorism case.

    According to the site, the case, which lasted more than six weeks, "involved the United States Government prosecuting what at the time was the largest Muslim charity in the United States, the Holy Land Foundation."

    The government alleged that the Holy Land Foundation and its principals provided material aid and support to groups identified as terrorist organizations.

    The case was the first major effort by the government to attack the financial arms of terrorist groups by freezing and seizing their assets and by criminal prosecution for providing material aid to terrorist organizations, the site says.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fo...cid=uxbndlbing

  2. #72
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    Paywall.....

    Retired federal Judge Gustave Diamond dies

    Gustave Diamond, retired U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania, died Friday at his Peters home.

    A native of Burgettstown, Judge Diamond served as the district’s top federal prosecutor before his appointment to the bench by President Jimmy Carter in 1978.

    https://www.post-gazette.com/news/ob...s/202111020111

  3. #73
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    National Association of Former United States Attorneys

    Here is the full obituary. I'm pretty sure anytime a former US attorney dies, they are on this site.

    http://nafusa.org/2021/10/judge-gust...nd-dies-at-93/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Ex-Louisiana judge G. Thomas Porteous, last to be impeached by U.S. Senate, dies at 74

    G. Thomas Porteous Jr., who rose from district judge in Jefferson Parish to the federal bench in New Orleans, only to be impeached and removed from office by the U.S. Senate for cronyism and illegal gifts, died Sunday. He was 74.

    Marion Edwards, a Jefferson Parish councilman and former law partner of Porteous, confirmed the death.

    Porteous served 10 years on Louisiana’s 24th Judicial District Court in Gretna before he became a federal judge in 1994.

    Sixteen years later, a long-running FBI investigation into the Gretna courthouse, dubbed “Operation Wrinkled Robe,” caught up with him.

    Wrinkled Robe ran from 1999 to 2007 and resulted in 14 criminal convictions. Porteous never faced criminal charges stemming from the probe.

    But the Senate in 2010 found that he took money from attorneys and bail bondsmen with business before the court, lied in his 2001 personal bankruptcy filing and concealed the corruptions in statements to the Senate during his confirmation for a federal judgeship.

    The Senate convicted Porteous of four articles of impeachment for corrupt dealings as both a state and federal judge. It removed him from office before he would have been eligible for a $174,000 annual pension for life.

    Porteous, who was nominated to the federal bench by former President Bill Clinton, was the last person to be convicted in a Senate impeachment vote and one of just eight federal judges ever tossed from office.

    His was the first Senate impeachment trial since Clinton was acquitted of obstruction and perjury in 1999; and the last until former President Donald Trump was impeached for the first time, last year.

    The House impeachment manager in Porteous’ case was California representative Adam Schiff, who played the same role for Trump’s first impeachment.

    Criminal investigators reviewed Porteous’ bankruptcy case, his handling as a federal judge of a dispute over ownership of a Kenner hospital, and his alleged receipt of improper gifts from Bail Bonds Unlimited while he was a state judge.

    Co-owned by Louis Marcotte III, the bail bonds firm was at the center of the federal investigation, which sent two state judges, Ronald Bodenheimer and Alan Green, to prison.

    https://www.nola.com/news/courts/art...28bf5a251.html

  5. #75
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    ‘Old school’ federal judge Gene Carter dies at the age of 86

    A federal judge who spoke with a Down East accent and sometimes bluntly expressed his irritation with defendants from the bench died Wednesday at the age of 86.

    U.S. District Judge Gene Carter will be remembered “as an independent, hard-working jurist who prioritized resolving each case before him fairly and swiftly,” according to a statement released Monday by Maine’s federal court.

    In February 2000, Carter threw out a recommended sentence and imposed the maximum punishment of 48 months on a man who had pleaded guilty to embezzling $925,000 from the pension fund of a Bangor car dealership that was forced to close as a result. Carter harshly chastised the defendant pointing out that he hadn’t accepted responsibility for his actions, hadn’t expressed contrition or remorse and had “stonewalled” the court’s probation officer and given her incorrect information about his finances, assets and employment status.

