Charles Breyer | |
---|---|
Chair of the United States Sentencing Commission | |
Acting December 2018 –August 5, 2022 | |
President | Donald Trump Joe Biden |
Preceded by | William H. Pryor Jr. |
Succeeded by | Carlton W. Reeves |
Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California | |
Assumed office December 31,2011 | |
Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California | |
In office November 12,1997 –December 31,2011 | |
Appointed by | Bill Clinton |
Preceded by | D. Lowell Jensen |
Succeeded by | William Orrick III |
Personal details | |
Born | Charles Roberts Breyer November 3,1941 San Francisco,California,U.S. |
Relatives | Stephen Breyer (brother) |
Education | Harvard University (BA) University of California,Berkeley (JD) |
Charles Roberts Breyer (born November 3,1941) is an American lawyer serving as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Breyer served as chairman of the United States Sentencing Commission from 2018 to 2022.
Breyer was born in San Francisco,California. He is the younger brother of Stephen Breyer,who served as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 to 2022. [1] Breyer and his older brother Stephen were active in the Boy Scouts of America and achieved the Eagle Scout rank. [2] [3]
Breyer attended Lowell High School. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1963 and a Juris Doctor from the University of California,Berkeley,in 1966. He was a law clerk to Judge Oliver Carter of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California from 1966 to 1967. He was a Counsel,Legal Aid Society of San Francisco in 1967,and was then an assistant district attorney for the City &County of San Francisco,California,from 1967 to 1973.
Breyer was an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force from 1973 to 1974,and then entered private practice in San Francisco from 1974 to 1997,interrupted by a brief stint as chief assistant district attorney of the City and County of San Francisco in 1979.
On July 24,1997,Breyer was nominated by President Bill Clinton to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California vacated by D. Lowell Jensen. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 8,1997,and received his commission on November 12,1997. He took senior status on December 31,2011. He served as a Member of the United States Judicial Conference from 2006 to 2010. He served as a Member of the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation from 2011 to 2018. He served as Vice Chair of the United States Sentencing Commission from 2013 to 2016 and as a Member of the same commission from 2017 to 2022.
Stephen Breyer has recused himself from appeals of cases tried by his brother,including Olympic Airways v. Husain ,Department of Housing and Urban Development v. Rucker, United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’Cooperative , Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms , [4] Amgen,Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds and City and County of San Francisco v. Sheehan. [5] [6] [7] [8]
Breyer presided over the Ed Rosenthal trial in 2007,a federal prosecution for distribution of marijuana for medical use. This case was controversial because Breyer sentenced Rosenthal,who faced a possible sentence of 100 years for growing marijuana,to just one day in prison. [9] He also presided over the stock-options backdating trial of Brocade Communications Systems CEO Gregory Reyes in 2007.
In 2014,he ruled against the City of San Francisco's legislation to protect tenants from Ellis Act evictions. [10] He presided over the 2014 criminal case involving San Francisco police theft [11] and racist texting,in which his court order was blamed for the delay in releasing information. [12]
Following the Volkswagen emissions scandal,Breyer had approved a $16.5 billion settlement for US consumers. Volkswagen agreed to redeem an estimated 475,000 diesel automobiles in the US. [13]
Breyer was married to the late Sydney Goldstein, [14] who founded City Arts &Lectures in San Francisco in 1980 and for whom the Nourse Theater was renamed in her honor after her death in 2018. [15]
Stephen Gerald Breyer is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton,and replaced retiring justice Harry Blackmun. Breyer was generally associated with the liberal wing of the Court. He is now the Byrne Professor of Administrative Law and Process at Harvard Law School.
Edward "Ed" Rosenthal is an American horticulturist,author,publisher,and Cannabis grower known for his advocacy for the legalization of marijuana use. He served as a columnist for High Times Magazine during the 1980s and 1990s. He was arrested in 2002 for cultivation of cannabis by federal authorities,who do not recognize the authority of states to regulate the use of medical marijuana. He was convicted in federal court,but the conviction was overturned on appeal. Rosenthal was subsequently convicted again,but was not re-sentenced,since his original sentence had been completed.
