Richard D. Cudahy
Judge Richard D. Cudahy of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would have been forgiven if he took it easy over the past several months.
Suffering from lung disease and on 24-hour-a-day oxygen, Cudahy was no longer able to make it to the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in the Loop.
But he continued to work from his home in Winnetka.
And he kept an optimistic attitude.
“He was very cheerful,” said Judge Richard A. Posner, who joined the 7th Circuit two years after Cudahy. “Also, he was perfectly mentally lucid.”
Another colleague, Judge William J. Bauer, had the same take on the matter.
“His mind was sharp as a tack,” Bauer said.
He said Cudahy also continued to display the qualities he brought with him to the bench 36 years ago.
“He was a gentleman through and through,” Bauer said, “and a very nice man.”
Cudahy died Tuesday of cardiac arrest. He was 89.
Cudahy was born in Milwaukee in 1926. He was, Bauer said, “a big cheese in Wisconsin.”
In 1887, his father’s family had established a meatpacking business called Patrick Cudahy Inc. It was based in the Wisconsin town of Cudahy.
The company now is the Patrick Cudahy division of Smithfield Foods Inc.
Although his family was wealthy, Cudahy’s childhood was not an easy one.
His parents split up when he was 3 years old and divorced several years later following a bitter battle over custody of their son.
Although his mother was not found to be an unfit parent, Cudahy said in a 2004 interview, a trial judge awarded custody to his father. His father was a good parent, Cudahy said, “but I don’t think he had any great insight into what was good or bad about kids.”
The interview was conducted by 7th Circuit Executive Collins T. Fitzpatrick, the top administrator of the federal courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. A bound copy of it is available in the William J. Campbell Library at the federal courthouse.
Cudahy earned an undergraduate degree in 1948 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and then served in the Army until 1951.
After earning a J.D. in 1955 at Yale Law School, Cudahy served as a law clerk to Judge Charles E. Clark of the 2nd Circuit.
In 1956, Cudahy joined the U.S. State Department’s Office of Legal Advisor in Washington, D.C.
He was in private practice in Chicago from 1957 to 1960 and returned to Wisconsin in 1961 to become president and chief executive officer of his family’s meatpacking business.
While running the business over the next 10 years, Cudahy also taught, first as a lecturer at Marquette University Law School and then as a visiting professor of law at the University of Wisconsin.
He also was involved in politics, serving as chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party from 1967 to 1968 and running unsuccessfully for state attorney general in 1968.
In 1972, Cudahy went into private practice in Milwaukee.
He was not “overly happy” in the practice, he said in the interview with Fitzpatrick, and so was pleased when he was appointed that year to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.
As a commissioner and later chairman, Cudahy took part in decisions involving environmental issues, the pricing of public utilities and nuclear power.
In 1976, Cudahy went into private practice in Washington, D.C. He also lectured at the George Washington University School of Law.
President Jimmy Carter appointed Cudahy to the 7th Circuit in 1979. He took senior status in 1994.
A colleague on the appeals court, Judge David F. Hamilton, served as Cudahy’s law clerk from 1983 to 1984.
“Having my first legal job with him was a great gift to me,” Hamilton said. “He was a brilliant and humane judge.”
Hamilton also was pleased to later serve on the bench with Cudahy. He learned “an awful lot about the law and judging” from Cudahy, Hamilton said.
Cudahy also wrote frequently on environmental law and public energy law.
In 1998, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court appointed Cudahy to a two-year term on the independent counsel panel.
The panel appointed independent counsels to look into allegations of misconduct against specified government figures. The panel was replaced by the Justice Department’s Office of Special Counsel.
His first wife, Ann, died in 1974.
He later married Janet, whose late husband had died several months before Ann.
In the interview with Fitzpatrick, Cudahy said a doctor who had treated Ann invited him and Janet to dinner.
He thought, Cudahy said, that the doctor “was trying to promote something there.”
And he suspected — although he had no proof — that Ann as she was dying might have suggested the doctor arrange the meeting, Cudahy said.
Cudahy had seven children. Services are pending.
Today, Chief Judge Diane P. Wood of the 7th Circuit described Cudahy as “an extraordinary person.”
“We are not going to see his like again,” she said. “Judge Cudahy was a person who, throughout his career, gave back to society, gave back to the people around him.”
“We are all going to miss him very much.”