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      Judge Edward T. Gignoux Garbrecht Law Library, University of Maine School of Law.

      Chief Justice Warren Burger assigned Edward Gignoux to be the judge for the retrial of the contempt charges against the defendants and their attorneys. In its reversal of the contempt convictions issued by Judge Hoffman, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit cited a recent Supreme Court opinion as authority for requiring a different judge to preside over any retrial of the contempt charges that the government attorneys might choose to pursue. By law, the Chief Justice of the United States may assign a district judge to preside in a district in another judicial circuit if the chief judge of the other circuit specifies a need. (No judge in the Seventh Circuit, which encompasses Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, wanted to preside in the retrial.)

      In his personal demeanor and his style of case management, the highly respected Gignoux proved to be the very opposite of Judge Hoffman. Years later, even William Kunstler offered a backhanded compliment. Gignoux, he said, “was a dangerous man. He makes the system look good.” Gignoux presided at a trial with no jury because the government attorneys dropped enough contempt charges so that none of the defendants was subject to more than six months’ imprisonment if convicted on all counts. Acting Attorney General Robert Bork recommended not retrying the contempts, but the U.S. attorney in Chicago, James Thompson, thought it was important to pursue some of the charges. Gignoux found three of the defendants and attorney William Kunstler guilty of a total of thirteen contempt charges, but Gignoux refused to impose further jail time on any of them. Gignoux’s written decision concluded with an eloquent statement on the need for proper courtroom decorum and civility to ensure that citizens can defend their civil liberties.

      Gignoux was born in Portland, Maine, and graduated from Harvard College and the Harvard Law School. He was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine by President Eisenhower in 1957. Gignoux again served by assignment to another district in 1983 when he presided at the bribery trial of Alcee Hastings, a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida.

      Judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

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Walter Joseph Cummings (1916-1999)

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      Judge Walter J. Cummings Courtesy of the Seventh Circuit Library.

      Walter Cummings was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit by President Johnson in 1966, and he served on the court until his death. Cummings was the author of the court’s opinion of May 11, 1972, In re David Dellinger et al., which overturned the contempt convictions of the defendants and remanded most of the charges for retrial by a different judge. The opinion ordered that any defendant facing contempt charges subject to more than six months’ imprisonment would be entitled to a jury trial. Cummings also authored the court’s opinion in United States v. Bobby G. Seale, in which the appeals court reversed the contempt convictions of Bobby Seale and remanded for retrial most of those charges, minus four that the court decided were not based on behavior that obstructed the trial.

      Cummings graduated from Yale University in 1937 and from the Harvard Law School in 1940. He then served as an attorney in the Department of Justice for six years, including a term as assistant solicitor general. He later served as the solicitor general from 1952-1953, the youngest person to hold that position. Before joining the court of appeals, Cummings was in private practice in Chicago for twenty years, during which time he served as president of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association.

      Thomas Edward Fairchild (1912-2007)

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      Judge Thomas E. Fairchild Courtesy of the Seventh Circuit Library.

      Thomas Fairchild was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit by President Johnson in 1966, and he served until his death in 2007, after taking a reduced caseload in 1981. Fairchild wrote the court’s opinion of November 1972 in United States v. David T. Dellinger et al., the appeal of the five defendants who had been convicted on the charges of inciting a riot. The court found several grounds for reversal of the convictions, and Fairchild’s opinion censured Judge Julius Hoffman and the government attorneys for their openly critical remarks about the defendants and their attorneys.

      Fairchild received his law degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1938, and he worked in private practice before serving as the state attorney general, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, and as a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Fairchild was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1950 and again in 1952, when he challenged incumbent Senator Joseph McCarthy.

      Wilbur Frank Pell, Jr. (1915-2000)

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      Judge Wilbur F. Pell, Jr. Courtesy of the Seventh Circuit Library.

      Wilbur Pell was the most recently appointed of the three judges who heard the appeals associated with the Chicago conspiracy trial. Pell had joined the court in April 1970 following his appointment by President Nixon. In a dissent from the majority opinion of the court on the appeal of the convictions on the charge of incitement to riot, in United States v. David T. Dellinger et al., Pell argued that the Anti-Riot Act was an unconstitutional infringement of free speech.

      Pell graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1940 and practiced law in his native Indiana for many years. He also served as an FBI agent and as deputy attorney general of Indiana.

       The defendants

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Rennie Davis (1941- )

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      Rennie Davis Courtesy of Bettman/Corbis.

      Rennie Davis, an early member of the Students for a Democratic Society and a veteran organizer, grew up in Virginia, the son of John C. Davis, chairman of President Truman’s Council of Economic Advisers. Rennie Davis attended Oberlin College and graduate school at the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan. He joined the SDS and became a close friend of one of its leaders, Tom Hayden. Davis was for several years involved in the group’s Economic Research and Action Project, which worked to organize poor urban neighborhoods. By 1967, Davis was increasingly involved in the SDS anti-war activities.

      Davis and Hayden joined with the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam in planning massive demonstrations to coincide with the Democratic

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