1. Gerhard Alden Gesell was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
12 Facts About Gerhard Gesell
1. 2.
Gerhard Gesell was a trial attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1935 to 1940 and a technical advisor to the Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman from 1940 to 1941.
3.
Gerhard Gesell was in private practice in Washington, DC, from 1941 to 1967.
4.
Gerhard Gesell chaired the President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces from 1962 to 1964.
5.
On November 29,1967, Gesell was nominated by US President Lyndon B Johnson to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia vacated by Judge Spottswood William Robinson III.
6.
Gerhard Gesell was confirmed by the US Senate on December 7,1967, and received his commission on December 12,1967.
7.
Gerhard Gesell assumed senior status on January 22,1993, and served in that status until his death on February 19,1993, in Washington, DC.
8.
In 1973, Judge Gerhard Gesell ruled illegal the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox by Acting Attorney General Robert Bork under the orders of President Richard Nixon in the so-called Saturday Night Massacre.
9.
In 1974, Gerhard Gesell presided over trials of the so-called Watergate Seven that arose from dozens of felony charges in the Watergate scandal.
10.
Gerhard Gesell later ruled that the office tape recordings of President Nixon were in the public domain because they had been played during a Watergate trial; his finding would be upheld by the Supreme Court.
11.
In 1989, Gerhard Gesell was the presiding judge in the government's case against National Security Adviser Oliver North, who was convicted of aiding and abetting obstruction of a congressional inquiry into the Iran-Contra arms sale, of ordering the destruction of documents, and of accepting an illegal gratuity.
12.
On July 5,1989, Gerhard Gesell probated North's three-year prison sentence but fined him $150,000, sentenced him to 1,200 hours community service, and placed him on two years' probation.