Harlington Wood Jr. (April 17, 1920 – December 29, 2008) was an American lawyer,

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

, political figure and an amateur actor. He served as 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. Cou ...

of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1976 until his death in 2008, after earlier serving as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. He was considered one of the country's leading legal historians on the life and legacy of former lawyer and United States President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

, but is perhaps best known for his involvement as an Assistant Attorney General for the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

in two separate Native American armed protests: the first being the

occupation Occupation commonly refers to: *Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment *Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces *Military occupation, th ...

at Alcatraz Island, in

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, from 1969 through the summer of 1971, and the second being the

Wounded Knee incident The Wounded Knee Occupation, also known as Second Wounded Knee, began on February 27, 1973, when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota (sometimes referred to as Oglala Sioux) and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and occupied ...

in 1973 at Wounded Knee,

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

. His accomplishments and impact as both jurist and statesman included participation in many recent events around the world, which he circled three times, including

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Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

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China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and

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Early life and education

Wood was born in

Springfield Springfield may refer to: * Springfield (toponym), the place name in general Places and locations Australia * Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast) * Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council) * Springfield, Queenslan ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

, the son of Harlington Wood Sr., a lawyer who also served as a Sangamon County, Illinois, judge for sixteen years. He earned his

Artium Baccalaureus 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 years ...

degree in 1942 from the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

. He served in the

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during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, attaining the rank of

Major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

, and was present at the signing of the surrender of

Tomoyuki Yamashita was a Japanese officer and convicted war criminal, who was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Yamashita led Japanese forces during the invasion of Malaya and Battle of Singapore, with his accomplishment of conquering ...

and Vice Admiral Denhici Okochi, Commander of the Japanese Navy in the Philippines, where they gave up the entire Imperial Japanese Armed Forces to American authorities at the High Commissioner's Residence in

Camp John Hay Camp John Hay is a mixed-used development which serves as a tourist destination and forest watershed reservation in Baguio, Philippines which was formerly a military base of the United States Armed Forces. History The United States 48th Infa ...

Baguio, Philippines Baguio ( , ), officially the City of Baguio ( ilo, Siudad ti Baguio; fil, Lungsod ng Baguio), is a 1st class Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines. It is k ...

on September 3, 1945, marking the end of

. Upon returning from the Pacific, Wood entered law school at the

University of Illinois College of Law The University of Illinois College of Law (Illinois Law or UIUC Law) is the law school of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a public university in Champaign, Illinois. It was established in 1897 and offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S. ...

at Champaign, graduating in 1948 with a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

. After passing the

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, he went into

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in Springfield, Illinois, with his father, from 1948 to 1958.

Legal career

In 1958, Wood was appointed

United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal c ...

for the southern district of Illinois by President

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

. He returned to private practice in Springfield, from 1961 to 1968. In 1969 he was named Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys in the

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

In 1972 he was appointed Assistant Attorney General for the

Civil Division Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a membe ...

of the Department of Justice 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 ...

. During his time in the Department of Justice he was given many special assignments specifically dealing with issues of peacekeeping in locations around the United States: Wounded Knee; Culebra; Alcatraz;

anti-war demonstration A political demonstration is an action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause or people partaking in a protest against a cause of concern; it often consists of walking in a mass march formati ...

s in

; and national political nominating conventions in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

Wounded Knee

On Feb. 27, 1973, almost two hundred armed

Oglala Sioux The Oglala (pronounced , meaning "to scatter one's own" in Lakota language) are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires). A majority of the Oglala live o ...

from the

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation ( lkt, Wazí Aháŋhaŋ Oyáŋke), also called Pine Ridge Agency, is an Oglala Lakota Indian reservation located entirely within the U.S. state of South Dakota. Originally included within the territory of the Gr ...

with members of an activist group, the American Indian Movement (AIM), took over the reservation town of Wounded Knee, the site of a massacre in 1890 of three hundred Sioux by American soldiers. Their stated intent was to focus attention to what they considered government mistreatment of Indians, corruption within the

Bureau of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to American Indians and A ...

and the tribal government's complicity in discrimination. United States marshals and American troops subsequently surrounded the town, and for ten weeks the two sides traded intermittent gunfire, and two Sioux were killed. On March 13, Wood — then assistant attorney general for the

of the US Justice Department — became the first government official who was allowed to enter Wounded Knee, under armed escort of residents of the reservation. He met with AIM leaders for two hours and, while he shortly thereafter became ill and did not conclude the negotiation, he is credited as the "icebreaker" between the government and AIM. The stand-off ended in an agreement on May 6 to end the occupation without further

bloodshed Bloodshed may refer to: * Bloodshed (comics), a character in the Marvel Universe * ''Bloodshed'' (film), a 2005 film by Jim McMahon * ''Bloodshed'' (album), a 2004 compilation album by Krisiun * "Bloodshed" (song), a 2013 song by Soulfly * Blood ...

Federal judicial service

Wood was nominated by President

on May 11, 1973, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois vacated by Judge Omer Poos. He 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 July 13, 1973, and received his commission on July 18, 1973. His service was terminated on May 28, 1976, due to elevation to the Seventh Circuit. Wood was nominated by President

Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...

on April 14, 1976, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacated by Judge

John Paul Stevens John Paul Stevens (April 20, 1920 – July 16, 2019) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1975 to 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldes ...