    “I can offer no leniency. He destroyed lives. He destroyed a company,” the judge said.

    A native of Milbridge, Carter graduated from Bangor High School, the University of Maine and New York University School of Law.

    He returned to Bangor and opened his own practice before becoming a partner in what is now Rudman and Winchell.

    In 1980, Gov. Joseph Brennan appointed Carter to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. At the time, he was the youngest judge ever to serve on the state’s high court.

    Three years later, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the federal judgeship on the recommendation of then U.S. Sen. William S. Cohen. Carter semi-retired in 2003 when he assumed senior status.

    While chief judge from 1989 to 1996, Carter oversaw the $12.3 million redesign and renovation of the Edward T. Gignoux United States Courthouse in Portland that added a courtroom and offices to the historic building.

    Once he semi-retired, Carter attended ceremonial events in Portland and Bangor, such as the unveiling of his colleagues’ portraits. He insisted on sitting outside the bar with his fellow lawyers rather than inside the bar with his fellow justices so he could commiserate with them about the law.

    Lawyer Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor called Carter “old school” but said they found common ground in sailing.

    “He was all business in the courtroom, scary sometimes for a young lawyer as he was ‘old school,’” Silverstein said Monday. “But out of the courtroom, we chatted about wooden sailboats, something we had in common and both owned.”

    In recent years, Carter split his time between Hampden and Crescent Beach, Florida.

    He is survived by his wife Judith Ann (nee Kittridge) Carter, whom he met while a student at the University Maine, and sons Matthew Carter of Bangor and Mark Carter of Hampton, Connecticut, and their families.

    A celebration of Carter’s life will be held at a later date.

    https://bangordailynews.com/2021/11/...86-n6hjn1me0n/

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    Bruce Kauffman, former federal judge and rainmaking litigator, dies at 86

    Bruce W. Kauffman, the former U.S. District and Pennsylvania Supreme Court judge who spent 16 years running what is now Dilworth Paxson, died Monday at The Hearth at Drexel in Bala Cynwyd following a brief illness. He was 86 and would have turned 87 on Wednesday.

    Kauffman, raised in Ventnor, New Jersey, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (1956) and Yale Law School (1959) and landed a job as an associate at Dilworth Paxson in 1960. His son, Robert Kauffman, said his father's mentors included Harold Kohn, deemed the father of the modern class action law school, and William Coleman, the first Black lawyer hired by a major Philadelphia firm who went on to become U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

    Kauffman made partner just three years later. He earned a reputation as a rainmaking litigator by representing high-profile clients in high-profile cases:

    In 1970, he represented Frank Sinatra in a case where New Jersey officials sought to have the singer testify about his knowledge of organized crime in the Garden State.

    In 1989, he helped Armand Hammer, Occidental Petroleum’s chairman, secure a pardon from President George H. W. Bush and end a 13-year battle to clear his name after pleading guilty to making illegal contributions to President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign in 1972.

    In 1992, he successfully represented Barnes Foundation President Richard Glanton from a legal challenge to his plans to take some paintings on tour.

    In 1994, he secured a $6 million settlement from Major League Baseball for suburban Philadelphia businessmen Vincent Tirendi and Vince Piazza (father of Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Piazza), who claimed they were wrongfully denied the chance to buy the San Francisco Giants.

    Kauffman eventually got his name on the door of the firm that was known as Dilworth Paxson Kalish & Kauffman. He left the firm in 1980 when he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but his son said Kauffman chose not to run for election. Instead he returned to Dilworth as chairman. His leadership tenure was marred by the recession of the early 1990s, which produced economic strife and the departure of a number of key Dilworth lawyers to other firms.

    Kauffman left Dilworth for good in 1998 after being appointed as a U.S. District judge in Philadelphia by President Bill Clinton.

    “Other than being a father, I think he enjoyed being a judge more than anything else,” Robert Kauffman said. “He just loved the law, looked forward to practicing every day and took special pride in his work as a judge.”

