Edward James Lodge (born December 3, 1933)Confirmation hearings on federal appointments : hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred First Congress ... on confirmation hearings on appointments to the federal judiciary .... pt. 3 (1991)
/ref> is an inactive Senior

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 District of Idaho 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 f ...

Boise Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown area' ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyomi ...

Education

Born in Caldwell,

, Lodge graduated from Caldwell High School and briefly attended the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic university, Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend, Indiana, South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin fo ...

South Bend, Indiana South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...

. He was a two-time junior college

All-America The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed upon an amateur sports person from the United States who is considered to be one of the best amateurs in their sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an All-Am ...

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

at Boise Junior College in 1953 and 1954. Lodge earned his

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 the

College of Idaho The College of Idaho (C of I) is a private liberal arts college in Caldwell, Idaho. Founded in 1891, it is the state's oldest private liberal arts college and has an enrollment of over 1,000 students. The college's alumni include eight Rh ...

in Caldwell in 1957, and graduated from the

University of Idaho The University of Idaho (U of I, or UIdaho) is a public land-grant research university in Moscow, Idaho. It is the state's land-grant and primary research university,, and the lead university in the Idaho Space Grant Consortium. The Universit ...

College of Law A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

with a

Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Ch ...

Early career

Following law school, Lodge practiced law in Idaho from 1962 to 1963. He began his long judicial career in 1963 as a

Probate Judge A probate court (sometimes called a surrogate court) is a court that has competence in a jurisdiction to deal with matters of probate and the administration of estates. In some jurisdictions, such courts may be referred to as Orphans' Courts o ...

in Canyon County, and in 1965 became the youngest ever appointed to a district court in Idaho, at age 31. Lodge served for nearly a quarter century as a district judge for the state's Third District in Canyon County, and presided at the double-murder trial of mountainman

Claude Dallas Claude Lafayette Dallas Jr. (born March 11, 1950) was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of two game wardens in Idaho. On May 16, 1986, he became the 400th fugitive listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted List. Biography Born in Winches ...

in 1982, a case which received national He was later appointed as a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the District of Idaho from 1988 to 1989.

Federal judicial service

When Judge Marion Jones Callister of the U.S. District Court in Boise took senior status in 1989, Lodge was recommended by Senator James A. McClure to fill the seat. President George H. W. Bush nominated Lodge on he was confirmed by an unanimous consent by the Senate on November 21, 1989 and received his commission on He served a term as

chief judge A chief judge (also known as presiding judge, president judge or principal judge) is the highest-ranking or most senior member of a lower court or circuit court with more than one judge. According to the Federal judiciary of the United States, th ...

for the District of Idaho from 1992 to 1999, and was succeeded as chief judge by B. Lynn Winmill. Lodge assumed

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

Notable cases

Ruby Ridge

In the spring of 1993, Lodge was the presiding judge in the trial of

Randy Weaver Randall Claude Weaver (January 3, 1948 – May 11, 2022) was an American survivalist, former Iowa factory worker, and self-proclaimed white separatist. He was a central actor in the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff at his cabin near Naples, Idaho, t ...

and Kevin Harris, defendants in the previous August's

Ruby Ridge Ruby Ridge was the site of an eleven-day siege in 1992 in Boundary County, Idaho, near Naples. It began on August 21, when deputies of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) initiated action to apprehend and arrest Randy Weaver under a bench ...

standoff in northern Idaho. Five years later in 1998, Lodge was also the presiding judge in the case of ''

v. Lon T. Horiuchi,'' which involved the indictment of the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

sniper who shot three people at Ruby Ridge, killing one. Lodge cited the

Supremacy Clause The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of the United States ( Article VI, Clause 2) establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the "supreme Law of the Land", and thu ...

of the

U.S. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the nation ...

and dismissed the charges against Horiuchi, which angered many who felt the leniency was unmerited. It was narrowly overturned on appeal (6–5) by the

Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District ...

in 2001, but the Boundary County prosecutor opted not to pursue the charges brought by his predecessor in 1997.

Sami Al-Hussayen

In 2004, Lodge presided over the trial of Sami Omar Al-Hussayen—accused of recruiting Islamic fanatics into participating in Jihad against the United States. On May 13, he ruled to disallow a defense witness to refer to a blood drive that Hussayen had run after September 11th to help the victims, nor that he had widely condemned the attacks.

Personal

Lodge was the target of a foiled murder plot in 1998. He is married to

Patti Anne Lodge Patti Anne Lodge (born July 29, 1942) is a Republican Idaho State Senator representing District 11 since 2012. She previously represented District 13 of the Idaho Senate from 2002 to 2012 and District 11 from 2000-2002. Early life and career ...

, a state senator from Huston in Canyon County.

References

External links

* , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Lodge, Edward J. 1933 births Living people Judges of the United States District Court for the District of Idaho United States district court judges appointed by George H. W. Bush Idaho state court judges 20th-century American judges Boise State Broncos football players College of Idaho alumni University of Idaho alumni People from Caldwell, Idaho Judges of the United States bankruptcy courts University of Idaho College of Law alumni 21st-century American judges