Benchlight The federal appellate judiciary

Appointment

Court
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Title
Judge
Appointed by
Ronald ReaganRepublican president
Seat
CA61501
Nominated
July 23, 1985
Committee hearing
Sept. 11, 1985
Committee action
Reported (favorably)Sept. 12, 1985
Senate vote
Voice
Confirmed
Oct. 16, 1985
Commissioned
Oct. 17, 1985
Senior status
Sept. 1, 1994
Service ended
April 20, 2026Death

Source Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Judges. Party shown is the party of the appointing president, which is a fact about the president, not about the judge.

Judicial service history

Every federal judicial office held, in order of appointment.

CourtTitleCommissionedEndedAppointed by
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Judge May 12, 1976 Oct. 17, 1985 Appointment to Another Judicial Position Gerald Ford
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Judge Oct. 17, 1985 April 20, 2026 Death Ronald Reagan

Recent judicial activity

Opinions authored and panels sat on, most recent first.

Cases

Appellate cases on which this judge sat, drawn from panel information published with each decision.

CaseNo.StatusDate
Tara Keen v. Robert Helson 18-6035 Decided July 18, 2019
Lamont Heard v. Tom Finco 18-2371 Decided July 15, 2019
Renee Fazica v. Zachary Jordan 18-1457 Decided June 10, 2019
Michael Booth v. Nissan N. Am., Inc. 18-5985 Decided June 7, 2019
John Doe v. BlueCross BlueShield of Tenn., Inc. 18-5897 Decided June 4, 2019
Howard Holt v. City of Battle Creek 18-1981 Decided June 3, 2019
Peter Mager v. Wisconsin Central Ltd. 18-1421 Decided May 15, 2019
Billy F. Hawk, Jr., GST Non-Exempt Marital Trust v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue 18-1534 Decided May 15, 2019
William Gardner v. Jason Evans 17-1933 Decided April 4, 2019
R. Alexander Acosta v. Off Duty Police Servs. 17-5995/6071 Decided Feb. 12, 2019
Frieda Aaron v. Maureen O'Connor 18-3452 Decided Jan. 30, 2019
Leonel Hernandez-Perez v. Matthew Whitaker 18-3137 Decided Dec. 14, 2018
United States v. Erik McCoy 17-4245 Decided Sept. 20, 2018

Judicial writings

No writings are attributed to this judge in the ingested records.

Source Authorship is recorded only where the source data carries it. For recent Courts of Appeals opinions CourtListener frequently publishes the decision as a single document without naming the authoring judge, so an absence here means the attribution is unavailable upstream — not that the judge has written nothing.