James Robertson

James Robertson (May 18, 1938 – September 7, 2019) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 1994 until his retirement in June 2010. Robertson also served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from 2002 until December 2005, when he resigned from that court in protest against warrantless wiretapping.

Early life, education, and Navy service Robertson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 18, 1938; his father was a banker, his mother a social worker. He received a B.A. cum laude from Princeton University in 1959, on a Navy ROTC scholarship.

Robertson served in the United States Navy from 1959 to 1964, achieving the rank of lieutenant. Robertson spent his last two years in the navy on desk duty at the Office of Naval Intelligence at The Pentagon and simultaneously attended the George Washington University Law School as a night student. After leaving the navy, he finished his third year as a day student, and was editor-in-chief of The George Washington Law Review. From 1969 to 1972, when Robertson served with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, as chief counsel at the organization's offices in Jackson, Mississippi (1969–1970) and as national director in Washington, D.C. (1970–1972). Robertson was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 7, 1994, by voice vote. He received his commission four days later. His resignation was in protest against the NSA warrantless surveillance that had occurred outside the FISA statute, a program revealed by The New York Times one week before Robertson's resignation. In Robertson's view, this change "turned the FISA court into something like an administrative agency, which makes and approves rules for others to follow," which he viewed as not being a proper role for the judiciary. In an oral history, Robertson said:

In the exercise of its quotidian warrant-issuing function, the FISA Court acts like a magistrate judge. Everything is ex parte, and there is no reason, no occasion, to have a defense lawyer there arguing that the warrant should not be issued. But when the FISA court is asked, as it was after the enactment of the Patriot Act, to approve not only individual warrants but also surveillance programs that would be carried on without a warrant, then the FISA Court was acting I thought like a court reviewing the work of an administrative agency. And when courts review the work of administrative agencies, they do it in an adversary context with somebody arguing the other side. I said to the PCLOB that a judge who hears one side of an argument may think that’s a pretty good argument until he hears the other side of the argument. Our system depends entirely on somebody pushing back and arguing the other side of any proposition. And I said that without that, courts are going to make mistakes. American Council of the Blind v. Snow: In 2006, Robertson ruled in favor of the American Council of the Blind, holding that the U.S. Department of the Treasury's "failure to design and issue paper currency that is readily distinguishable to blind and visually impaired individuals violates section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act." Robertson noted that "Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations." The decision was affirmed by the D.C. Circuit on appeal. Schroer v. Billington: In a suit brought by a transgender employee against the Library of Congress, Robertson ruled in 2006 that employment discrimination against transgender persons may violate Title VII's prohibition on discrimination "because of ... sex." In 2008, following a trial, Robertson ruled that the employee's civil rights were violated.

Retirement and death After serving for 14 years, Robertson assumed senior status on the District Court on December 31, 2008; he fully retired on June 1, 2010. He also wrote two op-eds published in the Washington Post.

Robertson died on September 7, 2019, at age 81, in Washington, D.C., due to heart disease.