In his thirty-year career in the federal courts, Edward Thaxter Gignoux developed a reputation as an articulate, compassionate, and competent trial judge. He was also a leader in the fields of judicial ethics, court administration, and trial practice and techniques. He showcased his skills in a number of high-profile cases—including the contempt trial of Abbie Hoffman and other defendants known as the Chicago Seven (In re Dellinger, 370 F. Supp. 1304, N.D. Ill., E.D. [1973]).
Gignoux was born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, on June 28, 1916. He graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1937, and went on to Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude from the law school in 1940, and began his legal career with the firm of Slee, O'Brian, Hellings, and Ulsh, in Buffalo. After a year in Buffalo, he joined the Washington, D.C., firm of Covington, Burling, Rublee, Acheson, and Shorb.
World War II interrupted Gignoux's Washington, D.C., career after just a few months. In 1942, Gignoux joined the U.S. Army. During his three-year tour of duty with the First Cavalry Division in the Southwest Pacific, he rose to the rank of major and was awarded the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star.
After the war, Gignoux returned to Covington, Burling, in Washington, D.C., to resume the practice of law, but a bout with malaria, contracted during his years in service, forced a return to his native Maine for convalescence. As his health returned, Gignoux joined the Portland, Maine, law firm of Verrill, Dana, Walker, Philbrick, and Whitehouse, and he married Hildegard Schuyler.
Gignoux and his wife had two children as they settled into life in Portland. In addition to practicing law, Gignoux was named assistant corporation counsel for the city of Portland, and he was twice elected to a three-year term on the Portland City Council, serving from 1949 to 1955.
By 1957, Gignoux was well-known and respected in Maine legal and political circles, and he was a logical choice to fill a vacancy on the federal bench. He was appointed U.S. district judge for the District of Maine in August 1957 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and he served as Maine's only federal court judge for the next twenty years.
One of the first cases he heard as a federal judge was an antitrust action brought by the government against the Maine Lobstermen's Association—an important group in a very visible industry (United States v. Maine Lobstermen's Ass'n, 160 F. Supp. 115 [D. Me. 1957]). A jury found the lobstermen guilty, but Gignoux, showing both wisdom and compassion early on, managed to satisfy both parties when he imposed only a small fine on the guilty defendants. Gignoux was also a central figure in Indian settlement claims in his native state, and he was instrumental in establishing that several Native American groups in Maine were "federal" rather than "colonial" Indians, making them eligible for millions of dollars a year in federal benefits for housing, education, and health care (Joint Tribal Council v. Morton, 528 F.2d 370 [1st Cir. 1975]). Prior to the Gignoux decision, Maine Indians were considered "colonial" Indians and not the Indians of the frontier that Congress meant to protect in the Nonintercourse Act. Gignoux ruled in 1975 that the Act did apply, making some previous land transactions illegal and making the Maine tribes "federal" Indians.
His reputation as a trial judge spread quickly. According to one of his former law clerks, lawyers and judges from other courtrooms packed his court during their spare time to witness Gignoux's performance.
Gignoux was serious about the fair and equitable administration of justice. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he served the U.S. Judicial Conference with distinction. The Judicial Conference is the principal machinery through which the federal court system operates. This important group establishes the standards and shapes the policies governing the federal judiciary. Gignoux's commitment to the Judicial Conference included working on the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules (1960-72), Committee on Trial Practice and Technique (1965-67), Committee on the Operation of the Jury System (1966-68), Committee on Court Administration (1969-80), Review Committee (1975-78), Joint Committee on the Code of Judicial Conduct (1975-85), and Judicial Ethics Committee (1978-85). He was chairman of the Subcommittee on Supporting Personnel (1968-70), chairman of the Subcommittee of Federal Jurisdiction (1975-80), and chairman of the Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure (1980).
Gignoux's work with the Judicial Conference brought him national recognition, and in 1970, he was considered for a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Though he was not appointed, he did make an impression on future Supreme Court justice David H. Souter. When Souter filled out a questionnaire in preparation for his confirmation hearing twenty years later, he noted a voting rights case he had argued in 1970 before Gignoux. He said, "It was one of the most gratifying events of my life, for the argument included a genuinely dialectical exchange between the great jurist and me."
As Gignoux's reputation grew, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger called on him to preside over some very political, and potentially explosive, cases. In 1973, Warren appointed him to preside over the contempt trial of Abbie Hoffman, Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Lee Weiner, and John Froines. These 1960s radicals known as the Chicago Seven (even though there were eight of them) had already been tried and convicted for their participation in violent demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, in Chicago. Following their trial, contempt charges were filed against the individuals and their lawyer, William M. Kunstler, for their behavior in court. (Contempt is a willful disregard or disobedience of a public authority.) Gignoux found three of the eight— Hoffman, Rubin, and Dellinger—and their lawyer to be in contempt, but he did not impose additional sentences on the parties involved, saying that their conviction and their previous time served were punishment enough.
In 1982, after twenty-five years on the federal bench, Gignoux took senior (or semiretired) status, but he continued to hear cases around the country and to serve on the Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals. Gignoux's ability to uphold both the letter and the spirit of the law, against overwhelming political and social pressures, was still very much in evidence when he was asked to preside over the trial of U.S. district judge Alcee L. Hastings during his first year of "retirement." Hastings, who was later acquitted of conspiracy to solicit a bribe and obstruction of justice, was the United States' first sitting judge to be brought up on criminal charges. Though pressured to drop the charges throughout the trial, Gignoux said, "[T]he court is entirely persuaded that the government has submitted evidence that is sufficient to sustain a finding by the jury of guilty." Also during the Hastings trial, Gignoux rejected one of the first serious efforts to open a federal court trial to television coverage; Gignoux felt he was prohibited by federal law from permitting cameras in the courtroom.
On February 11, 1987, Gignoux was chosen to receive the Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award, which is administered by the American Judicature Society. This award— named for Edward J. Devitt, former chief U.S. district judge for Minnesota—acknowledges the dedication and contributions to justice made by all federal judges, by recognizing the specific achievements of one judge who has contributed significantly to the profession. Gignoux was acknowledged for improving the administration of the federal courts through his work with the Judicial Conference of the United States and its committees.
Gignoux died on November 4, 1988, in Portland, Maine. Shortly before his death, the city renamed the federal courthouse there in his honor. He was acknowledged by friend and circuit judge Frank M. Coffin as an "inspiration" and as a jurist who served honorably and well "in the most demanding and delicate of trial situations."
