John Daniel Breen (born July 10, 1950) is a

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...

of the

United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee The United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee (in case citations, W.D. Tenn.) is the federal district court covering the western part of the state of Tennessee. Appeals from the Western District of Tennessee are taken to ...

Education and career

Breen was born in

Jackson, Tennessee Jackson is a city in and the county seat of Madison County, Tennessee, United States. Located east of Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis, it is a regional center of trade for West Tennessee. Its total population was 68,205 as of the 2020 United States ...

. He received 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 years ...

degree from

Spring Hill College Spring Hill College is a private, Jesuit college in Mobile, Alabama. It was founded in 1830 by Michael Portier, Bishop of Mobile. Along with being the oldest college or university in the state of Alabama, it was the first Catholic college in the ...

in 1972 and 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 ...

from the

University of Tennessee College of Law The University of Tennessee College of Law is the law school of the University of Tennessee located in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1890, the College of Law is fully accredited by the American Bar Association and is a charter member of the Ass ...

in 1975. He was in private practice in Jackson from 1975 to 1991.

Federal judicial service

He served as

United States magistrate judge In United States federal courts, magistrate judges are judges appointed to assist U.S. district court judges in the performance of their duties. Magistrate judges generally oversee first appearances of criminal defendants, set bail, and conduct ...

of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee from 1991 to 2003 before being nominated as a federal judge. On January 7, 2003, Breen was nominated by President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

to a seat on the

vacated by

Julia Smith Gibbons Julia Smith Gibbons (born December 23, 1950 in Pulaski, Tennessee) is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Education and Career Gibbons was born and grew up in Pulaski, Tennessee. She atte ...

. 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 March 13, 2003 and received his commission on March 14, 2003. He served chief judge from August 8, 2013 to March 18, 2017. 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 March 18, 2017.

Notable case

Breen presided over the case of Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman, the perpetrators in the

Barack Obama assassination plot in Tennessee The Barack Obama assassination plot in Tennessee was a plot by Paul Schlesselman and Daniel Cowart to assassinate Barack Obama, who was then the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nominee. The two men, both Neo-Nazi white power skinheads, spoke ...

. In 2010, Breen convicted the two of

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...

to murder Obama and other African-American people and sentenced Cowart and Schlesselman to 14 and 10 years in federal prison respectively; both suspects pleaded guilty to conspiracy to their charges.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Breen, J. Daniel 1950 births Living people 20th-century American judges 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American judges Judges of the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee People from Jackson, Tennessee Spring Hill College alumni Tennessee lawyers United States district court judges appointed by George W. Bush United States magistrate judges University of Tennessee College of Law alumni