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B. Lynn Winmill

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Lynn Winmill
Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Idaho
Incumbent
Assumed office
August 16, 2021
Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Idaho
In office
July 1999 – January 1, 2019
Preceded byEdward Lodge
Succeeded byDavid Nye
Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Idaho
In office
August 14, 1995 – August 16, 2021
Appointed byBill Clinton
Preceded byHarold Lyman Ryan
Succeeded byAmanda Brailsford
Personal details
Born
Barry Lynn Winmill

(1952-03-18) March 18, 1952 (age 72)
Blackfoot, Idaho, U.S.
EducationIdaho State University (BA)
Harvard University (JD)

Barry Lynn Winmill (born March 18, 1952) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Idaho.

Early life and education

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Born and raised in Blackfoot, Idaho, Winmill grew up on a dairy farm.[1] He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Idaho State University (ISU) in Pocatello in 1974,[2] where he was student body president.[1] Winmill earned his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1977.[2]

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Following law school, Winmill was in private practice for two years in Denver, Colorado, and back in Pocatello from 1979 to 1987.[2]

Judicial career

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State judicial service

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Appointed by Governor Cecil Andrus in 1987,[1] Winmill was a state judge in the Idaho District Court (Sixth District) in Pocatello from 1987 to 1995.[2] From 1992 to 1995, he served as the administrative district judge and chair of the state's Evidence Rules Committee.[1]

Winmill was concurrently an adjunct professor at ISU (1991–1995), and a finalist on three occasions for the Idaho Supreme Court, but was never nominated.[3]

Federal judicial service

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On May 24, 1995, Winmill was nominated by President Bill Clinton to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, vacated by Judge Harold Lyman Ryan, who assumed senior status in early 1993.[3][4][a] The American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which rates judicial nominees, unanimously rated Winmill as "well qualified" for the post (the committee's highest rating).[6]

Confirmed by the Senate by voice vote on August 11, 1995,[7] Winmill received his commission three days later.[2] He served as chief judge for over 19 years, from 1999 to January 1, 2019,[8] and assumed senior status on August 16, 2021.[2]

Noteworthy cases

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Winmill granted the habeas corpus petition of Charles Fain, a wrongfully convicted man who spent 18 years on Idaho's death row. Winmill ordered DNA testing that was previously unavailable; the new testing exonerated Fain, who was released from prison.[1] Winmill and Fain later made joint speaking appearances.[1]

In 1999, Winmill presided over the trial of Allan Elias, a southeastern Idaho businessman, on charges of arising from 1996 incident in which Elias ordered an employee, who lacked safety training or proper protective equipment, to clean the inside of a large tank that stored a toxic mixture of phosphoric acid and cyanide.[9] The employee suffered severe brain damage, and Elias was convicted of "knowingly endangering the safety and health of his employees, illegally disposing of hazardous cyanide waste and making a false statement to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration."[9] In 2000, Winmill sentenced Elias to 17 years in prison, the longest-ever sentence in the United States for an environmental crime.[9][10]

In Western Watersheds Project v. Fish and Wildlife Service (2007),[11] Winmill ordered the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to reconsider its decision not to list the sage-grouse as an endangered or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. In an opinion highly critical of FWS officials, Winmill singled out deputy assistant secretary Julie A. MacDonald for criticism, and held that the agency had impermissibly disregarded scientific evidence in making its decision to deny protection to the sage-grouse.[12][13]

In Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Otter (2015), Winmill struck down the "ag gag" law passed by the Idaho Legislature in 2012, ruling that the statute—which, among other things, banned the audio or visual recording of agricultural operations—violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In January 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld most of the ruling.[14][15][16]

In Edmo v. Idaho Department of Correction (2018), Winmill ruled in favor of a transgender inmate diagnosed with gender dysphoria, who challenged the state's refusal to provide gender confirmation surgery. Winmill ruled that the state's disregard of the "generally accepted medical standards for the treatment of gender dysphoria" constituted deliberate indifference to the inmate's medical needs, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[17][18]

Personal life

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Winmill is married; he and his wife Judy have four children and fourteen grandchildren.[1]

He has served as a member of the board of the Idaho Humanities Council; as a member of the Board of Visitors of Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School; and as a co-founder of the Idaho Legal History Society, which sponsored the performance of an original play marking the hundredth anniversary of the high-profile trial of Big Bill Haywood.[1]

Notes

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  1. ^ Clinton's original nominee for the vacancy was lawyer John Tait of Lewiston. That nomination was one of many that year blocked for political reasons.[5] The state's Republican U.S. Senators, Larry Craig and Dirk Kempthorne, opposed Tait's nomination.[3]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Betty H. Richardson, Judicial Profile: Hon. B. Lynn Winmill Chief U.S. District Judge, District of Idaho, The Federal Lawyer, Federal Bar Association.
  2. ^ a b c d e f B. Lynn Winmill, Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, Federal Judicial Center.
  3. ^ a b c "Pocatello judge confirmed as new federal justice". Lewiston Morning Tribune. (Idaho). Associated Press. August 12, 1995. p. 7A.
  4. ^ "Idaho judge nominated for federal bench". Deseret News. (Salt Lake City, Utah). Associated Press. April 10, 1995. p. A10.
  5. ^ Obituary: John Reid Tait, Lewiston Morning Tribune (February 12, 2012).
  6. ^ Ratings of Article III Judicial Nominees, 104th Congress (1995-1996), American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary.
  7. ^ PN412 — B. Lynn Winmill — The Judiciary, 104th Congress (1995-1996), Congress.gov.
  8. ^ Demi Harris, Chief Judges to step down after a combined 33 years of service (December 21, 2018),
  9. ^ a b c Associated Press, Businessman Sentenced to Prison For Exposing Worker to Cyanide, Associated Press (April 30, 2000).
  10. ^ Virginia Sutcliffe, Idaho Man Given Longest-Ever Sentence for Environmental Crime, EHS Today (May 3, 2000).
  11. ^ Western Watersheds Project v. Fish & Wildlife Service, 535 F. Supp. 2d 1173 (D. Idaho 2007).
  12. ^ Rebecca Boone, Judge orders sage grouse protections reconsidered, Associated Press (December 5, 2007).
  13. ^ Bird in the Brush, New York Times (December 15, 2007).
  14. ^ Mateusz Perkowski, 9th Circuit strikes down most of Idaho's 'ag gag' law, Capital Press (January 4, 2018).
  15. ^ Dan Flynn, Split decision on Idaho's Ag-Gag Law Might Extend Beyond Agriculture, Food Safety News (January 5, 2018).
  16. ^ Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Otter, 118 F. Supp. 3d 1195 (D. Idaho 2015), affirmed in part and reversed in part sub nom. Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Wasden, 878 F.3d 1184 (9th Cir. 2018).
  17. ^ Tommy Simmons (December 14, 2018). "State Ordered to Pay for Surgery for Transgender Prison Inmate". Idaho State Journal.
  18. ^ "Case Summary & History: Adree Edmo v. Idaho Department of Correction et al". National Center for Lesbian Rights.
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Legal offices
Preceded by Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Idaho
1995–2021 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Idaho
1999–2019 		Succeeded by
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