Judge Richard P. Matsch (1930-2019) served as a United States District Judge for the District of Colorado from 1974 to 2019. He is best known for his service as the trial judge in charge of the criminal trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who were convicted in 1997 for their roles in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. 

Second podcast episode:

In the second podcast episode, Judge Matsch discussed his work overseeing the United States v. McVeigh and United States v. Nichols criminal cases. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were charged with orchestrating the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Matsch sought to hold fair trials that respected both the interest of the people in Oklahoma harmed by the bombing of the federal building and also the rights of the criminal defendants. 

Part of protecting the defendants’ rights included providing significant financial support for the defense teams. Matsch famously told participants: “This is not theater; this is a trial.”

McVeigh was convicted in 1997, sentenced to death, and executed in 2001 after an appeal of his conviction. Nichols was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to life in prison.

Judge Matsch explained how he dealt with public interest in the trial:

I stressed to everybody, this case is not about me. When I was first notified of this, the press got it; there was a demand that there be an opportunity to talk to me about it. So I stood out on the courthouse steps on that afternoon and answered a few questions, but that was the last time I ever met with the press. It was important to recognize, all right, this is a trial. We have a lot of trials. We're doing this as much as possible. It's just another trial. 

When it comes to the trial itself, of course, the fundamental question is fairness and the ability to see the defendant sitting at defense table as a human being and not objectify this person as someone who has done some terrible crime.

But he also explained how he dealt at trial with the emotionally powerful evidence:

So in the Oklahoma City trials, I had the difficult problem of very emotional testimony from people in the building and relatives. That was heartbreaking. One of the most emotional parts of that case was that right there in the front of that building was a nursery, a daycare center, and all those children were killed, including babies. And we had, of course, a lot of visualization of the scene. We had as evidence the initial response. All of this was relevant to the size of the explosive device and what it, what the principal components were. Because the connection--one of the connections here, and particularly Terry Nichols, was the ammonium phosphate fertilizer, as being the major component of the bomb, which was, a series of barrels connected with ammonium nitrate, fuel oil, and other. So, I took the position that the impact, the nature of the building, and all that was relevant to the structure of the bomb.

Judge Richard P. Matsch (1930-2019) served as a United States District Judge for the District of Colorado from 1974 to 2019. He is best known for his service as the trial judge in charge of the criminal trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who were convicted in 1997 for their roles in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. 

Before Matsch’s service as a federal judge, he worked as a lawyer in private practice in Denver, a federal prosecutor, and a bankruptcy referee and bankruptcy judge in Colorado. Matsch grew up in Burlington, Iowa, worked in his father’s grocery store there, and attended a junior college and then the University of Michigan for college and law school. After law school, he served in the U.S. Army from 1953-55 around the end of the Korean War doing counterintelligence work in South Korea. 

In describing his career as a public servant, Judge Matsch quoted George Bernard Shaw:

I’m of the opinion that my life belongs to the community. And as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no brief candle for me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got hold of for a moment and want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

The full oral history interview of Judge Matsch in 2018 by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Bruce Campbell (retired), from which these podcasts are excerpted, is available at the Historical Society’s website at:  https://www.10thcircuithistory.org/oral-histories

First podcast episode:

In the first podcast episode, Judge Matsch discussed his work on the Keyes v. School District No. 1 case from 1973 to 1995, implementing the U.S. Supreme Court’s direction in 1973 to have a federal judge oversee desegregation “root and branch” of the Denver Public Schools through busing of students. Ultimately in 1995, Judge Matsch held that the vestiges of past discrimination by the school district had been eliminated to the extent practicable, and ended the mandatory busing of students in Denver Public Schools.

Matsch also discussed in this episode several other cases that involved constitutional issues including free speech and the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment, and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.

In Judge Matsch’s 1977 ruling that called for girls to be able participate in a Colorado high school soccer program comparable to boys soccer, he noted:

Any notion that young women are so inherently weak, delicate or physically inadequate that the State must protect them from the folly of participation in vigorous athletics is a cultural anachronism unrelated to reality. The Constitution does not permit the use of governmental power to control or limit cultural changes or to prescribe masculine and feminine roles.

Hoover v. Meiklejohn, 430 F.Supp. 164 (D. Colo. 1977).

John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, reflected on his career and work as a judge at the Tenth Circuit Bench-Bar Conference Fireside Chat on September 2, 2022. This podcast features excerpts from that discussion.

 Incoming Tenth Circuit Chief Judge Jerome A. Holmes and outgoing Chief Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich interviewed Justice Roberts for this program. 

 Justice Roberts began by responding to news media comments about the Supreme Court’s legitimacy after decisions during the 2021-22 Term changing established precedents. Those decisions included the Court’s landmark ruling overturning abortion rights established in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. __ (2022). 

 This podcast also features Justice Roberts’ comments about: 

1)         his role presiding over the Judicial Conference of the United States and serving as Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution; 

2)         his work in the early 1980’s as a law clerk for Justice William Rehnquist, including law clerks’ basketball games in that era with Justice Byron White; 

3)         his work in private practice and the U.S. Solicitor General’s office as an appellate specialist before becoming a judge; 

4)         why he enjoys the job as Supreme Court Chief Justice, and his explanation of the behind-the-scenes collegiality which exists among the current justices;  

5)         how he seeks to write court decisions that are clear for both lawyers and non-lawyers; and

6)         how he deals with welcoming new justices to the Court and its decision making process, and with the stress of deciding complex cases.