    Outside of the law, Kauffman spent time as a member of the Philadelphia Police Advisory Commission (1994-97), co-chair of the Philadelphia Election Reform Task Force (1994), trustee of the University of the Arts (1988-99) and a member of Philadelphia’s MOVE Commission (1985-86).

    Kauffman retired from the bench in July 2009 to become a shareholder and co-chairman of Blue Bell-based Elliott Greenleaf’s executive committee. Robert Kauffman said his father made the move to join that firm’s founder, John Elliott, a close friend from their mutual Dilworth days. He said his father was active until choosing to retire this summer, which he said was partly spurred by Elliott’s passing earlier this year. His health began to deteriorate this fall, Robert Kauffman said.

    Robert Kauffman followed his father into the law, serving as a federal prosecutor, Reed Smith partner and now as president of Healthcare Risk Advisors in New York.

    “I think what I learned from my father was that you could resolve things without going scorched earth,” Robert Kauffman said. “He has a way of cooling things down before resolving them.”

    In addition to his son Robert, Kauffman is survived by Carol, his wife of more than 30 years; children Brad, Margie, Lauri Ann and Christine; and seven grandchildren.

    Services will be held at 2 p.m. on Thursday at West Laurel Funeral Home, 222 Belmont Ave. in Bala Cynwyd. Burial immediately follows.

    Donations may be made to The Do Gooders, to help enrich the lives of the needy in the Philadelphia area, at www.dogoodersdobetter.org or 610-733-9058.

    https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...ies-at-86.html

  7. #77
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    Morris deceased.

    https://www.tributearchive.com/obitu...oseph-w-morris

    The list needs a major update.

  8. #78
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    Obituary: Maurice Blanchard Cohill Jr. | Retired federal judge whose decision led to the building of the Allegheny County Jail

    Maurice Blanchard Cohill Jr., a retired federal judge who had a hand in deciding two closely watched local cases during his time on the bench, died early New Year’s Day after suffering a stroke. He was 92.

    Judge Cohill rose through the judiciary over his decades-long career. He began as a lawyer in private practice, served on Allegheny County Common Pleas Court and was nominated to the bench of the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Pennsylvania by President Gerald Ford in 1976.

    He was chief judge in the Western District from 1985 to 1992, achieved senior status on the court in November 1994 and retired in 2016.

    He was best known for his decision in a civil rights case that led to the building of a new Allegheny County Jail along the Monongahela River and for another decision that helped to release the Woodland Hills School District from federal oversight.

    Judge Cohill also founded the nation’s oldest juvenile justice research organization, the National Center for Juvenile Justice, located in Pittsburgh. He was its chairman for decades, and in 2002 he was named a Community Champion and a recipient of a Jefferson Award, considered the Nobel Prize of volunteerism.

    “It’s an entirely different world, but there’s a greater impact on more people than any other court has,” Judge Cohill told the American Bar Association in 2019 of his work in juvenile justice. “Oftentimes the children’s only familiarity with the court system is the juvenile court, and that’s why I think it’s vitally important, and that’s why I was there.”

    Judge Cohill was a Ben Avon native who graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1956. He did his undergraduate work at Princeton University, graduating in 1951, then joined the Marines, serving from 1951 until 1953, leaving with the rank of captain.

    While stationed at Cherry Point, N.C., another Marine asked the future judge to represent him at a military disciplinary hearing. He would win that case and others, kick-starting his law career. His commanding officer sent him to study military justice as a prosecutor.

    Following law school, Judge Cohill worked at the Pittsburgh law firm of Kirkpatrick, Pomeroy, Lockhart & Johnson while raising four children with his first wife, Suzanne.

    “Regardless of their areas of expertise as attorneys, Common Pleas Court President Judge Henry Ellenbogen typically assigned new judges to the adult or juvenile sections of the court’s Family Division,” said Lawrence Walsh, who covered the Civil, Family and Orphans Court Divisions of Common Pleas Court for The Pittsburgh Press at the time Judge Cohill served.

    ‘It was one way the aristocratic Ellenbogen showed the new judges that he was in charge,’ Mr. Walsh said. “The assignment of Judge Cohill to the juvenile section in 1965 was no exception to Ellenbogen’s policy. But the work Judge Cohill accomplished there to improve the section and the lives of the juveniles who appeared before him was exceptional. He served in the section for three years before being assigned to other divisions of the court, but his interest in justice for juveniles remained with him for the rest of his career in Common Pleas Court and in the U.S. District Court.”

    Stephen R. Kaufman, executive assistant U.S. attorney in the Western District of Pennsylvania, said, “He was just an eminently fair judge, a great temperament in court, always fair to both sides and really a leader of the court.”

    “He was a national leader in juvenile justice, which began when he was a Court of Common Pleas judge,” said Mr. Kaufman, who had worked with Judge Cohill since the 1980s in the federal justice system. “He heard hundreds of cases involving juveniles. He would often have adult men and women come visit him in his chambers who had turned their lives around to tell him how grateful they had been for the influence he had on their lives.”

    Mr. Kaufman also worked with Judge Cohill on the board of the nonprofit Court Appointed Special Advocates, calling him a “tremendous asset” to the board. According to its website, CASA of Allegheny County is an advocacy group of volunteers who advocate for abused and neglected children and serve as the “eyes and ears” for the judge in child welfare cases.

    “He’ll really be missed by our legal community,” Mr. Kaufman said.

    In addition to being an accomplished jurist, Judge Cohill also had comedy chops — in 1950, he was a guest on the Ed Sullivan Show as a stand-up comedian. His daughter, Jennifer Cohill O’Connor, said Sullivan learned about her father after seeing him perform as “Princeton Charlie” before a Princeton University football game. “He asked Pinky, as my father was known then, to bring his act onto the show.”

    Asked how that nickname came about, Judge Cohill’s son, Jonathan, of Medford, N.J., said that when his father was a student at a prep school, Mercersburg Academy, he came to class one day wearing knickers. His teacher said, “Maurice, are those pants too short or are you in them too deep?” His father “turned all shades of red before the instructor said, ‘OK, Pinky, you can sit down.’ The name stuck.”

    Over the years, Judge Cohill’s federal courtroom would even garner Hollywood interest. It was used in scenes from “Silent Witness” (1985), “Guilty Until Proven Innocent” (1991), and “Against Her Will: An Incident in Baltimore” (1992).

    Judge Mark R. Hornak, chief judge for the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Pennsylvania, remembers working with Judge Cohill first as a lawyer and later as a fellow judge beginning in 2011.

    Judge Hornak said Judge Cohill’s office was one floor above his at the Joseph F. Weis Jr. U.S. Courthouse at 700 Grant St., Downtown.

    “For five years he was sort of my upstairs neighbor, and in a pinch when I was sort of wondering what came next, because it was a new experience for me, I could always count on Maurice to steer me where to look and maybe how to think about things,” Judge Hornak said.

    “Not to provide the answer but to provide the path to me finding the answer,” he added. “He was always filled with great knowledge and wisdom, but a lot of good cheer and camaraderie as a colleague, and more importantly for me and a lot of others, as a mentor.”

    But it wasn’t all work for the judge.

    A friend, Joe Mansfield, recalled sharing drinks with the late judge on the deck of Mullaney's Harp & Fiddle in the Strip District.

    According to Mr. Mansfield, Judge Cohill lived in the nearby Cork Factory apartments with his second wife, Anne Mullaney, one of the owners of the bar.

    “He always went by the Judge,” Mr. Mansfield said. “He was a fantastic guy. He was extremely bright and easy to speak with. He had great stories. He led a very complete life.”

    “Judge” would order a Yuengling, Mr. Mansfield remembered, or if in the mood for something a little stronger, a Beefeater martini. On the deck, they would talk Pirates baseball or politics. If there were fireworks on a holiday, Mr. Mansfield said, the judge would invite the gang up to his apartment, which had a great view of Downtown.

    Perhaps a defining moment in Judge Cohill’s career was his commitment to improving conditions for incarcerated people in Allegheny County.

