The title of Mike Fragoso’s tribute to the recently deceased Seventh Circuit judge William Bauer—“The Last Nixon Judge”—might give the impression that there are no more appointees of Richard Nixon serving on the federal bench. A more careful reading of the post suggests that Mike is using the label qualitatively—to capture someone who was tough on crime but not a “down-the-line judicial conservative.”
In any event, I would be remiss if I did not point out that the outstanding Ninth Circuit judge for whom I clerked, J. Clifford Wallace, was appointed by Nixon to the district court in 1970 and to the Ninth Circuit in 1972 and continues to serve in senior status. He celebrated his 97th birthday last week.
There are, I believe, five other Nixon appointees still on the bench, all in senior status.
Judge Wallace is tied—to the day—with Gerald Tjoflat for longest-serving judge on the federal bench: Nixon appointed each to a district-court seat on October 16, 1970, so they have served an extraordinary 55 years and three months. (Ford elevated Tjoflat to the Fifth Circuit in 1975, and Tjoflat became an Eleventh Circuit judge when the Fifth Circuit was divided in two in 1981.)
The other four are:
- James Lawrence King, whom Nixon appointed to the Southern District of Florida three days after he appointed Wallace and Tjoflat.
- Levin Campbell, appointed to the district court in 1971 and to the First Circuit in 1972.
- Jon Newman, appointed to the district court in 1971 and elevated by Jimmy Carter to the Second Circuit in 1979.
- Donald Alsop, appointed to the District of Minnesota in 1974.