Matthew F. Kennelly (born October 6, 1956) 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 of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Education and career

Kennelly was born in 1956 in

Marion, Indiana Marion is a city in Grant County, Indiana, United States. The population was 29,948 as of the 2010 United States Census. The city is the county seat of Grant County. It is named for Francis Marion, a brigadier general from South Carolina in the ...

. He graduated from University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1978 and

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

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 ...

in 1981, where he was Executive Director of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. He served in private practice in Chicago, Illinois from 1981 to 1982. He served as a

law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...

for Judge

Prentice Marshall Prentice Henry Marshall (August 7, 1926 – May 24, 2004) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Early life and education Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Marshall graduated f ...

of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois from 1982 to 1984. He reentered private practice in 1984 and served in that capacity until his appointment to the federal bench in 1999.

Federal judicial service

On January 26, 1999, Bill Clinton nominated Kennelly to be a judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to a seat vacated by

Paul Edward Plunkett Paul Edward Plunkett (July 9, 1935 – March 19, 2018) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Education and career Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Plunkett received a Bachelo ...

. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on April 15, 1999, and received his commission on April 22, 1999. He assumed senior status on October 7, 2021.

Notable rulings

He gained widespread attention when he presided over the case of ACLU v. AT&T in 2006, "a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois on behalf of author

Studs Terkel Louis "Studs" Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008) was an American writer, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for '' The Good War'' and is best remembered for his oral his ...

and other activists who said their constitutional rights were violated because of an NSA program of gathering phone company records." See

NSA Wiretapping The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

. :The court is persuaded that requiring AT&T to confirm or deny whether it has disclosed large quantities of telephone records to the federal government could give adversaries of this country valuable insight into the government's intelligence activities. Kennelly ruled that Terkel and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit did not show that their particular records were seen by the government; therefore, they had no standing in suing the government.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kennelly, Matthew F. 1956 births Living people University of Notre Dame alumni Harvard Law School alumni Judges of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois United States district court judges appointed by Bill Clinton People from Marion, Indiana 20th-century American judges 21st-century American judges