John Thomas Noonan Jr. (October 24, 1926 – April 17, 2017) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Personal and education
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Noonan attended the John D. Runkle School and the Rivers School. Noonan entered Harvard University in 1944 and graduated summa cum laude two years later with a Bachelor of Arts in English. While at Harvard he wrote for the Harvard Crimson and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After a year at St. John's College, Cambridge, Noonan matriculated at Catholic University of America, from which he received a Master of Arts in 1949 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1951, both in philosophy. In 1954, he received a Bachelor of Laws from Harvard Law School, where he served on the Harvard Law Review. Noonan was married to art historian Mary Lee Noonan (née Bennett) from 1967 until his death. They had three children.
Professional
From 1954 to 1955, Noonan worked as Special Staff to the United States National Security Council, assisting Robert Cutler, then the National Security Advisor. In 1955, Noonan entered private practice, working for the Boston law firm of Herrick & Smith. From 1958 to 1962, he served as Chairman of the Brookline, Massachusetts Redevelopment Authority, after defeating Michael Dukakis in an election.
In 1961, Noonan was invited to join the faculty at the Notre Dame Law School by the Reverend Theodore Hesburgh. Noonan was tenured there three years later. Noonan was appointed, largely on account of his book Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (1965), as a historical consultant to the papal commission established by Pope Paul VI, whose recommendation to relax the ban on birth control was then overruled. In 1966, Noonan moved to Boalt Hall, the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, where he became Robbins Professor of Law Emeritus.
While at Berkeley, Noonan represented John Negre, a Catholic conscientious objector who insisted that the Church's just war theory forbade participation in the Vietnam War. Although Justice William O. Douglas initially ordered the Army not to ship out Negre, that stay was removed by the full U.S. Supreme Court on April 21, 1969. Noonan continued to file briefs, but, after hearing argument, the Supreme Court ruled against Negre in Gillette v. United States (1971).
Noonan was the 1984 recipient of the Laetare Medal, awarded annually since 1883 by Notre Dame University in recognition of outstanding service to the Roman Catholic Church through a distinctively Catholic contribution in the recipient's profession. Noonan has served as a consultant for several agencies in the Catholic Church, including Pope Paul VI's Commission on Problems of the Family, and the U.S. Catholic Conference's committees on moral values, law and public policy, law and life issues. He also has been director of the National Right to Life Committee.
Federal judicial service
On October 16, 1985, President Ronald Reagan nominated Noonan to the newly created 27th seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, created by 98 Stat. 333. Noonan was confirmed by United States Senate on December 16, 1985, and received his commission the following day. He took senior status on December 27, 1996 and served the Court until his death in 2017.
Law clerks
Noonan's former law clerks include United States District Judge Brian M. Morris, former White House Chief Ethics Counsel and University of Minnesota Professor Richard Painter, California Superior Court Judge Allison M. Danner, University of Washington Professor Mary Fan, Boston College Law School Professor M. Cathleen Kaveny, NPR host Ailsa Chang, poet and lawyer Monica Youn, and Dean of Washington University School of Law Nancy Staudt.
Noteworthy rulings
Lazo-Majano v. INS, 813 F.2d 1432 (9th Cir. 1987). Noonan, joined by Judge Harry Pregerson, held that Olympia Lazo-Majano's abuser, a Salvadoran army sergeant who had repeatedly beaten, raped, and threatened her, had imputed to Lazo-Majano the political opinion that she was a subversive. Lazo-Majano had, therefore, suffered persecution on account of her political opinion, which entitled her to asylum. Noonan wrote: