Marianne Olga Battani (May 18, 1944 – September 9, 2021) was an American

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 ...

who served as

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

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 th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, Battani 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 the

University of Detroit The University of Detroit Mercy is a private Roman Catholic university in Detroit, Michigan. It is sponsored by both the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and the Sisters of Mercy. The university was founded in 1877 and is the largest Catholic universi ...

in 1966 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

Detroit College of Law The Michigan State University College of Law (Michigan State Law or MSU Law) is the law school of Michigan State University, a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan. Established in 1891 as the Detroit College of Law, it was the fi ...

in 1972. She was in private practice from 1972 to 1981. She was a judge on the Common Pleas Court of the City of Detroit in 1981, and a judge on that city's 36th District Court from 1981 to 1982. She was then a judge on the Wayne County Circuit Court until 2000.

Federal judicial service

On August 5, 1999, Battani was nominated by President

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 ...

to a seat on the

vacated by

Anna Diggs Taylor Anna Katherine Diggs Taylor ( Johnston; December 9, 1932 – November 4, 2017) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Education and career Born in Washington, D.C. as Anna Kat ...

. Battani 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 May 24, 2000, and received her commission on June 2, 2000. She assumed senior status on June 9, 2012. In June 2020, she recused herself from numerous cases she was hearing due to

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

and took a leave of absence from the court. She took inactive senior status on December 31, 2020, meaning that while she remained a federal judge, she no longer heard cases or participated in the business of the court. Her service terminated on September 9, 2021, due to her death from cancer at her home in

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Bev ...

, Michigan.

Notable cases

Battani sentenced

Alan Ralsky Alan Ralsky ( 1945–2021) was a convicted American fraudster, best known for his activities as a spammer. Spamming Ralsky was one of the most prolific sources of junk e-mail worldwide. Unlike most spammers, he has provided interviews to various n ...

to more than four years in prison in November 2009 for crimes relating to his stock

pump and dump Pump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements, in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the operat ...

spam Spam may refer to: * Spam (food), a canned pork meat product * Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages ** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages ** Messaging spam, spam targeting users of instant messaging ( ...

activities. Battani sentenced Rene Boucher, a former

anesthesiologist Anesthesiology, anaesthesiology, or anaesthesia is the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. It encompasses anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicine, ...

, to 30 days' jail time, a fine, and one year probation, for physically attacking his neighbor, sitting United States Senator

Rand Paul Randal Howard Paul (born January 7, 1963) is an American physician and politician serving as the junior U.S. senator from Kentucky since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he is a son of former three-time presidential candidate and 12 ...

(R-

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

). The attack left Senator Paul with multiple fractured ribs and he contracted pneumonia. Prosecutors had sought a 21-month sentence. Battani ruled the attack had nothing to do with politics and was an "isolated incident". That sentence was vacated on appeal to the Sixth Circuit for being "substantively unreasonable" and Boucher was remanded for re-sentencing on September 9, 2019. He was re-sentenced to an additional eight months of prison time and six months' home confinement.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Battani, Marianne 1944 births 2021 deaths Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Michigan State University College of Law alumni Lawyers from Detroit Michigan state court judges United States district court judges appointed by Bill Clinton American people of Italian descent 20th-century American judges 21st-century American judges 20th-century American women judges 21st-century American women judges Deaths from cancer in Michigan