Vaughn Walker

Vaughn Walker
Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
In office October 30, 2004 – December 31, 2010
Preceded by	Marilyn Patel
Succeeded by	James Ware
Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
In office November 27, 1989 – February 28, 2011
Appointed by	George H. W. Bush
Preceded by	Spencer Williams
Succeeded by	Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers
Personal details
Born	Vaughn Richard Walker 1944 (age 67–68) Watseka, Illinois, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Stanford University
Signature

Vaughn Richard Walker (born 1944) served as a district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California from 1989 to 2011.

Biography

Walker was born in Watseka, Illinois, in 1944. He graduated from the University of Michigan (1966) and Stanford Law School (1970).

After clerking for United States District Court for the Central District of California Judge Robert J. Kelleher (1971–72), he practiced in San Francisco at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro.

Walker was originally nominated to the bench by Ronald Reagan in 1987. However, this nomination stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee because of controversy over his representation of the United States Olympic Committee in a lawsuit that prohibited the use of the title "Gay Olympics". Two dozen House Democrats, led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, opposed his nomination because of his perceived insensitivity to gays and the poor.

On September 7, 1989, Walker was re-nominated by President George H. W. Bush to the seat on the federal district court vacated by Spencer M. Williams. Walker was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on November 21, 1989, on unanimous consent and received his commission on November 27, 1989.

On September 29, 2010, Walker announced he would retire at the end of 2010 and return to private practice. He retired at the end of February 2011. On April 6, 2011, Walker told reporters that he is gay and has been in a relationship with a male doctor for about ten years. He was the first known gay person to serve as a United States federal judge, though he did not publicly confirm his sexual orientation until after retiring from the federal bench.

Views

Walker generally believes in a legal approach known as law and economics.

Walker has been called an "unorthodox" and "independent-minded conservative" judge; he has called for policies including the auctioning of lead counsel status in securities class action suits and the legalization of drugs. In a 2003 case, United States v. Gementera, as a condition of supervised release, Walker required a defendant who had pled guilty to mail theft to stand in front of a San Francisco post office wearing a sandwich board that read: "I stole mail. This is my punishment." The condition was upheld on appeal.

A San Francisco Chronicle columnist and reporter wrote in a commentary that Walker has an "aversion to harsh sentences for well-educated, well-heeled criminals and, in particular, perpetrators of securities fraud."

The New York Times at the time of his initial Reagan nomination stated he was active in Republican politics; Wired magazine describes Walker as having libertarian leanings.

Cases

Walker has presided over such notable cases as lawsuits over NSA warrantless surveillance; the criminal sentencing of radio host Bernie Ward; the breach of TD Ameritrade's customer information database; the Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation copyright infringement case; antitrust litigation over the Hearst Corporation's purchase of the San Francisco Chronicle; and Oracle's merger/hostile takeover of PeopleSoft, which was approved despite Justice Department opposition.

On January 11, 2010, Walker began hearing arguments in Perry v. Brown. The case was a federal-constitutional challenge to California Proposition 8, a voter initiative constitutional amendment that eliminated the right of same sex couples to marry, a right which had previously been granted after the California Supreme Court found that Proposition 22 was unconstitutional. On August 4, 2010, Walker ruled that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional "under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses" and prohibited its enforcement.

Following Walker's decision in Perry, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and other proponents of Proposition 8 raised the issue of Walker's homosexuality, already discussed in the press during the trial. Discussing his homosexuality after retiring from the bench, Walker said he did not consider recusing himself from the Perry case because he thinks using characteristics like sexual orientation, ethnicity, national origin or gender as the grounds for recusal is "a very slippery slope." On April 25, 2011, supporters of Proposition 8 filed a motion in district court to vacate Walker's decision, citing Walker's own post-trial statement that he has been in a long-term relationship with another man. They argued he should have recused himself or disclosed his relationship status, and unless Walker "disavowed any interest in marrying his partner", he had "a direct personal interest in the outcome of the case". District Court Judge James Ware heard arguments on the motion on June 13 and denied it the next day, writing that "the presumption that Judge Walker, by virtue of being in a same-sex relationship, had a desire to be married that rendered him incapable of making an impartial decision, is as warrantless as the presumption that a female judge is incapable of being impartial in a case in which women seek legal relief." Legal experts noted that similar efforts to remove Hispanic judges from immigration cases or female judges from gender-discrimination cases have also failed in the past.

External links

• Vaughn Walker at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

Legal offices
Preceded by Spencer Williams	Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California 1989–2011	Succeeded by Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers
Preceded by Marilyn Patel	Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California 2004–2010	Succeeded by James Ware