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U.S. district judge for the District of Maine

Judge Edward T. Gignoux Garbrecht Law Library, University of Maine School of Law.

Chief Justice Warren Burger assigned Edward Gignoux to be the judge for the retrial of the contempt charges against the defendants and their attorneys. In its reversal of the contempt convictions issued by Judge Hoffman, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit cited a recent Supreme Court opinion as authority for requiring a different judge to preside over any retrial of the contempt charges that the government attorneys might choose to pursue. By law, the Chief Justice of the United States may assign a district judge to preside in a district in another judicial circuit if the chief judge of the other circuit specifies a need. (No judge in the Seventh Circuit, which encompasses Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, wanted to preside in the retrial.)

In his personal demeanor and his style of case management, the highly respected Gignoux proved to be the very opposite of Judge Hoffman. Years later, even William Kunstler offered a backhanded compliment. Gignoux, he said, “was a dangerous man. He makes the system look good.” Gignoux presided at a trial with no jury because the government attorneys dropped enough contempt charges so that none of the defendants was subject to more than six months’ imprisonment if convicted on all counts. Acting Attorney General Robert Bork recommended not retrying the contempts, but the U.S. attorney in Chicago, James Thompson, thought it was important to pursue some of the charges. Gignoux found three of the defendants and attorney William Kunstler guilty of a total of thirteen contempt charges, but Gignoux refused to impose further jail time on any of them. Gignoux’s written decision concluded with an eloquent statement on the need for proper courtroom decorum and civility to ensure that citizens can defend their civil liberties.

Gignoux was born in Portland, Maine, and graduated from Harvard College and the Harvard Law School. He was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine by President Eisenhower in 1957. Gignoux again served by assignment to another district in 1983 when he presided at the bribery trial of Alcee Hastings, a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida.