12 Facts About Roger Vinson

Clyde Roger Vinson was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida.

Roger Vinson served at Naval Air Station Pensacola as a naval aviator from 1962 to 1968, attaining the rank of lieutenant.

Roger Vinson was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on September 9,1983, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida vacated by Judge Lynn Carlton Higby.

Roger Vinson was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 4,1983, and received his commission on October 5,1983.

Roger Vinson served as chief judge from 1997 to 2004.

Roger Vinson was appointed to serve a seven-year term on the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, effective May 4,2006.

In 2010, Vinson was assigned to hear a case, Florida et al v United States Department of Health and Human Services, brought by a group of 26 states that was filed with support by 22 attorneys general and four governors challenging the constitutionality of the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, specifically its requirement that most individuals obtain medical insurance.

On January 31,2011, Roger Vinson ruled that the individual mandate provision of the PPACA violated the Constitution by regulating economic inactivity, and as the mandate is not severable the entire statute was ruled unconstitutional.

Roger Vinson allowed the law to stand while it was being appealed by the Obama administration.

Roger Vinson is noted for being a hardline judge who refused to depart from maximum sentences in spite of their severity, even though he agreed his very own sentences were far too high.

In 2009, Roger Vinson was installed as president of the American Camellia Society.

Roger Vinson died from prostate cancer on April 1,2023, aged 83.