2004 Alumni Excellence Award: Judge John Thomas Noonan, Jr. ’44

As a graduating senior, Noonan was singled out in the June 1944 issue of the Rivers Current as “deliberate and consistent, a top ranking scholar, and eminently responsible,” qualities which have marked him as a circuit judge for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, as the author of major legal works, and as a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame and the University of California, Berkeley.

 

President Ronald Reagan appointed Noonan to the appellate court in 1985 where his opinions as circuit court judge have set precedent in a wide variety of areas. He established the right of a performer to sue for commercial imitation of her voice in Midler v. Ford Motor Company, and upheld political asylum for a persecuted woman from El Salvador in Lazo-Majano v. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Drawing upon his wide experience on the bench, Judge Noonan has authored six major legal works to guide both his peers and future practitioners of the law. His interest in both the philosophy and integrity of the profession has marked these works. They include Bribes, a history of the ideal of integrity in government, The Believer and the Powers That Are, a study of the interaction of government and religion, and The Responsible Judge, a seminal work in judicial ethics.

In addition to his tenure as the Erasmus Lecturer at Notre Dame, Noonan was the Robbins Professor of Law at the University of California, the Oliver Wendell Holmes Lecturer at Harvard Law School, and held the John Kluge Chair in American Law and Government at the Library of Congress. Through this vital interaction with promising aspirants to the law, he has made his mark on future generations.

Judge Noonan lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Mary Lee.