Posted on 07/18/2019 2:06:50 AM PDT by Jaysin
U.S. District Judge William H. Walls, the first male African-American judge to sit on the federal bench in New Jersey, died last week at the age of 86.
Described once in a CNN headline as a “judicial renegade,” Walls had a storied — and sometimes enigmatic — history on the bench. But it was his comments during the trial of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, when he told the senator’s attorney to “shut up” and referenced the 1977 World War II film “A Bridge Too Far” as he cautioned the parties on their tactics, that garnered him national attention in 2017.
Walls lived in Robbinsville and is survived by his two children, Peter and Claire, and his ex-wife, Grace.
Born in 1932 in Atlantic City, Walls graduated from Dartmouth College before heading to Yale Law School, where he earned his law degree in 1957.
By turns sharp-witted and often irascible, Walls was never reluctant to tell attorneys exactly what he thought. During the Menendez federal bribery trial, he lectured attorneys on everything from the rules of evidence to lessons to be learned from Jewish cooking. And sometimes he told them to just shut up.
When prosecutors asked Walls to bar evidence of unrelated acts by the senator similar to those charged as crimes, defense attorneys argued those other incidents could help show a lack of criminal intent behind the actions in question. In ruling on the motion, the judge said his proposed solution best resembled a traditional Jewish stew often served on Rosh Hashanah.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
however, there are currently SIX vacancies on the NJ district court and Trump hasn't nominated anyone yet. I guess Bookie and Menendez are stonewalling somehow. There are 7 Obama appointees on the court. basically a liberal cesspool. At least we have some sanity on the 3rd appellate level.
That leaves 1 clinton and 1 carter appointee in senior status on the NJ district, may they retire soon.......
I don't understand. Why can't the president replace a senior judge?
When I saw that he was appointed by Clinton I thought he has to be a jerk. But that doesn’t seem to mean much anymore with some of the Republican appointments going or gone sour.
A certain percentage of Dem picks turn out ok—in general the farther back you go, and the more you are willing to define a mixed bag as ok, the higher the percentage is.
A higher percentage of Pub picks turn out ok, though I think the variance between Presidents on the Pub side is not in any way linear over time.
In order to make a fair comparison, one has to be consistent on where one draws the line in the grey area of mixed bag, or think in a non-binary way (i.e. recognize that there is a continuum) and be consistent.
People who hold and apply bad ideas hold them not because they want to hold bad ideas per se, but because, for some reason, they think that they are good ideas—whether through bad education, stupidity, mental blindness, or some other reason. Rarely does a person manage to get absolutely everything wrong.
They may not work full time, and may get to choose what cases to preside over.
It is a system practically made for judge shopping.
Judge shoppers know the lifetime history of the judge, so they can predict, with some precision, who they will handle a case.
The judge is likely only to accept a case where he has a strong opinion.
“who they” should be “how they”
RIP.
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