U.S. District Judge Bruce S. Jenkins shares in this episode recorded in 2023 his recollections at age 95 about the most important case he ever worked on—the hard-fought Utah “Downwinders” lawsuit.  

 The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) conducted above-ground testing of nuclear devices in 1953 in southern Nevada. Ranchers living southern Utah, downwind of the Nevada nuclear testing filed five lawsuits against the United States government in 1955-56, seeking damages for harm to their sheep herds from exposure to radioactive fallout. In the lead case, U.S. District Judge Sherman Christensen rejected the claims, ruling the plaintiffs failed to prove the government was negligent.  Bulloch v. United States, 145 F.Supp. 824 (D. Utah. 1956).

 Judge Christensen reopened the case more than 20 years later after evidence of AEC deception in 1956 came to light in 1979 congressional hearings, but the Tenth Circuit reversed that decision, and the Supreme Court declined to review the case.. See Bulloch v. United States, 95 F.R.D. 123 (D. Utah 1982), and 763 F.2d 1115 (10th Cir. 1985) (en banc), cert denied, 474 U.S. 1086 (1986).

 Meanwhile, in 1979 a group of nearly 1,200 plaintiffs filed a new lawsuit called Irene Allen v. United States, challenging their exposure to the downwind radiation from the AEC testing.  After a remarkable 13-week bench trial, Judge Jenkins issued a 225-page decision finding in favor of claims by 24 “bellwether” plaintiffs against the federal government. 588 F.Supp. 247 (D. Utah 1984). The trial transcript spans over 7,000 pages, with more than 54,000 pages of exhibits.  Judge Jenkins spent 17 months preparing his written decision.

 The government appealed Judge Jenkins’ ruling to the Tenth Circuit, which reversed, holding that the government could not be sued for such claims because of sovereign immunity concepts, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.  816 F.2d 1417 (10th Cir. 1987), cert denied, 484 U.S. 1004 (1988). Judge Jenkins’ ruling nevertheless prompted Congress to pass the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in 1990 to create a trust fund to compensate Downwinders.

 In this podcast episode Judge Jenkins reflects on the complex trial testimony in Allen, and on scientific uncertainty and the evolution of scientific knowledge. He also discusses how he approached learning about the scientific concepts the Allen case required him to consider. Judge Jenkins also comments on the Tenth Circuit’s reversal of his decision, which paradoxically prompted Congress to act to provide reimbursement to the injured downwinders.

This episode is part two of the Excerpts from the Oral History of Hal Haddon. This covers Hal Haddon's description of his work on seven nominating commissions to identify candidates for federal judicial appointments in Colorado under Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama, and on the founding of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar in 1978. 

In Hal Haddon's Oral History he was interviewed by Stephanie Howard. The full Oral History can be found here at 10thCircuitHistory.org

This episode is part one of two of the Excerpts from the Oral History of Hall Haddon. This episode covers two important cases in Hal Haddon's  oral history that he handled as a public defender: 1) People v. Sneed (in the early 1970s, which altered the law of first-degree murder in Colorado), and 2) U.S. v. Cameron Bishop (a capital crime charged for “sabotage of a war utility” during a time of a war emergency in 1975, which arose from a nonviolent Vietnam war protest; Haddon assisted Michael Tigar with the trial).

In Hal Haddon's Oral History he was interviewed by Stephanie Howard. The full Oral History can be found here at 10thCircuitHistory.org

Judge David M. Ebel shares his stories as a lawyer and a judge. He also tells about the call he received from President Reagan asking him to accept the position as  a Court of Appeals Judge for the Tenth Circuit.  
 

Judge David M. Ebel shares his stories as a law clerk and friend to former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R.  White (1917-2002). Tune in to learn more about Justice White's storied career including his achievements as an athlete, scholar, lawyer and judge. 

To learn more about Justice White, read this special tribute appearing within the Historical Society's spring/summer 2017 newsletter authored by Judge Ebel. The article was released on the 100th anniversary of the Byron White U.S. Courthouse in Denver.  To inquire about courthouse visits and tours, call 303/844.2067. 

In Part 2 of this special two-part episode, hear the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg tell the incredible story of how she came to challenge a discriminatory provision of the Tax Code in the Tenth Circuit case of Moritz v.  Commissioner of Internal Revenue.  

Read more about Moritz and RBG's now famous 2010 "fireside chat" in Volume IX, Issue 1 (2019) of the Tenth Circuit Historical Society's newsletter: http://www.10thcircuithistory.org/newsletters

In Part 1 of this special two-part episode, retired Tenth Circuit Judge Robert H. Henry shares the events leading up to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's famous speech about the Moritz case, which helped launch her career. Our guest also shares special observations about the inspiring partnership and marriage of Ruth and Martin Ginsburg.

Read more about Moritz and RBG's now famous 2010 "fireside chat" in Volume IX, Issue 1 (2019) of the Tenth Circuit Historical Society's newsletter: http://www.10thcircuithistory.org/newsletters