. He was confirmed by the Senate on May 6, 1976, and received his commission on May 7, 1976. He assumed

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

on January 15, 1992, serving in that status until his death, though he did not hear cases after 2003. Wood served on United States Judicial Conference Committees dealing with Bankruptcy Legislation, Court Administration, Automation, and Long Range Planning for the Federal Judiciary. He received

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...

and

United States Information Agency The United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to "public diplomacy". In 1999, prior to the reorganization of intelligence agencies by President George W. Bush, President Bill C ...

assignments to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, and

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. Wood served as an adjunct professor at University of Illinois College of Law and as a distinguished

visiting professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

at St. Louis University School of Law.

Legal decisions

In the 1977 appellate case of '' Stump v. Sparkman'', Judge

Luther Swygert Luther Merritt Swygert (February 5, 1905 – March 16, 1988) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and previously was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for ...

, writing for a panel including Judge Wood as well as Judge William G. East and himself, found that judicial immunity is available only when a judge has

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. Jur ...

over the

subject-matter Subject matter, in general, is anything which can be content for some theory. Subject matter may refer to: * Patentable subject matter (or statutory subject matter), defining whether patent protection is available * Subject-matter jurisdiction, d ...

of a case and that it is not available when he acts in "clear absence of all jurisdiction." Although Indiana statute law permitted the sterilization of institutionalized persons under certain circumstances, it provided for the right to notice, the opportunity to defend and the right to appeal. The Court of Appeals found no basis in statutory or common law for a court to order the sterilization of a minor child simply upon a parent's petition. It also held that Judge Stump's action could not be justified as a valid exercise of the power of courts to fashion new common law. In 1978, the United States Supreme Court reversed the Seventh Circuit's decision.

Personal life

"Woody" to his friends, Wood was often referred to as "Lincolnesque" in appearance and demeanor. In 1952, he was chosen to portray Abraham Lincoln in a professional theatrical production of Kermit Hunter's ''Forever This Land'' in nearby New Salem, despite being an untrained

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

. More surprisingly, the production was attended by esteemed politicians of the day, such as Illinois Senator Scott W. Lucas, Vice President

Alben W. Barkley Alben William Barkley (; November 24, 1877 – April 30, 1956) was an American lawyer and politician from Kentucky who served in both houses of Congress and as the 35th vice president of the United States from 1949 to 1953 under Presiden ...

, Wood (in Lincoln theatrical makeup) and Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson. The play was reviewed by esteemed film critic Brooks Atkinson of

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, who wrote favorably of both it and its star.

Death

Wood stopped hearing cases in 2003, and lived in a convalescent facility until his death on December 29, 2008, in

Petersburg Petersburg, or Petersburgh, may refer to: Places Australia *Petersburg, former name of Peterborough, South Australia Canada * Petersburg, Ontario Russia *Saint Petersburg, sometimes referred to as Petersburg United States *Peterborg, U.S. Virg ...

Legacy

Fellow appellate judge William J. Bauer notes that Wood "was simply a very good judge; he didn't lean to one side or the other" He further reflected that "every case he wrote, he wrote very well." U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) recalled: As well, Circuit Judge and legal author

Richard A. Posner Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American jurist and legal scholar who served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chicago ...

notes in the foreword for Wood's posthumously-published book, ''An Unmarked Trail'': Alison Davis Wood (no relation), a producer at WILL-TV (PBS), noted that Wood demonstrated "how great men can live among us in quiet unassuming ways. She remarks that his life was a "true reflection of the American Dream — a Midwestern boy's own desire for adventure takes him around the world and back". Wood traveled extensively, including three trips around the world, five trips to the former

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

and one trip to Russia. During some of those travels, he worked with foreign judges in former

Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...

countries, helping them establish democratic legal systems. He was a former president of the Abraham Lincoln Association and former chairman of the Lincoln Legal Papers research project.
Judge Wood's papers
are held by th

at the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign.

Articles and briefs authored

*''"Composition and Procedure Before International Criminal Court,"'' World Peace Through Law Center, 1970 *''"The Crooked Christmas Tree,"'' 1993 *''"Judiciary Reform,"'' American University Law Review 44(5): June 1995 *''"Last Look,"'' American Heritage (New Series) 50(2): Apr. 1999

talin article Talin may refer to: Places *Talin, Armenia, a city *Tálín, a municipality and village in the Czech Republic *Tallinn, capital of Estonia *Talin, Iran, a village in West Azerbaijan Province *Talin, Syria, a village in Tartus Governorate Other *Ta ...

*''"Leader of the Seventh,"'' Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy 17(1): 2000 Judge Richard Posner tribute *''"Real Judges,"'' New York University Annual Survey of American Law 58(2): 2001 *''"Footnote to History: a Personal Account of Wounded Knee 1973 told for Lauren and Alex,"'' University of Illinois Law Review, 1995 *''"Footnote to History"''

References

Sources

External links

Wood's memorial website

Papers of Abraham Lincoln
documenting and archival of the 16th President's extensive legal career {{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Harlington Jr. 1920 births 2008 deaths Writers from Springfield, Illinois Military personnel from Illinois University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Stanford Law School alumni Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois United States district court judges appointed by Richard Nixon 20th-century American judges Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit United States court of appeals judges appointed by Gerald Ford United States Assistant Attorneys General for the Civil Division United States Attorneys for the Southern District of Illinois American prosecutors American legal writers Deaths from cancer in Virginia University of Illinois College of Law alumni United States Army officers