U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber was nearing the end of his remarkable career as a federal judge when he had one of those quintessential father-son talks about the future — and whether he had any regrets.
“I asked him, ‘Hey dad, is there anywhere you want to go? Is there anything you want to do?’” Justin Leinenweber told the Tribune. “And, he was like, ‘I don’t have a bucket list. I’ve sort of done everything I wanted to do.’”
He said his father knew he could have stepped down from the bench 20 years ago and made millions in private practice doing arbitrations, but he didn’t care.
“He wasn’t in it for the money,” Justin Leinenweber said. “He wasn’t in it to have expensive watches and expensive cars. He loved what he did, and he said, ‘I’m gonna do it as long as I can.’ I really think he got everything out of his life. And he really had very few regrets.”
Harry Leinenweber, a Joliet native who served in the Illinois legislature before being nominated to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, died at home Tuesday evening of complications from lung cancer, according to his family. He was 87.
Leinenweber, who just celebrated a birthday last week, had kept a very active schedule before announcing his health issues in his courtroom in January, presiding over the high-profile trials of singer R. Kelly in 2022 and the “ComEd Four” political corruption case last year.
He is survived by his wife, former U.S. Labor Secretary Lynn Martin, and seven children and stepchildren. Services are pending.
In a statement released Tuesday night, U.S. District Chief Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer called Leinenweber “a friend, mentor, and model jurist.”
“My colleagues and I are deeply saddened by Judge Leinenweber’s passing. We hope for comfort and peace for his family,” Pallmeyer wrote. “We thank his family for sharing him with us for over 39 years.”
Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot wrote in a statement that she “had the honor” of appearing before Leinenweber many times over the course of her legal career, both in private practice and as an assistant U.S. attorney.
“He was a judge who clearly loved his job, even after many years on the bench, and he respected litigants,” Lightfoot said.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and served with Leinenweber’s wife in the House of Representatives, said in a statement Wednesday that Leinenweber “was respected for his knowledge of the law and his reputation for fairness.”
”I always knew that he would bring that reputation to every assignment,” Durbin said. “He never disappointed.”
Known for his calm temperament and friendly demeanor, Leinenweber was respected by lawyers on both sides as a considerate jurist with an impeccable knowledge of the law.
“He was a giant who exuded such decency,” said attorney Daniel Collins of the Chicago-based firm Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP. “He was a guy you wanted to be in front of, because you just know that whatever he decided, it was out of pure common sense.”
Collins said he got a window into Leinenweber’s humanity during the 2013 sentencing of David Coleman Headley for his role in planning the deadly 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, and a would-be attack on a newspaper in Denmark.
Collins, who at the time was the lead federal prosecutor on the case, said his team wanted Leinenweber to hear directly from the wife of the one American killed in the Mumbai attack, who lived in Chicago. He said Leinenweber took his time and spoke to her personally.
“He was genuinely moved by her expression of loss and description of what this attack did to her and her family,” Collins said. “I remember how well he handled that. It was incredibly emotional for everyone and he was just such a pro.”
A decade later, Leinenweber found himself presiding over another hot-button case, this time the #MeToo-era trial of Kelly, who stood accused of sexually abusing underage girls on videotape and then conspiring with his manager to cover up evidence.
Kelly’s lead attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said she was struck by Leinenweber’s “remarkable” commitment to ensuring that everyone got a fair shake in his courtroom, as well as his refusal to “get on the bandwagon” when it came to a high-profile defendant like Kelly.
“He called balls and strikes as he saw them and let the attorneys duke it out,” she said. “As a trial attorney you had to respect that, because it doesn’t always occur.”
One particular moment came up early in the trial, when Leinenweber sided with Kelly’s attorneys on several claims that prosecutors had intentionally struck Black jurors from the panel.
“He put three people of color back on that jury,” Bonjean said, adding that it was rare for attorneys to win one such challenge, let alone three. “It showed he understood that R. Kelly was entitled to a jury of his peers. …I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Always known for his dry wit, Leinenweber capped off that contentious day of jury selection by telling the attorneys to enjoy what was left of their evening.
“I’m going to have a martini in a short while,” he said.
Bonjean said Leinenweber was “fearless” about his rulings and didn’t care how they would play in the news or public opinion. But he always had a soft side, particularly for good lawyering.
At one point in the Kelly trial, Bonjean said she was worried after requesting a mistrial for what seemed maybe like one time too many. But during a sidebar, Leinenweber reassured her that he got it.
