Friday, September 12, 2008

Judge Sutton to speak on Constitution Day

The Honorable Jeffrey S. Sutton, judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, will present the inaugural David Aldrich Nelson Lecture in Constitutional Jurisprudence on Constitution Day, 17 September, at 7:30 pm in the Hamilton College Chapel. The lecture, sponsored by the AHI in conjunction with Senior Fellow Ted Eismeier and the Hamilton College government department, is open to the public.

Judge Sutton received a B. A. from Williams College in 1983 and LL. B. from the Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University in 1990. He served as a law clerk for Judge Thomas Meskill of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Justice Lewis Powell and Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court. Nominated for the Sixth Circuit by President George W. Bush, Judge Sutton was confirmed by the Senate in 2003. He will be presenting on "Originalism or the Living Constitution? Interpreting the Supreme Court."

The lecture honors David Aldrich Nelson, whom Judge Sutton succeeded on the Sixth Circuit. Judge Nelson was graduated from Hamilton College, 1954, valedictorian of his class. He attended the Harvard Law School and read law as a Fulbright Scholar at Cambridge University, in England. He began the practice of law with Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cleveland, Ohio, and served on active duty at the Pentagon as an attorney in the Office of the General Counsel of the Secretary of the Air Force. President Nixon appointed him General Counsel of the Post Office Department in 1969, and he later became Senior Assistant Postmaster General and General Counsel of the reorganized United States Postal Service. He rejoined his former law firm in 1972, remaining with it until President Reagan appointed him to the bench in 1985. Judge Nelson took senior status in 1999 but continued to hear cases until he closed his chambers in 2006. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He was a long-standing member of the Criminal Law Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He has served as a trustee of Hamilton College and as a member of the National Council of the Ohio State University College of Law.

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