List of United States federal judges killed in office

Following is a list of United States federal Judges killed in office.

John H. Wood Jr.[]

John H. Wood Jr. was appointed by President Richard Nixon to the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. He was assassinated on May 29, 1979, by Charles Harrelson in the parking lot outside Wood's home in San Antonio, Texas.^[1] Harrelson was convicted of killing Wood, having been hired to do so by drug dealer Jamiel Chagra of El Paso. Wood — nicknamed "Maximum John" because of his reputation for handing down long sentences for drug offenses — was originally scheduled to have Chagra appear before him on the day of his murder, but the trial had been delayed.^[2]

Richard J. Daronco[]

Richard J. Daronco was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. In April 1988, Judge Daronco presided over a bench trial in a sex discrimination and sexual harassment case, in which the plaintiff represented herself. On May 19, 1988, Daronco issued a written decision holding in the defendant employer's favor and dismissing the case. On May 21, 1988, Charles L. Koster, a retired New York City police officer and the father of the unsuccessful plaintiff, shot and killed Judge Daronco while the judge was doing yardwork at his home in Pelham, New York. Koster then committed suicide.^[3][4]

Robert Smith Vance[]

Robert Smith Vance was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Vance was killed at his home in Mountain Brook, Alabama on December 16, 1989, when he opened a package containing a mail bomb. Vance was killed instantly and his wife, Helen, was seriously injured. After an intensive investigation, the federal government charged Walter Leroy Moody Jr. with the murders of Judge Vance and of Robert E. Robinson, a black civil rights attorney in Savannah, Georgia, who had been killed in a separate explosion. Moody was eventually convicted of the murder in both federal court and in Alabama state court, and was subsequently sentenced to death. Prosecutors speculated that Moody's motive for killing Judge Vance was anger that the appeals court on which Vance sat had refused to expunge a prior conviction of Moody's, though Vance had not been directly involved in that decision. Moody was executed by lethal injection on April 19, 2018, in Alabama.

John Roll[]

John Roll was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. Roll was fatally shot in the 2011 Tucson shooting, which occurred on January 8, 2011 outside a Safeway supermarket in Casas Adobes, Arizona,^[5] when a gunman opened fire at a "Congress on Your Corner" event held by Democratic U.S. House Representative Gabby Giffords; Roll later succumbed to his injuries, as did five other people. Fourteen others were wounded including Giffords. Roll had attended Mass earlier that morning and had decided to attend the event about an hour before the shooting.^[6]

Roll lived in the area, and a Giffords staff member suggested that Roll "had simply gone to the Safeway where the shooting occurred to shop."^[7] Jared Lee Loughner was taken into custody, charged by federal prosecutors with Roll's murder, and pleaded guilty.^[8] Evidence gathered by federal investigators indicates that Rep. Giffords was the main target, and that Loughner may not have known he was shooting a federal judge.^{[citation needed]}

Other attempts[]

In 2005, an assailant broke into the Chicago home of Judge Joan Lefkow of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and murdered the judge's husband and mother there. The suspect committed suicide, leaving a suicide note containing a confession and stating that they had planned to murder the judge herself.^[9]

In 2020, a man disguised as a Federal Express delivery driver gained entry to the North Brunswick, New Jersey home of Judge Esther Salas of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and murdered the judge's son, also critically injuring the judge's husband.^[9] The motive of the killer remains unknown.^[9]

See also[]

• William Lynn Parkinson, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, who disappeared in 1959 and whose body was found floating in Lake Michigan six months later. The circumstances of his death were never resolved.
• List of United States Congress members who died in office
• List of assassinated American politicians
• List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office
• List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots

References[]