Judge Edward J. Devitt
- Elected municipal judge in East Grand Forks, Minn., in 1935, right out of
University of North Dakota Law School. Devitt passed the bar exam while serving
in that post.
- Elected to Congress from Ramsey County in 1946; lost his seat to Eugene
McCarthy in 1948. Became chief U.S. district judge from Minnesota in 1957.
- Coauthor of the three-volume "Federal Jury Practice," published by West,
which sets the basic rules of how federal trial courts are to be run.
- Presided over many high-profile trials including the 1961 racketeering trial
of Minneapolis gangster Isadore (Kid Cann) Blumenfeld, the 1963 fraud trial of
former Minneapolis Mayor Marvin Kline, and the Reserve Mining Co. environmental
trial in the 1970s.
- After sitting on the federal bench for 38 years, Devitt died in St. Paul in
1992, at age 80.
Sharon Schmickle and Tom Hamburger
Washington Bureau Correspondents
