Leonie Helen Milhomme Brinkema (born June 26, 1944) is a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

of the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (in case citations, E.D. Va.) is one of two United States district courts serving the Commonwealth of Virginia. It has jurisdiction over the Northern Virginia, Hampton ...

Early life and education

She was born as Leonie Milhomme in

Teaneck Teaneck () is a township in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a bedroom community in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 39,776, reflecting an increase of 516 (+1.3%) f ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. She received her

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 from

Douglass College Douglass Residential College, is an undergraduate, non degree granting higher education program of Rutgers University-New Brunswick for women. It succeeded the liberal arts degree-granting Douglass College after it was merged with the other und ...

in 1966 and undertook

graduate studies Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor's) degree. The organization and stru ...

in philosophy at

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

(1966) and

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

(1967–1969). She earned her

Master of Library and Information Science The Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS), also referred to as the Master of Library and Information Studies, is the master's degree that is required for most professional librarian positions in the United States. The MLIS is a relativ ...

degree at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

in 1970 and her Juris Doctor at Cornell Law School in 1976.

Legal career

She worked in the

United States Department of Justice Criminal Division United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...

Public Integrity Section The Public Integrity Section (PIN) is a section of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice charged with combating political corruption at all levels of government through the prosecution of corrupt federal, state, and local electe ...

1976–1977, and then the

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 ...

's office in the Eastern District of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

, Criminal Division 1977–1983. During 1983–1984, she returned to the Criminal Division and worked as a solo practitioner from 1984–1985.

Federal judicial career

Brinkema was a

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 conduc ...

in the Eastern District of Virginia from 1985 to 1993. On August 6, 1993,

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

nominated Brinkema to a seat on the

vacated by Albert Vickers Bryan Jr. 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 18, 1993, and received her commission on October 20, 1993. She took up her post on October 23, 1993. Brinkema presided over '' RTC v. Lerma et al.'' (1995), a case that involved the reproduction of materials owned by the Church of Scientology. Brinkema found for the defendants in most of the claims, and awarded minimum damages of $2,500 for

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...

, citing the "increasingly vitriolic rhetoric" of Religious Technology Center (RTC)'s legal filings. On October 28, 2003, she sentenced al-Qaeda operative

Iyman Faris Iyman Faris (a.k.a. Mohammad Rauf;"Ohio trucker joined al Qaeda jihad"
CNN ...

to twenty years imprisonment for providing

material support In United States law, providing material support for terrorism is a crime prohibited by the USA PATRIOT Act and codified in title 18 of the United States Code, section2339Aan2339B It applies primarily to groups designated as terrorists by the St ...

to the group. In 2006, Brinkema presided over the case of 9/11 conspirator

Zacarias Moussaoui Zacarias Moussaoui (Arabic: زكريا موسوي, '; born May 30, 1968) is a French member of al-Qaeda who pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the September 11 attacks. He is se ...

. When she asked about the

videotapes Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette ...

showing the interrogation of

Abu Zubaydah Abu Zubaydah ( ; , ''Abū Zubaydah''; born March 12, 1971, as Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn) is a Saudi Arabian currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use o ...

, the government denied their existence. As she sentenced Moussaoui to life in a supermax prison, she told him: "You came here to be a martyr and to die in a great big bang of glory, but to paraphrase the poet T. S. Eliot, instead, you will die with a whimper. The rest of your life you will spend in prison." Mr. Moussaoui began to respond, but Judge Brinkema continued. "You will never again get a chance to speak," she said, "and that is an appropriate and fair ending." On April 2, 2009, Brinkema weighed in on the question of whether terrorist detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could be prosecuted in the civilian justice system. In 2011, she presided over the fraud trial of Lee Farkas, CEO of

Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Taylor, Bean & Whitaker was a top-10 wholesale mortgage lending firm in the United States, the fifth-largest issuer of Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA or Ginnie Mae) securities. Their slogan was "Perfecting the Art of Mortgage Le ...

. During his sentencing hearing on June 30, 2011, she said that she did not observe any genuine remorse, and sentenced the 58-year-old Farkas to 30 years in federal prison. She ordered Farkas and six others to pay a total of about $US3.5 billion in restitution. On January 28, 2017, she was the second to order a stay of an

executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of t ...

by President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

, which restricted immigration into the United States and prevented the return of green-card holders and others. Although the order issued was a

temporary restraining order An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in par ...

, it blocked the removal of any green-card holders being detained at Dulles International Airport for seven days. Brinkema's action also ordered that lawyers have access to those held there because of the president's ban.

Notes

References

*

Tech Law Journal, last updated 1999.

External links

U.S.D.C. Eastern district of VirginiaTerrorists and Detainees: Do We Need a New National Security Court?
podcast of keynote address by Leonie Brinkema at the

Washington College of Law The American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL or WCL) is the law school of American University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It is located on the western side of Tenley Circle in the Tenleytown section of nort ...