    In 1994, he issued a ruling that led to the building of the new Allegheny County Jail, two decades after litigation began concerning unsuitable conditions for inmates at the old fort-like lockup on Ross Street.

    Judge Cohill first wrote an opinion on the case in 1978, two years after visiting the jail himself. He brought attention to sanitary conditions and the inhumane treatment of prisoners before later crusading against overpopulation.

    “I need only remember the stench which assailed the nostrils when I entered the jail for the first time in 1976, or recall the sight of human beings strapped down on canvas cots, their wrists and ankles held tight by leather thongs, to take comfort in believing that regardless of what the critics said, what I ordered was the right thing to do,” Judge Cohill wrote in his 1994 opinion.

    The new jail had room for 2,400 inmates. Before his ruling, the old jail had more than 200 cells that were in need of repairs and were unusable.

    But the new jail would face crowded conditions, too, leading to the release of about 250 inmates under what were called “Cohill bonds.”

    “He used to joke that the ‘Cohill bond’ was an adjective, a verb and a noun,” said his daughter Jennifer Cohill O’Connor of Mount Washington.

    In another newsworthy case, Judge Cohill issued a ruling in 2000 on the landmark desegregation case involving the Woodland Hills School District.

    Judge Cohill ruled that the district had met nearly all of the requirements imposed after Black parents complained nearly 30 years earlier that the state had created a racially segregated school district when it formed the General Braddock School District to serve Braddock, Rankin and North Braddock.

    In response 10 years later, the late U.S. District Judge Gerald Weber ordered the creation of Woodland Hills, which incorporated General Braddock with the predominantly white districts of Churchill Area, Edgewood, Swissvale and Turtle Creek.

    Before Judge Cohill intervened, Woodland Hills was the only federally controlled school district in the state.

    "Woodland Hills has been transformed in the past 29 years," he wrote in his order, "from a new district created by court order in a climate of much anger and bitterness, to a school district whose motto, appropriately, is 'All Children Can Learn.' "

    “He was a simple yet complex man. He lived by the principles of love, friendship and good judgment,” his daughter said.

    He was preceded in death by his first wife, Suzanne Miller Cohill, in 1986, and his second wife, Anne D. Mullaney, in 2011.

    In addition to his son and daughter, Judge Cohill is survived by two other daughters, Victoria Sayers Cohill of Mount Washington and Cynthia Cohill Plattner of Harmony; and eight grandchildren, 13 great grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild.

    https://www.post-gazette.com/news/ob...s/202201010045

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    Ocala federal Judge William Terrell Hodges dies at 87. Nixon appointee served 50 years

    Before becoming a magistrate judge for the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Philip Lammens was a law clerk for Ocala-based U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges.

    Lammens said he didn't know much about Hodges when he began working for him in 2002. Lammens, another law clerk and Hodges worked closely together on cases. During his tenure with Hodges, Lammens said he learned more about Hodges.

    Even after his time with Hodges had concluded, Lammens, who went on to be a law clerk for another judge and a U.S. assistant attorney for the Middle District before ascending to the bench himself, kept in touch with Hodges. At one point, Lammens practiced in front of his former boss. He called the experience "wonderful."

    Hodges, who last month celebrated his 50th anniversary as a federal judge, died on Jan. 4, 2022. He was 87.

    "I'm going to miss his friendship," Lammens told the Star-Banner in a phone interview.

    The magistrate judge said he and Hodges often talked and went to lunch.

    "He knew about my wife and children and what they were doing," Lammens said.

    Judge Hodges graduated from Lake Wales High School in 1951
    According to a tribute put together by federal officials, Hodges graduated from Lake Wales High School in 1951. His father was a part-time police officer and barber who owned two small citrus groves. Hodges' mother was a part-time clerk at a retail store and a homemaker.

    Seven years after leaving high school, Hodges married Peggy, "the love of his life," during his last semester of law school, according to the tribute. They were married for 58 years and had three sons: Judson, Danny and Clay.

    He graduated from the University of Florida in 1956 and received his juris doctor two years later, also from UF. Hodges was in private practice at a Tampa law firm for 13 years before becoming a district judge.