“He said, ‘Ms. Bonjean, don’t ever apologize for doing your job,’” she said.
Leinenweber was born in Joliet on June 3, 1937, graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1959 and earned his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1962.
Leinenweber formed his own private practice in his hometown and served as town counsel for several area cities until being elected to the Illinois General Assembly in 1973.
Two years after returning to the law in 1983, Leinenweber was preparing to take a deposition when he got word from his secretary that the president of the United States had called and asked to speak with him.
“I direct-dialed the President of the United States,” Leinenweber told his son for an article in the Illinois State Bar Association in 2014. “President Reagan said ‘Harry, I was about to sign a commission appointing you as a federal district judge for the Northern District of Illinois, but I thought I better get your permission first. Do I have it?’ And I stumbled out ‘yes you do.’”
Leinenweber was confirmed as a district judge in December 1985. Over his nearly 40 years on the bench, Leinenweber oversaw many of the city’s most significant trials, from political corruption to terrorism and gang cases like Gangster Disciples boss Larry Hoover.
Off the bench, Leinenweber enjoyed being surrounded by friends and family. And he was always telling stories.
Among the yarns Leinenweber liked to spin involved the time he was at a conference for new judges that was being held in the South, according to his son Justin, who is also an attorney. Breakfast had always been Leinenweber’s most important meal of the day, and he lauded the plate he was served: eggs sunny side up, bacon, toast, and, of course, grits.
Leinenweber said he told a judge from Alabama that the grits made it a great southern breakfast. The Alabama judge put down his fork and shot back, “That’s not a southern breakfast. A southern breakfast is squirrel.”
“He had no enemies. He really didn’t. He just cared about people,” Justin Leinenweber said. “He cared about the law, and he just wanted to do right by people and do right by the profession. It just meant so much to him to be a judge. I think that singular thing, other than his family, he was most proud of and it was just the perfect fit for him.”
That passion seemed to seep into every interaction Leinenweber had at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, be it his law clerks, attorneys, defendants, other judges, or even jurors who were selected to sit in his courtroom.
Chicago defense attorney Steve Greenberg said he was representing then-accused wife killer Drew Peterson in state court and had never met Leinenweber when the judge approached him one time in the cafeteria of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse and started asking all sorts of questions about the case.
“He was the kind of guy where you would feel like you were just sitting on the barstool next to him and having a chat,” Greenberg said. “He was one of the nicest, most unpretentious people you could ever meet.”
Robert Garnes, one of the jurors in “ComEd Four” case involving an alleged effort by utility executives and lobbyists to bribe then-House Speaker Michael Madigan, said he was so impressed by Leinenweber’s quiet control of his courtroom that he hopes to write a book someday about the experience.
“There were so many moments where I thought he was going to slam down his gavel and yell, “Order in the court!’ just like on TV,” Garnes said. “But he never did, even when things got nasty (between the lawyers) and I thought fights were going to break out.”
Garnes said that after the trial ended with them unanimously finding all four defendants guilty, he was one of a handful of jurors who stuck around to talk to Leinenweber about what they all just collectively went through.
“He came back to the jury room and shook our hands and thanked us for our courageousness,” Garnes said. “He said he was proud of us. I really appreciated that.”
Leinenweber had been scheduled to sentence the four defendants in the ComEd case — former CEO Anne Pramaggiore, internal lobbyist John Hooker, consultant Jay Doherty, and ex-lobbyist Michael McClain — in January, but those hearings were delayed first by the judge’s health issues and later by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that is due out later this month.
With Leinenweber’s passing, the case will be assigned to a new judge who will have to get up to speed on the details, which will likely further delay any final resolution.
Justin Leinenweber said that aside from his love of the law and his family, his dad was also a world-class Cubs fan. He had been hooked ever since his teacher in 1945 wheeled a radio into the classroom so they could listen to the game because she loved the team.
Decades later, Leinenweber’s law clerks would take the judge and his former clerks to a Cubs game to celebrate his birthday, his son said. “He loved those games and it meant so much to him to see his clerks and how they had all gone on to do so many incredible things.”
Justin Leinenweber said one of his favorite memories was taking his dad to Game 5 of the 2016 World Series at Wrigley Field.
“I swear we did not sit down the entire time,” he said. “Probably the biggest smile I ever saw on his face as the game went final and the Cubs were on their way to being World Champs.”
But in the end, his son said, Leinenweber “was a realist.”
“He always preferred ‘A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request’ to ‘Go Cubs Go,’” he said.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
