Prentice Henry Marshall (August 7, 1926 – May 24, 2004) was a

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, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

of the

United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (in case citations, N.D. Ill.) is the federal trial-level court with jurisdiction over the northern counties of Illinois. Appeals from the Northern District of Illinois ar ...

Early life and education

Born in Oak Park,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

, Marshall graduated from Oak Park High School (now

Oak Park and River Forest High School , motto_translation = Those things that are best , address = 201 N. Scoville Avenue , location = , region = , town = Oak Park , county = , state ...

) in 1944 and then served two years in the

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. Under the

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

, he studied at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Unive ...

, earning a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in 1949. While there he was a member of the

Phi Kappa Psi Phi Kappa Psi (), commonly known as Phi Psi, is an American collegiate social fraternity that was founded by William Henry Letterman and Charles Page Thomas Moore in Widow Letterman's home on the campus of Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pe ...

fraternity. Marshall then earned a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice l ...

from the

University of Illinois College of Law The University of Illinois College of Law (Illinois Law or UIUC Law) is the law school of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a public university in Champaign, Illinois. It was established in 1897 and offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. ...

in 1951. Marshall then served as a

law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...

for Judge

Walter C. Lindley Walter C. Lindley (July 12, 1880 – January 3, 1958) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and previously was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the E ...

on the

United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in case citations, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts: * Central District of Illinois * Northern District of Il ...

from 1951 until 1953.

Professional career

A Democrat, Marshall worked in private legal practice in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

from 1953 until 1967 at Johnston, Thompson, Raymond & Mayer (which later became known as

Jenner & Block Jenner & Block is an American law firm with offices in Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. The firm is active in corporate litigation, business transactions, the public sector, and other legal fields ...

), becoming partner in 1961. While at Jenner, Marshall also served as a special assistant attorney general for the state of Illinois from 1964 until 1967. Marshall also built a reputation for starting Jenner's pro bono legal program. Marshall then served as a law professor at the

from 1967 until 1973 and as a hearing officer for the Illinois Fair Employment Practices Commission from 1967 until 1972. In 1959, Marshall, then a resident of Wheaton, Illinois, ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for state's attorney in

DuPage County DuPage County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, and one of the collar counties of the Chicago metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 932,877, making it Illinois' second-most populous county. Its county seat is ...

, a Republican stronghold.

Federal judicial service

Marshall was nominated by President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was t ...

on June 27, 1973, to a seat on the

vacated by Judge Alexander J. Napoli. Marshall was one of the few Democrats ever nominated to the federal bench by Nixon. He was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and ...

on July 13, 1973, and received his commission on July 18, 1973. He assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...

due to a certified disability on October 19, 1988. His service terminated on April 15, 1996, due to his retirement.

Notable cases

During his tenure on the bench, Marshall became known—by his own admission—as an activist judge, ordering the

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in 1976 to hire women and stop discrimination against black and Hispanic officers. He also ruled in 1982 that the random interrogation of Hispanics by what was then known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service was unconstitutional. Perhaps Marshall's best-known case, however, was a 1982 trial that sent the then-president of the

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, Roy L. Williams, to prison for three years. In that case, Williams, Chicago mob boss

Joseph Lombardo Joseph Patrick Lombardo (born Giuseppe Lombardi; January 1, 1929 – October 19, 2019), also known as "Joey the Clown", was an American mobster and a high-ranking member of the Chicago Outfit crime organization. He was alleged to be the '' Co ...

and three other defendants—one of whom, Chicago insurance man Allen Dorfman, was shot to death while out on bond awaiting sentencing—were found to have conspired to bribe

United States Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and p ...

Howard Cannon Howard Walter Cannon (January 26, 1912 – March 5, 2002) was an American politician from Nevada. Elected to the first of four consecutive terms in 1958, he served in the United States Senate from 1959 to 1983. He was a member of the Democratic ...

Death

Marshall died of cardiac pulmonary failure and bladder cancer on May 24, 2004, in Ponce Inlet,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

Personal

Marshall married Lorelei Towle in 1948. The couple had four children. Lorelei Marshall died in 2005 at age 78. Marshall and his wife sold their house in Wheaton, Illinois in 1978 and moved to Chicago. They moved to Florida in 1990. Marshall's wife told the

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in 2004 that he once interviewed for the job of commissioner of baseball.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, Prentice Henry 1926 births 2004 deaths 20th-century American lawyers Judges of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois United States district court judges appointed by Richard Nixon University of Illinois alumni University of Illinois College of Law alumni 20th-century American judges People from Wheaton, Illinois Deaths from bladder cancer People associated with Jenner & Block United States Navy personnel of World War II Military personnel from Illinois Deaths from cancer in Florida