    President Richard Nixon nominated him for the position on Dec. 8, 1971 and the Senate confirmed him three days later, according to a court-provided biography. He was 37.

    In recent years, Hodges might have been best known for presiding over the criminal cases of four former Marion County Sheriff's deputies accused of beating a suspect during arrest. He sentenced them to federal prison terms in 2016.

    In April 2008 the judge sentenced Wesley Snipes to a three-year prison term after the actor was found guilty at trial of willfully failing to file tax returns.

    A teachable moment in Judge Hodges' courtroom
    Those who knew Hodges described him as a humble man and a great story teller who made you feel at ease when you were in his presence.

    To Lammens, Hodges was a mentor who never stopped teaching.

    Once, when he was still a federal prosecutor, Lammens filled in for a colleagues on a status conference in Hodges' courtroom. Hodges asked if the government was ready for trial. Lammens expected that question.

    But Lammens didn't expect Hodges to ask him how long the trial would last and what the case was about.

    Lammens learned a lesson that day: In court, you need to come prepared and know everything about the case, even if it isn't one of yours.

    Judge Hodges received many awards and held leadership roles
    Hodges served as chief judge for the district from 1982 to 1987, according the court-provided tribute. He attained senior status in 1999 and maintained a full docket until 2015.

    Hodges' work was admired from afar and he was appointed to numerous committees. In 1987, then U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist appointed Hodges to serve as a member of the Judicial Conference's Advisory Committee on criminal rules. The government document states Hodges chaired the committee from 1990 to 1993.

    Rehnquist, in 1994, selected Hodges to serve on the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference, a chief policy making body of the U.S. Court system. Hodges chaired that committee, only the second district judge to serve in that capacity.

    Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer presented Hodges with the Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award. The award is one of the highest that can be given to a federal judge.

    Hodges was a founder and former president of the American Inns of Court, Tampa chapter and president of the American Inns of Court Jacksonville chapter.

    According to the tribute, Hodges, who always carried a copy of the Constitution with him, was often heard saying that being a federal judge was "the greatest job in the world."

    https://news.yahoo.com/ocala-federal...185820581.html

  10. #80
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    Judge Gilbert Merritt, fixture of Tennessee judiciary for decades, dies

    Gilbert Stroud Merritt Jr., a native Nashvillian who rose to become a towering figure in the city's legal community over the past six decades and the longest-serving member of the current 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, died Monday.

    He was 86.

    His daughter, Louise Clark Merritt, confirmed to The Tennessean he died of metastatic prostate cancer.

    Merritt was a fixture in the judiciary and Tennessee politics. He sat on the bench for 44 years, earning a reputation for evenhanded rulings and a thorough and independent drive to serve as a check on executive power.

    "Judge Merritt was a cherished friend of my entire family," former Vice President Al Gore told The Tennessean.

    "A deeply intelligent and deliberative legal thinker, he was an ardent defender of the liberties that form the foundations of our Constitution...I am holding his family in my thoughts and prayers."

    He believed in duty to three causes, his son Eli Merritt said, to his family, to the Constitution and "to the pursuit of equal justice under the law for all Americans, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or incarceration status."

    His long career also included a stint as the U.S. Attorney for Middle Tennessee from 1966-1969 under President Lyndon B. Johnson.

    President Jimmy Carter tapped him for the appellate court in 1977. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton considered Merritt for a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court but eventually selected Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

    "A diligent practitioner and respected jurist, Judge Merritt will be remembered most of all as a shining example of the best the profession had to offer. He understood and valued the servant role of lawyering," said U.S. Chief District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw in a statement shared with The Tennessean.

    Crenshaw reminisced on the time, when he was a "baby judge," Merritt gave three hours of his time to chat about the art of judging.

    “Judge Merritt lived a full life serving Tennessee and our nation. Without question, his passing is a great loss to the legal profession, but it is much better for having had him as an example to emulate," Crenshaw said.

    'Merritt called it as he saw it'

    On the bench, he usually joined his more liberal colleagues, although colleagues say he was respected on both sides of the political aisle.

