Samuel Ray Cummings (born 1944) 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, 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 Texas The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas (in case citations, N.D. Tex.) is a United States district court. Its first judge, Andrew Phelps McCormick, was appointed to the court on April 10, 1879. The court convenes in D ...

Education and career

Born in

Lubbock Lubbock ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat, seat of government of Lubbock County, Texas, Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, Cummings received a

Bachelor of Business Administration Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is a bachelor's degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of business administration and usually including advanc ...

from

Texas Tech University Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sy ...

in 1967 and 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

Baylor Law School Baylor Law School is the oldest law school in Texas. Baylor Law School is affiliated with Baylor University and located in Waco, Texas. The school has been accredited by the American Bar Association since 1931 and has been a member of the Associ ...

in 1970. He was in private practice in

Amarillo Amarillo ( ; Spanish for "yellow") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Potter County. It is the 14th-most populous city in Texas and the largest city in the Texas Panhandle. A portion of the city extends into Randall Count ...

, Texas from 1970 to 1987.

Federal judicial service

On July 31, 1987, Cummings was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat on the

vacated by Judge

Halbert Owen Woodward Halbert Owen Woodward (April 8, 1918 – October 2, 2000) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Education and career Born in Coleman, Texas, Woodward received a Bachelor o ...

. Cummings 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 December 8, 1987, and received his commission on December 9, 1987. 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 ...

on December 31, 2014.

Notable cases

On March 1, 2001, Cummings issued an opinion in ''Tannahill v. Lockney I.S.D.'', which stated that it is a violation of the Fourth Amendment for school districts to have a mandatory whole school drug testing policy. On November 16, 2016, Cummings issued a permanent nationwide injunction blocking President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

's "Persuader Rule", finding, that its attempt to require an employer's attorney to publicly disclose advise provided to persuade against unionization violated the

First Amendment to the United States Constitution The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the f ...

References

Sources

* 1944 births Living people Judges of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas United States district court judges appointed by Ronald Reagan 20th-century American judges Rawls College of Business alumni 21st-century American judges {{US-federal-judge-stub