Judge Peter W. Hall
Peter W. Hall, a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, passed away on March 11, 2021. Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston wrote a warm and thoughtful tribute to Judge Hall, available here. Her comments, on top of the news of Judge Hall’s passing, spurred me to write a few reflections of my own.
Throughout his 17 years on the Second Circuit, Judge Hall exuded intelligence, grace, and understated strength. He first took the bench in 2004, after a distinguished career as the United States Attorney in Vermont and a private practitioner. A resident of Rutland, Vermont, his seat on the Second Circuit is affectionately known as the “Vermont seat,” and was previously occupied by Judge Fred I. Parker and, before that, Chief Judge James L. Oakes.
The Second Circuit’s judges are known for their active questioning during oral argument, but each judge probes counsel’s positions in his or her own style. Judge Hall came to each argument armed with a quiver full of apt and challenging questions, which he posed with the finest judicial temperament. The video here is the oral argument in Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump, 928 F.3d 226 (2d Cir. 2019), where the Court held that the President’s social-media account was a public forum, and that blocking users was unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. Judge Hall’s written opinions were similarly direct and clear-sighted.
Of course, Judge Hall’s contributions go well beyond his technical skills as a legal writer and thinker. No one who argued before Judge Hall walked away from the experience feeling short-changed or misunderstood. He was a fiercely independent jurist, determined to follow his view of the law wherever it led.
To take just one example, in the summer of 2020 Judge Hall was part of the panel assigned to consider the bail application of two young lawyers charged with throwing Molotov cocktails into an unoccupied police vehicle during protests of police brutality. Judge Hall wrote the opinion upholding the grant of bail, over the dissent of one of his colleagues. See United States v. Mattis, 963 F.3d 285 (2d Cir. 2020). Despite the charged and polarized atmosphere, Judge Hall’s opinion was tempered and even-handed. He grounded the Court’s decision in the “constraints on our appellate review and the fact that the gravity of an offense is not the only factor to be considered by the district court” when making detention decisions. Id. at 292. He ruled as he did even though he “would not necessarily have reached the same conclusion as the judges below.” Id. at 296. While Mattis will inform bail determinations for decades to come, that was not the Judge’s purpose—he simply evaluated the record under the applicable standard of review and made the decision he believed the law required, despite its unpopularity in many quarters.
Judge Hall was also attentive to the needs of practicing lawyers. He chaired the Circuit’s CJA and Pro Bono Committees with great attention and care. And he readily traveled to Buffalo for events like the Erie County Bar Association’s Law Day in 2006. Judge Jeremiah J. McCarthy, then a private practitioner and Bar Association president, had asked his fellow Cornell Law School student to deliver the keynote address. As a veteran of these events, I can say that not every Bar Association keynote is worth the price of admission. Judge Hall’s was.
Two years later, then-Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs took the Second Circuit on the road for a slate of oral arguments at the old Dillon Courthouse in Buffalo. Judge Hall sat on one of those cases. See Dolphy v. Mantello, 552 F.3d 236, 237 (2d Cir. 2009) (vacating and remanding for adjudication of Batson claim on the merits, where the prosecutor struck an African-American juror and explained that “I do not select overweight people on the jury panel for reasons that, based on my reading and past experience, that heavy-set people tend to be very sympathetic toward any defendant”).
Judge Hall’s passing is a personal blow to his family, his colleagues, and the lawyers who appeared before him. And it is a blow to the cause of justice that he so resolutely defended. It is a comfort to know that his words will endure not merely as a monument to his legal ability, but as the law of the land, shaping vital decisions in the lives of New Yorkers, Connecticuters, and Vermonters for years to come.