Proposition 215,or the Compassionate Use Act of 1996,is a California law permitting the use of medical cannabis despite marijuana's lack of the normal Food and Drug Administration testing for safety and efficacy. It was enacted,on November 5,1996,by means of the initiative process,and passed with 5,382,915 (55.6%) votes in favor and 4,301,960 (44.4%) against.
Eugene Volokh is an American legal scholar known for his scholarship in American constitutional law and libertarianism as well as his prominent legal blog,The Volokh Conspiracy. Volokh is regarded as an expert on the First Amendment,and the Second Amendment. He is the Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law at the University of California,Los Angeles,and is an affiliate at the law firm Schaerr Jaffe.
Donald Jay Beardslee was an American serial killer who murdered three women. While on parole for killing a woman in Missouri in 1969,Beardslee murdered two more women in California. He was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in San Quentin State Prison in 2005.
Martin Joseph Jenkins is an American attorney and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California. He was previously a justice of the California Court of Appeal for the First District,located in San Francisco,and a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Gregory Reyes is an American businessman who most recently served as the chief executive officer (CEO) for Brocade Communications. He is the first person to have been convicted for fraudulent backdating of corporate stock options.
Raymond Kwok-Cheung Chow,nicknamed "Shrimp Boy",is a Hong Kong-born felon with ties to a San Francisco Chinatown street gang and an organized crime syndicate,including the American branch of the Hong Kong-based triad Wo Hop To and the Hop Sing Boys.
The Superior Court of California of the County of San Francisco is the state superior court with jurisdiction over the City and County of San Francisco.
Vaughn Richard Walker,Judge Vaughn R Walker,is an American lawyer who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California from 1989 to 2011. Walker presided over the original trial in Hollingsworth v. Perry,where he found California's Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional.
Jeremy Don Fogel is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Fogel was appointed by President Bill Clinton. He was a judge for the municipal court and superior court of Santa Clara County,California from 1981 to 1998. He served as Director of the Federal Judicial Center from 2011 to 2018.
Nordyke v. King was a case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in which a ban of firearms on all public property and whether the Second Amendment should be applied to the state and local governments is to be decided. After several hearings at different levels of the federal court system,Alameda County,California promised that gun shows could be held on county property,essentially repudiating its ordinance.
Hollingsworth v. Perry was a series of United States federal court cases that re-legalized same-sex marriage in the state of California. The case began in 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California,which found that banning same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the law. This decision overturned California ballot initiative Proposition 8,which had banned same-sex marriage. After the State of California refused to defend Proposition 8,the official sponsors of Proposition 8 intervened and appealed to the Supreme Court. The case was litigated during the governorships of both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown,and was thus known as Perry v. Schwarzenegger and Perry v. Brown,respectively. As Hollingsworth v. Perry,it eventually reached the United States Supreme Court,which held that,in line with prior precedent,the official sponsors of a ballot initiative measure did not have Article III standing to appeal an adverse federal court ruling when the state refused to do so.
Edward Milton Chen is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and former United States magistrate judge of the same court.
Lucy Haeran Koh is an American lawyer serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Koh previously served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California from 2010 to 2021. She also served as a California state court judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court from 2008 to 2010. She is the first Korean American woman to serve on a federal appellate court in the United States.
Luke Dominic Brugnara is an American commercial real estate investor and developer. Brugnara became known for purchasing real estate in downtown San Francisco during the 1990s. In 2015,he was convicted of defrauding an art dealer and sentenced to seven years in prison.
William Horsley Orrick III is an American lawyer who serves as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He had a long career as a lawyer in private practice in San Francisco,and served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice during the Obama administration.
Vince Girdhari Chhabria is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and formerly a deputy city attorney at the San Francisco City Attorney's Office.
Knox v. Service Employees International Union,567 U.S. 298 (2012),is a United States constitutional law case. The United States Supreme Court held in a 7–2 decision that Dianne Knox and other non-members of the Service Employees International Union did not receive the required notice of a $12 million assessment the union charged them to raise money for the union's political fund. In a tighter 5–4 ruling,the court further held that the long-standing precedent,the First Amendment requirement that non-union members covered by union contracts be given the chance to "opt out" of special fees was insufficient. Setting new precedent,the majority ruled that non-members shall be sent notice giving them the option to opt into special fees.
Daniel Paul Collins is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.