R.I.P. Judge Wesley Brown

The Gillette-Torvik blog is saddened to learn of the death of Judge Wesley Brown. Judge Brown was a judge in the United States District Court in the District of Kansas and the oldest sitting judge in the country's history. He was 104 and still hearing matters in 2011. The Wichita Eagle has a nice summary of the judge's accomplishments here.

Incredibly, Judge Brown was not the longest tenured judge in our nation's history. That title belogns to Judge Joseph Woodrough. He was a district court judge in Nebraska and then a judge on the 8th Circuit, for a total of judge for 61 years. However, according to Wikipedia, Judge Woodrough did not perform any judicial duties the last 16 years of his life. So in terms of active service, Judge Brown has the record.

At 104, Judge Brown was not particularly close to hitting oldest person in the world status. One hopes this means that he was not targeted by the serial killer that we discussed here.