Michael W. McConnell

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Michael W. McConnell bigraphy, stories - American judge

Michael W. McConnell : biography

May 18, 1955 –

Michael William McConnell (born May 18, 1955 in Louisville, Kentucky) is a constitutional law scholar who served as a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from 2002 until 2009. Since 2009, Judge McConnell has served as Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School.

 He is also a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and of Counsel to the Litigation Practice Group at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. 

Background

McConnell graduated from Michigan State University’s James Madison College in 1976. McConnell received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1979, where he was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. He was a law clerk for James Skelly Wright, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 1979–1980, and for Associate Justice William Brennan, Supreme Court of the United States, 1980–1981. He was an assistant general counsel at the Office of Management and Budget, 1981–1983, and an assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, 1983–1985. McConnell was a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, 1985–1996, where he brought Harvard Law graduate Barack Obama on a fellowship after being impressed with a suggestion Obama, then Harvard Law Review president, had made on one of McConnell’s articles.

McConnell has been professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, as well as a visiting professor at Harvard Law SchoolCreation of the Constitution and course listings and at the New York University School of Law. 

Notable cases

While sitting on the Tenth Circuit, Judge McConnell wrote scores of judicial opinions. The Supreme Court reviewed four cases in which Judge McConnell wrote an opinion; in each case the Court reached the same result as the opinion by Judge McConnell. First, in [ O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal v. Ashcroft, 546 U.S. 418 (2006)], a case involving the religious use of a hallucinogenic tea, the Supreme Court affirmed 8–0 a Tenth Circuit en banc decision to which . Second, in [ Fernandez-Vargas v. Gonzales, 548 U.S. 30 (2008)], a case involving the retroactive application of a statutory provision limiting appeals from immigration removal orders, the Supreme Court affirmed 8–1 . Third, in , a case involving whether a felony conviction for driving under the influence is a crime of violence for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act, the Supreme Court reversed 6–3 a Tenth Circuit panel decision from which Judge McConnell . Fourth, in Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, No. 07-665 (February 25, 2009), a case involving whether the presence of a Ten Commandments monument on government property gave another religion a First Amendment right to place its own monument on the same property, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed a Tenth Circuit panel decision that Judge McConnell had challenged by writing a dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc.

Significant opinions written by Judge McConnell include the following:

  • , 483 F.3d 1025, 1037 (2007) (concurring and dissenting). Equal Protection Clause.
  • (2007) (concurring). Criminal sentencing.
  • (2007). Criminal sentencing. The case was covered by and .
  • (2007) (concurring). Criminal sentencing.
  • , 449 F.3d 1132 (2007). Free Exercise Clause.
  • , 389 F.3d 973 (2004) (en banc) (McConnell, J., concurring), affirmed by Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006). Free Exercise Clause; Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
  • (2006).
  • (2006). Commerce Clause. Writing for the court, McConnell upheld a federal statute prohibiting the possession of body armor by felons. Even though the statute, as applied to Mr. Patton’s intrastate and noncommercial possession of body armor, could not be sustained under any of the three Lopez categories established by the Supreme Court, it fell within the Commerce Clause under another line of Supreme Court precedent (Scarborough) and noted the tension between the two sets of precedents. The court also rejected Mr. Patton’s due process and necessity claims. The case was covered by Decision of the Day and and was the subject of [https://support.law.cornell.edu/students/students/ExamArchive/PDF/5021_Constitutional_Law_Fa06_Meyler.pdf a constitutional law final exam at Cornell].
  • .
  • (2006).