    He staunchly opposed the death penalty, publicly and privately denouncing what he called a "Middle Ages practice" and highlighting its disproportionate use against Black defendants.

    “Judge Merritt called it as he saw it, even when doing so was not popular or advantageous for him personally. Throughout his career, Judge Merritt pushed our legal system to become more of what it purports to be, a true justice system," said Stacy Rector, executive director of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

    During his three-year tenure as U.S. Attorney in Middle Tennessee in the 1960s, Merritt appointed the first woman, Martha Craig Daughtrey, and first Black person, Carlton Petway, to serve as assistant U.S. Attorneys for the Middle Tennessee district.

    Daughtrey, who serves on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, told The Tennessean even though she graduated in the top of her class, Merritt was "the only person in town who was willing to hire me."

    Daughtrey later became the first woman in Tennessee history to take a seat on the bench of the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1990, when she was appointed by Gov. Ned McWherter. In 1993, she was appointed by Clinton in 1993 to 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where she remains a senior judge.

    "We just had a connection. I ended up with an office next to his in the customs house building," she said. "We were friends for a long time."

    'Justice for all'

    Perhaps the most well-known of Merritt's cases involved a ruling on due process violations in the case of a man accused in terrible war crimes.

    Merritt in 1993 pushed for the 6th Circuit to reopen the case of John Demjanjuk, an Ohio man now believed to have been wrongly accused of being a Nazi torturer known as “Ivan the Terrible” of the Treblinka concentration camp, according to news reports from the time.

    He sat on a panel that revoked a 1986 extradition order to Israel on the grounds attorneys for the U.S. withheld information favorable to Demjanjuk in the initial extradition hearing.

    “He believed in justice for all, even if that meant, as in the Demjanjuk case, sacrificinghis own popularity and chances for elevation to the Supreme Court," Eli Merritt said.

    Later, Gilbert Merritt was one of several American jurists to travel to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein to help rebuild the country's shattered judicial system, work that is ongoing.

    Gore also highlighted Merritt's devotion to justice everywhere.

    "He understood the power of his position and sought to use it to advance justice for the Americans he served and to help build democracies abroad. He was a man of great integrity and I am lucky to have benefitted from his mentorship, wisdom, and friendship," Gore wrote in a statement to The Tennessean.

    Journalist Keel Hunt echoed the vice president's statements.

    “To me, the real measure of the man — apart from his deep scholarship and long judicial record — was the genuine respect he had from both colleagues on the court and also the dozens of women and men who worked as law clerks in his chambers over 40-plus years," said Hunt, author of a forthcoming biography on Merritt.

    Merritt was linked through family ties and political connections to some of the biggest names in Nashville's history — the Gores, the Ingrams, the Hookers, the Donelsons, the Forts and the Seigenthalers.

    Merritt was born in Nashville on Jan. 17, 1936. As a teen, he attended the Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon. He received a bachelor of arts degree in 1957 from Yale University and a bachelor of law from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1960.

    He served as assistant dean and instructor at Vanderbilt University Law School from 1960 to 1961 before earning a master of law from Harvard Law School in 1962.

    The judge assumed senior status at the 6th circuit in January 2001, but retained an active role in the court for the next 20 years.

    Merritt was married in 1964 to Louise Clark Fort until her death in 1973. His 1992 marriage to Robin Saxon ended in divorce in 2006. Merritt is survived by three children, Stroud Merritt, Louise Merritt, and Eli Merritt, and three grandchildren, Alejandro and Cameron Merritt and Fields Livingston.

    In honor of his death and as a symbol of appreciation for his half century of service to the nation, the National Association of Former United States Attorneys plans to fly a flag over the U.S. Department of Justice and present it to his family, according to the organization's former president Hal Hardin.

    Merritt was a member of Christ Episcopal Cathedral in Nashville. Burial will be in Mount Olivet Cemetery.

    https://www.tennessean.com/story/new...ge/9175167002/
    Last edited by FFM; 01-17-2022 at 07:21 PM.

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