Stephen Fain Williams (September 23, 1936 – August 7, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who was a

United States circuit judge In the United States, a federal judge is a judge who serves on a court established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. Often called "Article III judges", federal judges include the chief justice and associate justices of the U.S. Su ...

of the

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. courts of appeals, ...

from 1986 until his death from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

in 2020.

Early life and career

Williams was born in 1936 in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. His father, C. Dickerman Williams, was a prominent lawyer who later became the

general counsel A general counsel, also known as chief counsel or chief legal officer (CLO), is the chief in-house lawyer for a company or a governmental department. In a company, the person holding the position typically reports directly to the CEO, and their ...

of the

United States Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for gathering data for business and governmental decision making, establishing industrial standards, catalyzing econ ...

. Williams graduated from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in 1958 with a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

, ''

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

'', where he was a member of the

Manuscript Society Manuscript Society is a senior society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. It is reputedly the arts and letters society at Yale. History Founded in 1951, Manuscript was Yale's seventh "landed" senior society. That is, its alumni trust ...

. He then attended

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

, where he was classmates with future federal judges

Anthony Kennedy Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is an American attorney and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He was nominated to the court in 1987 by Pres ...

Laurence Silberman Laurence Hirsch Silberman (October 12, 1935 – October 2, 2022) was an American jurist and diplomat who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1985 until his death ...

A. Wallace Tashima Atsushi Wallace Tashima (, born June 24, 1934) is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Central Distr ...

, R. Lanier Anderson III, and Timothy B. Dyk. He was a member of the ''

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of ...

'' and graduated in 1961 with 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 ...

, ''magna cum laude''. Williams was in the

United States Army Reserve The United States Army Reserve (USAR) is a Military reserve force, reserve force of the United States Army. Together, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard constitute the Army element of the reserve components of the United States Armed ...

as a

Private Private or privates may refer to: Music * "In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorded ...

E-2 from 1961 to 1962. He was in private practice at the law firm

Debevoise & Plimpton Debevoise & Plimpton LLP is an international white-shoe law firm headquartered in New York City, with offices in Washington D.C., San Francisco, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Luxembourg. The firm specializes in intellectual ...

from 1962 to 1966, and from 1966 to 1969 he was an

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 ...

for the Southern District of New York. From 1969 to his appointment to the bench, he taught at the

University of Colorado School of Law The University of Colorado Law School is one of the professional graduate schools within the University of Colorado System. It is a public law school, with more than 500 students attending and working toward a Juris Doctor or Master of Studies i ...

. During this time, he also served as a visiting professor of law at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It employs more than 180 full-time and part-time facul ...

, and

Southern Methodist University Southern Methodist University (SMU) is a Private university, private research university in Dallas, Texas, United States, with a satellite campus in Taos County, New Mexico. SMU was founded on April 17, 1911, by the Methodist Episcopal Church, ...

and he was a consultant to the

Administrative Conference of the United States The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) is an independent agency of the United States government that was established in 1964 by the Administrative Conference Act (). The conference's purpose is to "promote improvements in the ...

and the

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) United States antitrust law, antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. It ...

Federal judicial service

Williams was nominated by President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

on February 19, 1986, to a seat on the

vacated by Judge Malcolm R. Wilkey. He 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 June 13, 1986, and received commission on June 16, 1986. He assumed senior status on September 30, 2001. In March 2017, Williams questioned if the government could constitutionally keep all prisoner court filings secret when the court, unanimous in judgment but in divided opinions, found that the press could not access

classified Classified may refer to: General *Classified information, material that a government body deems to be sensitive *Classified advertising or "classifieds" Music *Classified (rapper) (born 1977), Canadian rapper * The Classified, a 1980s American ro ...

video of Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab being

force fed Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term ''gavage'' (, , ) refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose ( nasogastric) or mouth (orogastric) into t ...

during the Guantanamo Bay hunger strikes.

Death

Williams was diagnosed with

in May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Washington, D.C. He was admitted to Sibley Memorial Hospital and put on a ventilator. On August 7, 2020, after about two months in the hospital, he died from complications as a result of the virus.

Author

Williams was the author of numerous books and scholarly articles. His book, ''Liberal Reform in an Illiberal Regime, 1906–1915: The Creation of Private Property in Russia'', was described by former acting Prime Minister of Russia

Yegor Gaidar Yegor Timurovich Gaidar (; rus, Егор Тимурович Гайдар, p=jɪˈɡor tʲɪˈmurəvʲɪtɕ ɡɐjˈdar; 19 March 1956 – 16 December 2009) was a Soviet and Russian economist, politician, and author, and was the Acting Prime Min ...

as "absolutely splendid".
The Reformer: How One Liberal Fought to Preempt the Russian Revolution, 2017
*The Natural Gas Revolution of 1985, 1985 *Cases on Oil and Gas Law (With R. Maxwell, P. Martin and B. Kramer), 6th ed., 1992 *Subjectivity, Expression & Privacy: Problems of Aesthetic Regulation, 62 Minnesota Law Review 1, 1977 *Running Out: The Problem of Exhaustible Resources, 7 Journal of Legal Studies 165, 1978 *Solar 'Access' and Property Rights: A Maverick Analysis, 11 Connecticut Law Review 430, 1979 *Implied Covenants for Development and Exploration in Oil and Gas Leases - The Determination of Profitability, 27 Kansas Law Review 443, 1979 *The Static Conception of the Common Law: A Comment, 9 Journal of Legal Studies 277, 1980 *Getting Downtown - Relief of Highway Congestion Through Pricing, Regulation, p. 45, March/April, 1981 *Implied Covenants in Oil and Gas Leases: Some General Principles, 29 Kansas Law Review 153, 1981 *An Energy Policy Perspective on Solar Hot Water Equipment Mandates, 1 UCLA Journal on Environmental Law and Policy 135, 1981 *'Liberty' In the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments: The Intentions of the Framers, 53 Colorado Law Review 117, 1981 *Severance Taxes: The Supreme Court's Role in Preserving a National Common Market for Energy Supplies, 53 Colorado Law Review 281, 1982 *Liberty and Property: The Problem of Government Benefits, 12 Journal of Legal Studies 3, 1983 *The Requirement of Beneficial Use as a Cause of Waste in Water Resource Development, 23 Natural Resource Journal 7, 1983 *Energy Policy in the Cold Light of Morning, 61 Texas Law Review 571, 1983 *Free Trade in Water Resources: Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas, 2 S. Ct. Economic Review 89, 1984 *Implied Covenants' Threat to the Value of Oil and Gas Reserves, 36 Institute on Oil and Gas Law and Taxation, Chapter 3, 1985 *Federal Preemption of State Conservation Laws After the Natural Gas Policy Act: A Preliminary Look, 56 Colorado Law Review 521, 1985 *The Proposed Sea-Change in Natural Gas Regulation, 6 Energy Law Journal 233, 1985 *The Law of Prior Appropriation: Possible Lessons for Hawaii 25 Natural Resource Journal 911, 1985 *The Legal Integration of Energy Markets (With Terence Daintith) Vol. 5 of Integration Through Law: Europe and the American Federal Experience, 1987 *Second Best: The Soft Underbelly of Deterrence Theory in Tort, 106 Harvard Law Review 932, 1993 *Hybrid Rulemaking, Under the Administrative Procedure Act: A Legal and Empirical Analysis, 42 University of Chicago Law Review 401, 1975 *Panel: Culpability, Restitution, and the Environment: The Vitality of Common Law Rules 21 Ecology Law Quarterly, 559, 1994 *Unconstitutional Conditions Through a Libertarian Prism Public Interest Law Review, 159, 1994 *Legal Versus Non-Legal Theory 17 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 79, Winter, 1997 *Court-Gazing: Reviews of David C. Savage, Turning Right: The Making of the REhnquist Supreme Court, and H.W. Perry, Jr., Deciding to Decide: Agenda Setting in the United States Supreme Court, 91 Michigan Law Review, 1158, 1993 *The Roots of Deference (Review of Christopher F. Edley, Jr., Administrative Law: Rethinking Judicial Control of Bureaucracy) 100 Yale Law Journal 1103, 1991 *Background Norms in the Regulatory State, (Review of Cass R. Sunstein, After the Rights Revolution: Reconceiving the Regulatory State) 58 University of Chicago Law Review 419, 1991 *Fingers in the Pie (Review of Jeremy Rabkin, Judicial Compulsions: How Public Law Distorts Public Policy) 68 Texas Law Review 1303, 1990 *Review of Morton Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 25 UCLA Law Review 1187, 1978 *Review of Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law, 45 University of Colorado Law Review 437–53, 1974 *Fixing the Rate of Return After Duquesne, 8 Yale Journal on Reg. 159, 1991 *Pollution Control: Taxes v. Regulation (International Institute for Economic Research, Original Paper 23), August, 1979 *Optimizing Water Use: The Return Flow Issue, 44 University of Colorado Law Review 301, 1973 *Risk Regulation and Its hazards: Review of Stephen Breyer, Breaking the Vicious Circle, 93 Mich. L. Rev. 1498, 1995 *Deregulatory Takings and Breach of the Regulatory Contract: A Comment 71 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1000, 1996

References

Sources

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Stephen Fain 1936 births 2020 deaths Assistant United States attorneys Harvard Law School alumni Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Lawyers from New York City Military personnel from New York City Southern Methodist University faculty United States court of appeals judges appointed by Ronald Reagan UCLA School of Law faculty University of Chicago Law School faculty Writers from New York City Yale College alumni Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Washington, D.C. People associated with Debevoise & Plimpton