Janet Celeste Hall (born September 15, 1948) is a

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state. There is at least one feder ...

of the

United States District Court for the District of Connecticut The United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (in case citations, D. Conn.) is the federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Connecticut. The court has offices in Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven. Appeal ...

. She sits in

New Haven New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...

Education and career

Born in Lowell,

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, Hall received an Artium Baccalaureus degree from

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States. It is the oldest member of the h ...

in 1970. She went on to earn a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

from

New York University School of Law The New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. Established in 1835, it was the first law school established in New York City and is the oldest survivin ...

three years later. After obtaining her J.D., Hall entered private practice for two years. Then, she landed a position as a

trial attorney A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as wel ...

in the

United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division The United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division is a division of the U.S. Department of Justice that enforces U.S. antitrust law. It has exclusive jurisdiction over federal criminal antitrust prosecutions, and it shares jurisdict ...

, which she held until 1979. She was then a Special

Assistant United States Attorney An assistant United States attorney (AUSA) is an official career civil service position in the U.S. Department of Justice composed of lawyers working under the U.S. attorney of each U.S. federal judicial district. They represent the federal gov ...

of the

Eastern District of Virginia The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (in case citations, E.D. Va.) is one of two United States district courts serving the Commonwealth of Virginia. It has jurisdiction over the Northern Virginia, Hampton Roa ...

in 1979. From 1980 to 1997, she was in private practice in

Hartford Hartford is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ce ...

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

Federal judicial service

Hall was nominated by President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

on June 5, 1997, to a seat vacated by T. F. Gilroy Daly. She was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

on September 11, 1997, and received her commission on September 18, 1997. She served as Chief Judge of the

from September 2013 to September 2018. She assumed senior status on January 21, 2021. Hall was featured in the Serial podcast '' The Retrievals''. She presided over the sentencing of former nurse Donna Monticone, who stole hundreds of vials of fentanyl from patients at the Yale Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Lab, where she worked. The fentanyl was supposed to be used to administer moderate sedation to patients undergoing egg retrievals, but Monticone used the fentanyl herself and replaced it with saline solution. As detailed in The Retrievals, Monticone attended a number of these egg retrieval procedures knowing the patients were being given saline solution instead of sedation and witnessing their cries of pain. Despite numerous letters from victims detailing the immense physical and psychological pain Monticone caused, and despite sentencing guidelines that called for 4 to 5 years in prison, Hall only sentenced Monticone to four nonconsecutive weekends in prison.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Janet C. 1948 births Living people 20th-century American judges 20th-century American women judges 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American women lawyers 21st-century American judges 21st-century American women judges People from Lowell, Massachusetts Lawyers from Hartford, Connecticut Assistant United States attorneys United States Department of Justice lawyers Mount Holyoke College alumni New York University School of Law alumni Judges of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut United States district court judges appointed by Bill Clinton