PDA

View Full Version : SCOTUS Shortlister - His Dad Shot Him




angelatc
01-15-2017, 11:43 PM
This is from a lawyerly publication circa 2004: http://www2.mnbar.org/benchandbar/2004/dec04/8th_circuit.htm


This article is an introduction to the six newest judges on the 8th Circuit. It is intended to help you predict how the new judges will decide cases in the years to come, based on the information available to us today. Of course, an evaluation of a judge cannot fairly be made except by looking at what the judge has done during the course of his or her service on the court. Someday, someone will look backwards at the public record and draw fully informed conclusions about each of these newly appointed judges. But, as Kierkegaard said, life must be lived by looking forwards.


Judge Raymond W. Gruender

Judge Gruender was appointed to the court on June 4, 2004, and has his chambers in St. Louis, Missouri. He came to the bench directly from the position of U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Gruender was born and raised in St. Louis. He graduated from high school in 1981 and then attended Washington University, where, within six years, he received a bachelor’s degree, an MBA degree, and a law degree.

After graduating from law school in 1987, Gruender joined the St. Louis firm of Lewis, Rice & Fingersh, where he was an associate for three years, working on both civil and criminal cases. He then became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Missouri, a position he held for four years. He resigned from that position in 1994 to run for election as St. Louis County Attorney, though he lost to the incumbent.

Gruender then joined the St. Louis firm of Thompson Coburn as a partner. He remained there for six years, practicing primarily white-collar criminal law. In 2000, he rejoined the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He was an assistant U.S. attorney for one year, was appointed interim U.S. attorney in early 2001, and was nominated and confirmed to that position in late 2001.

One Missouri attorney who knows Gruender well described him as “really bright” but not interested in showing off and perhaps not as analytical as other, similarly bright judges. This lawyer described the judge as “a very unassuming person, not self-important at all.” Gruender’s successor as U.S. attorney, James G. Martin, who has worked alongside Gruender, said that Gruender was responsible for several high-profile public corruption cases, including prosecutions of St. Louis County Council members, several members of city government, and a scandal that implicated both attorneys and judges in the Missouri workers’ compensation system. Martin said that Gruender “went after Republicans and Democrats with equal vigor.”

It is a matter of public record that Gruender has achieved much despite a very modest upbringing. At his investiture on October 14, 2004, the judge commented that his father, who dropped out of high school at age 16 to work as a house painter, took a job as a janitor at Gruender’s Catholic high school so that the family could better afford tuition. Gruender himself began working for money at age ten by scraping paint for his father for 25 cents per hour. Gruender also held part-time jobs throughout high school, college, and graduate school. Missouri lawyers who know him say he is incredibly dedicated and hard-working.

It is noteworthy, and perhaps relevant to his work as a judge, that Gruender’s personal life has been significantly touched by violent crime. On September 1, 1986, when he was a law student, his father pointed a gun at him, his younger sister, and his younger brother while demanding to know the whereabouts of their mother, who had fled the home to avoid continued spousal abuse. During the stand-off, Gruender’s father shot Gruender in the chest and shot his sister in the stomach. Gruender nonetheless knocked his father to the floor before his 12-year-old brother could be shot. As Gruender and his sister went to the hospital, the father retreated to a bedroom and committed suicide. The ordeal led to Gruender’s significant involvement with a nonprofit organization that assists victims of domestic violence.17

Judge Gruender joined the court so recently that, as this article goes to press, he has not yet authored an opinion. He has, however, voted for rehearing en banc on three occasions. One case was a business dispute in which the court approved a punitive damages award that was approximately 4.5 times compensatory damages.18 Another was the securities case mentioned above, in which Judge Smith wrote the dissenting opinion.19 And another was a free-speech case in which anti-abortion protestors were arrested for violating a loitering ordinance after passers-by complained. The panel held that the arresting police officers had qualified immunity for the arrests, which generated a dissenting opinion and four votes to rehear the case en banc.20