CHICAGO (AP) — U.S. Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner, whose acerbic wit and legal opinions made him a legend in legal circles, has announced his retirement.

Posner is stepping down after more than three decades on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

The 78-year-old Posner, who was appointed to the court by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, will leave the bench Saturday.

Posner said in a statement Friday that he has written more than 3,300 opinions during his career and is “proud to have promoted a pragmatic approach to judging.”

Posner has been an outspoken critic of the current state of the U.S. Supreme Court, calling it “highly politicized.”

Posner is also on the faculty of University of Chicago Law School. He said he looks forward to continuing to teach and publish. </s> Richard Posner, a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals based in Chicago, who was a prolific writer of court opinions and books, is set to retire, according to a published report.

Posner, 78, told the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin in a statement that he would retire on Saturday: “I look forward to continuing to teach and publish, with a particular focus on social justice reform.”

Posner is a legal giant, who had a huge impact on the American judicial system, and recently wrote in an article that there should be mandatory retirement for federal judges, at “probably 80.”

More details to come. </s> One of the nation's most influential judges and legal writers, Richard Posner, is retiring as of Saturday from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

Posner has written more than 3,300 opinions in nearly 36 years on the bench, along with scores of books. He is known for a sharp wit, clear writing and opinions that could be equally biting and humorous, with occasional references to his cats.

Posner said in a statement he is "proud to have promoted a pragmatic approach to judging... and to apply my view that judicial opinions should be easy to understand and that judges should focus on the right and wrong in every case."

The 7th Circuit's Chief Judge, Dianne Wood, calls Posner "one of the most distinguished people to ever sit on the federal bench," adding "His opinions have had an impact around the world."

Posner was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and was known as a conservative, although in recent years he became less so. He told NPR's Nina Totenberg, "I've become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy."

Posner is an outspoken critic of the U.S. Supreme Court and some of it's justices, once saying in an interview, "It's not a real court, it's a political court." The 78-year old says in his statement that he plans to continuing teaching at the University of Chicago Law School, as he has since 1969, and writing "with a particular focus on social justice reform." </s> Judge Posner Stepping Down After 36 Years At 7th Circ.

Law360, New York (September 1, 2017, 5:02 PM EDT) -- U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner, one of the most prolific and influential legal thinkers of the past half-century, is retiring from the Seventh Circuit over the weekend, the court announced Friday.



Judge Richard Posner, who has served on the bench for more than three decades, will retire from the Seventh Circuit on Saturday. Posner, 78, has served on the bench for three and a half decades, and said in a press release issued by Seventh Circuit that he will step down officially on Saturday. He...

To view the full article, register now. </s> CHICAGO (AP) - U.S. Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner, whose acerbic wit and legal opinions made him a legend in legal circles, announced Friday that he is retiring.

Posner, 78, is stepping down after more than three decades on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

Posner was appointed to the court by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and will leave the bench Saturday. He said in a statement that he has written more than 3,300 opinions during his career and is "proud to have promoted a pragmatic approach to judging." He added that "judicial opinions should be easy to understand and that judges should focus on the right and wrong in every case."

Born in New York, Posner earned a bachelor's degree in English from Yale University in 1959. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1962. Posner clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. and was an assistant to U.S. Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall before Marshall became a Supreme Court justice.

Posner has been an outspoken critic of the current state of the nation's high court, calling it "highly politicized."

"I think it's reached a real nadir," Posner said in a talk at a Chicago book store last year. "Probably only a couple of the justices, (Stephen) Breyer and (Ruth Bader) Ginsburg, are qualified. They're OK, they're not great."

He was equally free with his opinions issued from the bench. In one, annoyed with a lawyer who'd ducked one of his questions, Posner included a picture of a man with his head buried in the ground.

Seventh Circuit Chief Judge Diane Wood said in a statement Friday that Posner is one of the world's leading public intellectuals.

"His opinions have had an impact around the world," Wood said. "He has produced an unparalleled body of scholarship - books, articles and public commentary - covering virtually every legal topic that can be imagined."

Posner is also on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School. He said he looks forward to continuing to teach and publish. </s> President Donald Trump has nominated federal appeals judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

The 49-year-old Gorsuch has served on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver since 2006, after being appointed by President George W. Bush. He once worked at the Supreme Court as a law clerk.

If approved by the Senate, Gorsuch would take the seat left vacant since Justice Antonin Scalia died last year. Republicans refused to consider President Barack Obama's nominee for the seat, saying the choice should go Obama's successor.

He would be the youngest justice since Clarence Thomas joined the court in 1991 at age 43.

Trump made the announcement Tuesday in a prime-time address from the White House. </s> SEATTLE — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is weighing the appeal of President Trump's executive order on immigration, is the federal appeals court conservatives have long ridiculed as the “nutty 9th” or the “9th Circus.”

Covering a huge swath of territory — nine western states plus Guam — the San Francisco-based court handles far more cases than any other federal appeals court, including some rulings that have invoked furor from conservatives over the years.

Among them: finding that the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional, that the “don't ask, don't tell” policy on gays in the military was problematic long before President Obama's administration ended it, and that states can force pharmacies to dispense emergency contraceptives.

But some legal scholars say the 9th Circuit's liberal reputation is overblown and that the court has moved to the middle as some of President Carter's appointees — who were considered extremely liberal — have taken semi-retired “senior” status or passed away.

A Democratic Congress nearly doubled the number of judges on the court during Carter's tenure, and his appointees faced easy confirmation in the Senate.

The three judges weighing Trump's travel ban are on the case by virtue of random assignment to this month's circuit court motions panel. Senior Circuit Judge William C. Canby Jr. was appointed by Carter in 1980; Senior Circuit Judge Richard R. Clifton was appointed by Bush in 2002; and Circuit Judge Michelle T. Friedland was appointed by Obama in 2014.

