Cornelia Groefsema Kennedy (née Groefsema; August 4, 1923 – May 12, 2014) was a

United States circuit judge In the United States, federal judges are judges who serve on courts established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. They include the chief justice and the associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit judges of the U.S. ...

of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (in case citations, 6th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * Eastern District of Kentucky * Western District of ...

Education and career

Born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, Kennedy graduated from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

degree in 1945 and at the top of her class from the

University of Michigan Law School The University of Michigan Law School (Michigan Law) is the law school of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1859, the school offers Master of Laws (LLM), Master of Comparative Law (MCL ...

with a Juris Doctor in 1947. After law school, she clerked for Chief Judge Harold Montelle Stephens of the

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate co ...

, where she was one of the first women to clerk on that court.Cornelia G. Kennedy, a Pioneering Federal Judge, Dies at 90
/ref> In 1965 Kennedy ran for Wayne County Circuit Court judge and lost by fewer than 100 votes. Kennedy and her sister, Judge Margaret G. Schaeffer, were the first sister judges in the United States. Schaeffer sat on the 47th District Court in Farmington Hills, Michigan from 1974 to 1992. She was in private practice of law in Detroit from 1948 to 1966. She was a judge of the Michigan Circuit Court for the Third Judicial Circuit from 1966 to 1970.

Federal judicial service

Kennedy was nominated by President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

on September 3, 1970, to a seat on the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (in case citations, E.D. Mich.) is the federal district court with jurisdiction over of the eastern half of the Lower Peninsula of the State of Michigan. The Court is based ...

vacated by Judge Thaddeus M. Machrowicz. She was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

on October 6, 1970, and received her commission on October 7, 1970. She served as Chief Judge from 1977 to 1979, becoming the first female chief judge of a federal district court. Her service was terminated on October 3, 1979, due to elevation to the Sixth Circuit. Kennedy was nominated by President

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...

on April 9, 1979, to the

, to a new seat created by 92 Stat. 1629. She was confirmed by the Senate on September 25, 1979, and received her commission on September 26, 1979.Judge Cornelia G. Kennedy: First Lady of the Michigan Judiciary
, michbar.org; accessed May 14, 2014. She assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...

on March 1, 1999, serving in that status until her death.

Supreme Court consideration

In 1981 President Ronald Reagan had narrowed his search for Justice

Potter Stewart Potter Stewart (January 23, 1915 – December 7, 1985) was an American lawyer and judge who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1958 to 1981. During his tenure, he made major contributions to, among other areas, ...

's replacement to Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor as the first woman on the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, before eventually choosing O'Connor for the vacant seat. In 1975 Kennedy was also on the shortlist for the seat vacated by the departure of

William O. Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898January 19, 1980) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was known for his strong progressive and civil libertarian views, and is often ci ...

, which eventually went to John Paul Stevens.

''Connection Distributing v. Keisler''

Kennedy authored the majority opinion in ''Connection Distributing Co. v. Keisler'', 505 F.3d 545 (6th Cir. 2007), which declared Section 2257 of the

Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act The Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988, title VII, subtitle N of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, , , is part of a United States Act of Congress which places stringent record-keeping requirements on the producers of actual, sexu ...

unconstitutional. The

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (in case citations, 6th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * Eastern District of Kentucky * Western District of ...

en banc In law, an en banc session (; French for "in bench"; also known as ''in banc'', ''in banco'' or ''in bank'') is a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of a court (before the entire bench) rather than by one judge or a smaller p ...

vacated the decision and upheld Section 2257 in ''

Connection Distributing Co. v. Holder ''Connection Distributing Co. v. Holder'', 557 F.3d 321 (6th Cir. 2009) is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the record-keeping provisions of the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act did ...

'' with Kennedy authoring the primary dissent.

Personal life

Groefsema married Charles Stuart Kennedy, Jr. They had one son, Charles Stuart Kennedy III (born November 8, 1962). Kennedy died at age 90 on May 12, 2014.Obituary for the Hon. Cornelia Kennedy
, obitsforlife.com; accessed May 14, 2014.

References

External links

* , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Kennedy, Cornelia Groefsema 1923 births 2014 deaths 20th-century American judges American people of Dutch descent Michigan state court judges Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Lawyers from Detroit United States court of appeals judges appointed by Jimmy Carter United States district court judges appointed by Richard Nixon University of Michigan Law School alumni 20th-century American women judges