WASHINGTON — Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, now in the hot seat in the Microsoft Corp. antitrust case, is no stranger to criticism. The lashing that Judge Jackson received Tuesday from the federal appeals court here is only the latest snarl he has faced during 16 years on the bench.
Judge in Microsoft case faced prior criticism
By Edward Felsenthal
and John R. Wilke
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
ISSUING A WARNING about the “limited competence of courts”
to evaluate high-tech products,
the three-member appeals panel reversed a key ruling by Judge Jackson, finding he had
exceeded his authority by issuing an injunction the government never asked for and
appointing a “special
master” to review
technical issues.
The same federal appeals court also
scolded him during the 1987 perjury trial of former presidential aide Michael Deaver and
the 1990 perjury and cocaine-possession case against Washington Mayor Marion Barry. And
some lawyers complained that Judge Jackson was out of line when he angrily accused defense
lawyers in a 1995 corruption trial of failing to defend him in the press. He has also
gained a reputation for delay, including a discrimination case that became one of the
longest-running unresolved trials in Washington district court. The suit was filed in 1985
and a trial held in 1991, but Judge Jackson didn’t issue a ruling until 1993.
But controversy comes with the
territory. Judge Jackson, 61 years old, has handled an unusual number of high-profile
cases. In addition to the Barry and Deaver trials, he has issued rulings striking down the
popular presidential line-item veto law, forcing former Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood to turn
over diaries to an ethics panel investigating claims of sexual-harassment and dismissing a
major auto-safety suit that the federal government brought against General Motors Corp.
The judge didn’t respond to phone calls, and an aide said he rarely
grants interviews.
Friends suggest that his past
troubles — he was
particularly hurt two years ago when a local magazine branded him “one of the least-respected judges on the federal bench” —
have made him especially
determined to get the Microsoft case right. Mindful of attacks on the federal judge who
allowed the government’s antitrust case against International Business Machines Corp. to drag on for
four decades, Judge Jackson has so far put Microsoft on a tight timetable, and is prepared
to preside over a trial beginning Sept. 8.
AVID READER OF HISTORY
Lawyers describe Judge Jackson, an avid reader of history who attended Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, as extremely knowledgeable about the law. But he has also earned a reputation as visceral, irascible and prone to outbursts at defendants who defy him. Federal auto-safety regulators felt his wrath, for example, when he discovered that they had offered rigged tests as evidence in the 1987 GM case.
“If you try to put one over
on him, you are going to be in trouble,” says Steve
Newborn, a former federal antitrust enforcer who describes the judge as “pragmatic” and “not a theorist.”
Mark Tuohey, a Washington lawyer who
has known Judge Jackson for years, concedes his straightforward style sometimes clashes
with Washington’s
convoluted legal culture, but says this can be an asset. “He often tries to resolve things without having every
issue litigated to death,” Mr. Tuohey says, adding that Judge Jackson is not always predictable, but he’s fair.
TENSE EXCHANGES
In several tense exchanges early in
the Microsoft case, Judge Jackson appeared annoyed by the demeanor of Richard Urowsky, the
company’s lead
counsel, seen by some as condescending to the court. Chastened, Microsoft tapped another
courtroom advocate, John Warden, whose folksier manner seemed a better fit with the judge’s own style.
But Judge Jackson’s forthrightness has sometimes gotten him into trouble. Shortly after the Marion Barry trial, for example, he gave a speech at Harvard in which he criticized some of the jurors and suggested they had let the mayor off too easy. The appeals court later rejected Mr. Barry’s claim that the judge should have withdrawn from the case because of bias, but it chastised Judge Jackson for saying things that called into question his courtroom impartiality.
This week, the appeals court again warned Judge Jackson to restrain himself and signaled it will be looking over his shoulder as he weighs the pending Microsoft case. “If I were Judge Jackson now, I would be going into this trial a little frightened,” says Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University.
But Judge Jackson has an escape when the turbulent winds of Washington blow too hard. An
avid sailor, he can often be found plying Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay in his 32-foot sloop “Nisi Prius,”
Latin for “trial court.”
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