Canby, based in Phoenix, was a first lieutenant in the Air Force in the 1950s before becoming a Peace Corps administrator in Ethiopia and Uganda in the 1960s. Clifton, who keeps his chambers in Honolulu, came to the bench from private practice. So did Friedland, who is based in San Francisco.

They were scheduled to hear arguments by phone Tuesday on whether to maintain the temporary restraining order issued by Seattle U.S. District Judge James L. Robart that blocked enforcement of the travel ban from seven majority-Muslim nations.

President George W. Bush appointed six of the court's 25 active judges, but 18 have been appointed by Democrats. The seven appointed by Obama are generally considered moderate, said University of Richmond Law School Professor Carl Tobias.

Tobias called the notion that the 9th Circuit is liberal “dated.” Arthur Hellman, a federal courts scholar at University of Pittsburgh Law School, said the picture of where the court stands in relation to other circuits has become muddier.

“The reputation is certainly deserved based on the history of the last 40 years or so,” Hellman said. “It's been more liberal, by which we mean more sympathetic to habeas petitioners, civil rights plaintiffs, anti-trust cases, immigration cases. But it's less of an outlier now than it was.”

That history has prompted repeated, unsuccessful efforts to split the 9th Circuit — most recently in proposals filed this year by Arizona's congressional delegation.

A bill introduced last week by Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake would put Arizona in a new 12th Circuit with Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Washington while leaving California, Hawaii and Oregon plus Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in the 9th Circuit.

A House version previously introduced by Reps. Andy Biggs and four other Arizona Republican representatives would leave Washington in the 9th Circuit.

Biggs in a statement said his aim was “to free Arizona from the burdensome and undue influence of the 9th Circuit Court.”

“As a promise to my constituents last year, I introduced this bill to protect Arizona from a federal circuit court that does not reflect the values nor laws of our state,” he said. “The Ninth Circuit cannot handle the number of states currently entrapped within its jurisdiction, causing access to justice to be delayed.”

Tobias said that while the 9th Circuit could use more judges, it makes little sense to split the circuit. California generates so many cases that the 9th is always going to have a heavy workload — it handled 11,888 of the 56,244 cases handled by all federal appeals courts in the 12 months ending last June. And Tobias said he doesn't consider the sort of judicial gerrymandering Biggs seeks as a valid reason to split the court.

Judge Alex Kozinski, the circuit's former chief judge, once joked in a New York Times interview that far from splitting the 9th, he was hoping to acquire more territory. He said he had his sights on Utah, for its good skiing. </s> iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — In a historic moment, the Senate on Friday voted 54-45 along party lines to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court as the 113th justice, marking the end to a bitter, partisan battle in the Senate.

Gorsuch, 49, who served as judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, was nominated to the bench by President Trump in January.

The nation’s highest court now has its full complement of nine justices for the first time since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016. </s> CHICAGO (AP) -- A federal appeals court in Chicago on Tuesday ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act also protects LGBT employees from workplace discrimination, the first time a federal appellate court has come to that conclusion.

The decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after it threw out a July finding by three of its own judges that the law doesn't cover sexual-orientation bias and ordered a rare rehearing by the full court, a rare session known as an en banc hearing.

It also comes as President Donald Trump's administration has begun setting its own policies on LGBT rights. Late in January, the White House declared Trump would enforce an Obama administration order barring companies that do federal work from workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual identity. But in February, it revoked guidance on transgender students' use of public school bathrooms, deferring to states.

The Hively case stems from a lawsuit by Indiana teacher Kimberly Hively alleging that the Ivy Tech Community College in South Bend didn't hire her full time because she is a lesbian.

The entire court reheard oral arguments in November and directed the toughest questions at a lawyer for the college who argued only Congress could extend the protections. The aggressive questions suggested the court might be willing to expand the 53-year-old landmark law.

Judge Richard Posner asked the attorney for the community college, John Maley: "Who will be hurt if gays and lesbians have a little more job protection?" When Maley said he couldn't think of anyone who would be harmed, Posner shot back, "So, what's the big deal?" Posner also said it was wrong to say a decades-old statute is "frozen" on the day it passed and that courts can never broaden its scope.

Eight out of the 11 judges who reheard the case, including Posner, were appointed by Republican presidents.

The ruling comes as hopes have dimmed among some gay rights activists that the question will be resolved in their favor following election victories in November by Republicans.

The issue could still land before the Supreme Court at some point. A GOP-majority House and Senate make it unlikely the Congress will amend the statute.

The focus of discussion at the November session in Chicago was the meaning of the word 'sex' in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the provision that bans workplace bias based on race, religion, national origin or sex. Multiple court rulings back Maley's contention that Congress meant for the word to refer only to whether a worker was male or female. Given that, he said it would be wrong to stretch the meaning of 'sex' in the statute to also include sexual orientation. He conceded the law is imprecise, but added: "That makes it an issue for Congress."

The lawyer representing the teacher, Gregory Nevins of the Lambda Legal advocacy group of LGBT rights, pointed to what he described as the absurdity of a 1980s Supreme Court finding that if workers are discriminated against because they don't behave around the office by norms of how men or women should behave, then that does violate the Civil Rights Law. But if a man or woman is discriminated against at work for being gay that was found not to violate the Civil Rights Act.

"You can't discriminate against a woman because she rides a Harley, had Bears tickets or has tattoos," he said. "But you can if she's lesbian."
United States federal judge Richard Posner has announced his retirement after three decades of service on the bench of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, Justice Posner has written more than 3,300 opinions from the bench.