George A. O'Toole, Jr. (born October 7, 1947) 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 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 Massachusetts The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (in case citations, D. Mass.) is the federal district court whose territorial jurisdiction is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. The first court session was he ...

Education and career

Born in

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 census, making it the second- most populous city in New England after ...

, O'Toole 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 yea ...

from

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifi ...

in 1969 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 l ...

from

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 ...

in 1972. He was in private practice in Boston, Massachusetts from 1972 to 1982. He was an associate justice of the

Boston Municipal Court The Boston Municipal Court (BMC), officially the Boston Municipal Court Department of the Trial Court, is a department of the Trial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. The court hears criminal, civil, mental health, restr ...

from 1982 to 1990, and of the Superior Court of Massachusetts from 1990 to 1995.

Federal judicial service

On April 4, 1995, O'Toole was nominated by President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (Birth name, 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 ...

to a new seat on the

created by 104 Stat. 5089 following the appointment of Rya W. Zobel as director of the

Federal Judicial Center The Federal Judicial Center is the education and research agency of the United States federal courts. It was established by in 1967, at the recommendation of the Judicial Conference of the United States. According to , the main areas of resp ...

. 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 ...

on May 25, 1995, and received his commission on May 26, 1995. He 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 ...

on January 1, 2018.

Notable decision

O'Toole presided over the 2015 trial of

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Dzhokhar "Jahar" Anzorovich Tsarnaev born July 22, 1993)russian: Джоха́р Анзо́рович Царна́ев, link=no ; ce, Царнаев Анзор-кIант ДжовхӀар o; ( Kyrgyz language, Kyrgyz: Жохар Анзор уу� ...

, one of the perpetrators of the

Boston Marathon bombing The Boston Marathon bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two terrorists, brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs ...

Personal life

He is married to Lucy A. Flynn, a local banker, businesswoman,
JD Journal, December 26, 2014. and community activist. They have two sons, George and John.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Otoole, George A. Jr. 1947 births Living people Boston College alumni Harvard Law School alumni Judges of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts Judges of the Boston Municipal Court Massachusetts Superior Court justices Lawyers from Worcester, Massachusetts United States district court judges appointed by Bill Clinton 20th-century American judges 21st-century American judges