William Benson Bryant

BRYANT, WILLIAM BENSON

William Benson Bryant is a federal judge whose
decisions influenced the outcomes of several
famous legal battles of the 1970s.
Bryant was born September 18, 1911, in
Wetumpka, Alabama. He moved to Washington,
D.C., with his family when he was a child and
attended District of Columbia public schools.
He graduated from Howard University with a
bachelor of arts degree in 1932, and went on to
earn his bachelor of laws degree from Howard
University Law School in 1936. After law school,
Bryant worked for the Works Progress Administration
(WPA) and later for the Bureau of Intelligence
at the Office of War Information. He
joined the U.S. Army in 1943, and attained the
rank of lieutenant colonel before his discharge
in 1947.
Bryant started a law practice in Washington,
D.C., in 1948. He left private practice to become
an assistant in the office of the U.S. attorney for
the District of Columbia from 1951 to 1954.
After resigning that post, he joined the law firm
of Houston, Bryant, and Gardner, in Washington,
D.C., where he worked from 1954 to 1965.
As a criminal defense attorney, Bryant argued
and won the Supreme Court case of Mallory v.
United States, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S. Ct. 1356
(1957). Following Mallory, police could no
longer use confessions of criminal defendants
that were secured during long and unnecessary
delays between arrest and ARRAIGNMENT.
Bryant became a law professor at Howard
University in 1965, the same year President LYNDON
B. JOHNSON appointed him to the federal
bench. With his appointment, Bryant became
the first African American to serve as a judge at
the federal district court level.
During his tenure on the bench, Bryant
presided over several high-profile trials. In May
1972, he overturned the election of W. A.
(“Tony”) Boyle as president of the United Mine
Workers (Hodgson v. United Mine Workers of
America, 344 F. Supp. 17 [D.D.C.]). Boyle’s election
was challenged by supporters of his opponent,
Joseph A. Yablonski, who had been found
murdered along with his wife and daughter
three weeks after he lost the 1969 election to
Boyle. Bryant found sufficient evidence of
wrongdoing by Boyle and his supporters to nullify
the election. He ordered the union to hold
another election, to be conducted under court
supervision. Boyle was subsequently defeated by
Arnold Miller, a Yablonski supporter, and in
1974, was convicted of murder for having
ordered Yablonski’s killing.
Bryant also made several key decisions
regarding participants in the scandals that devastated
the administration of President
RICHARD M. NIXON. In April 1974, he sentenced
Herbert L. Porter, a former aide in Nixon’s
reelection campaign, to 15 months in prison for
lying to the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
(FBI) during its investigation of the
WATERGATE break-in and subsequent cover-up.
In November 1974, he ordered White House
counsel Philip W. Bucher to produce audiotapes
of Oval Office meetings that took place May
1–5, 1971. The order was part of a CLASS ACTION
suit brought against the U.S. government on behalf of eight hundred antiwar protesters. The
plaintiffs alleged that government officials violated
their civil liberties and suspended DUE
PROCESS when they ordered the arrest of nearly
12,000 protesters who marched on the White
House on May 1. Most of the arrests in the socalled
Mayday Rally were later found to be
unlawful.
In 1982, after a long and distinguished career
on the federal bench, Bryant attained the rank of
senior judge. One of his best-known decisions
since then was his 1989 ruling upholding a federal
BANKRUPTCY judge’s decision in a case
involving the U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT. The
case centered on INSLAW, a software company
that had contracted with the department to provide
a case-management software program.
INSLAW claimed that the department was using
the software even though it had not paid for it—
a situation that had forced the company into
bankruptcy. A federal bankruptcy judge agreed
and ordered the Justice Department to pay
INSLAW $8 million in damages. Bryant upheld
this ruling on appeal; the ruling was also upheld
by higher courts (although the Justice Department
did get the $8 million judgment set aside).
In the 2000s, Bryant continued to preside
over noteworthy cases. In March 2003, he issued
a ruling that ended the U.S. District Court’s 32-
year oversight of the D.C. jail. Overcrowding,
building safety issues, and problems with the
quality of medical services for inmates led to the
filing of two cases that compelled the court to
assume oversight in the 1970s: Campbell v.
McGruder, 416 F.Supp. 106 (D.D.C., Nov. 5,
1975) (No. CIV. 1462-71; 2) and Inmates of D.C.
Jail v. Jackson, 416 F.Supp. 119 (D.D.C. May 24,
1976) (No. CIV. 75-1668). The D.C. Department
of Corrections worked to reverse problems at
the jail by launching comprehensive programs
to improve environmental and safety conditions
and raise the standards of medical and mental
HEALTH CARE services. By 2002, conditions at
the jail had improved significantly, and its medical
and psychiatric services had achieved
national accreditation. Bryant’s ruling, noted
D.C. mayor Anthony Williams, was proof that
the jail had passed “the toughest muster of the
federal court system.”

FURTHER READINGS
Ploski, Harry A., and James Williams, eds. 1989. The Negro
Almanac. Detroit: Gale Research.
Spradling, Mary M., ed. 1980. In Black and White. Detroit:
Gale Research.
Weisberg, Jacob. 1990. “Computer Trouble: Another Fine
Meese Mess.” New Republic (September 10).