Edward Thaxter Gignoux

GIGNOUX, EDWARD THAXTER

During his 30-year career in the federal courts, Edward Thaxter Gignoux developed a reputation as an articulate, compassionate, and competent trial judge. He was also a leader in the fields of judicial ethics, court administration, and trial practice and technique. He showcased his skills in a number of high-profile cases—including the CONTEMPT trial of Abbie Hoffman and other defendants known as the CHICAGO EIGHT (In re Dellinger, 370 F. Supp. 1304, N.D.
Ill., E.D. [1973]).
Gignoux was born in Portland, Maine, on
June 28, 1916. He graduated cum laude from
Harvard College in 1937 and went on to Harvard
Law School, where he was editor of the Harvard
Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude
from the law school in 1940 and began his legal
career with the firm of Slee, O’Brian, Hellings,
and Ulsh, in Buffalo. After a year in Buffalo, he
joined the Washington, D.C., firm of Covington,
Burling, Rublee, Acheson, and Shorb.
WORLD WAR II interrupted Gignoux’s Washington, D.C., career after just a few months. In 1942, Gignoux joined the U.S. Army. During his
three-year tour of duty with the First Cavalry
Division in the Southwest Pacific, he rose to the
rank of major and was awarded the Legion of
Merit and the Bronze Star.
After the war, Gignoux returned to Covington,
Burling, in Washington, D.C., to resume the
PRACTICE OF LAW, but a bout with malaria, contracted
during his years in service, forced a
return to his native Maine for convalescence. As
his health returned, Gignoux joined the Portland,
Maine, firm of Verrill, Dana, Walker,
Philbrick, and Whitehouse, and he married
Hildegard Schuyler.
Gignoux and his wife had two children as
they settled into life in Portland. In addition to
practicing law, Gignoux was named assistant
corporation counsel for the city of Portland,
and he was twice elected to a three-year term
on the Portland City Council, serving from
1949 to 1955.
By 1957, Gignoux was well-known and
respected in Maine legal and political circles,
and he was a logical choice to fill a vacancy on
the federal bench.He was appointed U.S. district
judge for the District of Maine in August 1957
by President DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, and he
served as Maine’s only federal court judge for
the next 20 years.
One of the first cases he heard as a federal
judge was an antitrust action brought by the
federal government against the Maine Lobstermen’s
Association—an important group in a
very visible industry (United States v.Maine Lobstermen’s
Ass’n, 160 F. Supp. 115 [D. Me. 1957]).
A jury found the lobstermen guilty, but Gignoux,
showing both wisdom and compassion
early on, managed to satisfy both parties when
he imposed only a small fine on the defendants.
Gignoux was also a central figure in Indian settlement claims in his native state, and he was
instrumental in establishing that several tribes
in Maine were “federal” rather than “colonial”
Indians, thus making them eligible for millions
of dollars each year in federal housing, education,
and HEALTH CARE benefits (Joint Tribal
Council v. Morton, 528 F.2d 370 [1st Cir. 1975]).
Prior to the Gignoux decision, Maine Indians
were considered “colonial” Indians and not the
Indians of the frontier that Congress meant to
protect in the Nonintercourse Act. Gignoux
ruled in 1975 that the statute did apply, thus
making some previous land transactions illegal
and making the Maine tribes “federal” Indians.
Gignoux’s reputation as a trial judge spread
quickly. According to one of his former law
clerks, lawyers and other judges packed his
courtroom during their spare time to watch
Gignoux’s performance.
Gignoux was serious about the fair and
equitable administration of justice. Throughout
the 1960s and 1970s, he served the U.S. Judicial
Conference. The Judicial Conference is the principal
machinery through which the federal court
system operates, establishing the standards policies
governing the federal judiciary. In recognition
of his efforts with the Conference, Gignoux
recieved the Devitt Award in 1987.
Gignoux’s work with the Judicial Conference
brought him national recognition, and in
1970 he was considered for a nomination to the
U.S. Supreme Court. Although he was not
appointed, he did make an impression on future
Court justice DAVID H. SOUTER. When Souter
filled out a questionnaire in preparation for his
confirmation hearing 20 years later, he noted a
voting-rights case that he had argued in 1970
before Gignoux.He said, “It was one of the most
gratifying events of my life, for the argument
included a genuinely dialectical exchange
between the great jurist and me.”
As Gignoux’s reputation grew, Chief Justice
WARREN E. BURGER called on him to preside
over some very political, and potentially explosive,
cases. In 1973, Warren appointed him to
preside over the contempt trial of Abbie Hoffman,
BOBBY SEALE, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden,
David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Lee Weiner, and
John Froines. These 1960s radicals known as the
Chicago Seven (even though there were eight of
them) had already been tried and convicted for
their participation in violent demonstrations at
the 1968 Democratic National Convention, in
Chicago. Following their trial, contempt charges
were filed against the individuals and their
lawyer, WILLIAM M. KUNSTLER, for their behavior
in court. Gignoux found only Hoffman,
Rubin, Dellinger, and their lawyer to be in contempt,
but he did not impose additional sentences
on the parties involved, saying that their
conviction and their previous time served were
punishment enough.
On June 1, 1983, after 25 years on the federal
bench, Gignoux took senior (or semiretired)
status, but he continued to hear cases around the
country and to serve on the TEMPORARY EMERGENCY
COURT OF APPEALS, which heard cases
from district courts on the Emergency Natural
Gas Act of 1977. Gignoux’s ability to uphold
both the letter and the spirit of the law, against
overwhelming political and social pressures, was
still very much in evidence when, during his first
year of “retirement,” he was asked to preside over
the trial of U.S. district judge Alcee L. Hastings
(see IMPEACHMENT [sidebar]). Hastings, who
was later acquitted of conspiracy to solicit a
bribe and of OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, was the
first sitting U.S. judge to face criminal charges.
Although pressured to drop the charges
throughout the trial, Gignoux said that “the
court is entirely persuaded that the government
has submitted evidence that is sufficient to sustain
a finding by the jury of guilty.” Also during
the Hastings trial, Gignoux rejected one of the
first serious efforts to open a federal court trial
to television coverage; Gignoux believed that he
was prohibited by federal law from permitting
cameras in the courtroom.
Gignoux died on November 4, 1988, in Portland,
Maine. Shortly before his death, the city
renamed the federal courthouse there in his
honor. Gignoux was acknowledged by friend
and circuit judge Frank M. Coffin as an “inspiration”
and as a jurist who served honorably and
well “in the most demanding and delicate of trial
situations.”