- SUN-TIMES PRINT COLLECTION
- Judge Richard Posner in 2011.
When issues as serious as national security and government secrecy are at stake, a little levity can be a tonic. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals provided it on Monday.
Posner is renowned for his brilliance and notorious for his impatience. He graduated first in his class at Harvard Law in 1962. Now 75, he’s been on the Seventh Circuit for 33 years. He’s been cited in the opinions of other federal circuit judges more often than any circuit judge in the nation. He favors cold, mathematical logic, and cringes when the lawyers before him veer off subject, something he detects them doing constantly. He derails them before they can gather an ounce of a head of steam.
- Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times
- Thomas Durkin, who argued on behalf of Adel Daoud.
All attempts at recreation ended soon after Daoud’s lawyer, Thomas Durkin, began his argument. Like Posner, Durkin is a veteran of the federal courthouse; he’s been trying cases in the building for nearly 40 years.
“I believe—”
“Is that what you wanna argue?”
Durkin tried a different approach. Or began trying one. “I’m normally here fighting for—”
