Juan R. Torruella

Juan Rafael Torruella del Valle Sr. (June 7, 1933 – October 26, 2020) was a Puerto Rican jurist. He served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1984 until his death, and as chief judge of that court from 1994 to 2001. He was the first Hispanic to serve on the First Circuit, which includes Puerto Rico.

Before becoming an appellate judge, he served as a district judge on the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico from 1974 to 1984. He was also a competitive sailor, competing for the Puerto Rican team at the Summer Olympic Games in 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976.

Education and career Torruella was born in Old San Juan, on June 7, 1933, to Juan N. Torruella and Belén del Valle de Torruella. His LL.M. work focused on judicial process.

Torruella became a member of International Council Of Arbitration for Sport in 2006, and served as Deputy President of the CAS Ordinary Arbitration Division from 2010 to 2014.

Career as a lawyer Although he intended to practice law in Massachusetts following his graduation from law school, Torruella did not take the Massachusetts bar examination because he contracted a serious case of the mumps the day before the exam. He instead returned to Puerto Rico and was admitted to the bar there. The Vieques cases were the highest-profile of Torruella's cases over his decade as a district judge. by voice vote.

Torruella served as chief judge of the First Circuit from 1994 to 2001. In August 2017, Torruella wrote a lengthy dissent when the en banc circuit rejected a lawsuit challenging Puerto Rico's exclusion from congressional apportionment. Torruella wrote the book The Supreme Court and Puerto Rico: The Doctrine of Separate and Unequal (University of Puerto Rico: 1988), a study of the Supreme Court's decisions in the Insular Cases, in which Torruella argues that "colonial rule and the indignities of second-class citizenship can be ended not, as in the case of the Philippines, by granting the colony its independence ... but rather, by securing for Puerto Rico equality under American law" including Puerto Rican statehood. The book was favorably reviewed by Judge José A. Cabranes in the Harvard Law Review.

Torruella authored the First Circuit opinion in Planned Parenthood of Northern New England v. Heed (2004), in which the court upheld the district court's decision declaring New Hampshire's "parental notification" abortion law unconstitutional, and enjoining its enforcement. The decision held that the state law was inconsistent with the Constitution and relevant Supreme Court constitutional decisions in Roe v. Wade, Stenberg v. Carhart, and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. The case later went to the Supreme Court in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (2006).

In 2009, Torruella wrote the opinion in Noonan v. Staples, Inc., allowing a suit for libel to proceed because even though the statements at issue were true they reflected "actual malice." (Under the law in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the U.S., truth is usually an absolute defense to libel, but Massachusetts law contains an exception if the defendant made the statement with "actual malice.") Torruella's decision did not decide the question of whether this exception was inconsistent with the Constitution's First Amendment because the argument was raised too late in the proceedings.

In 2012, Torruella joined a unanimous First Circuit panel decision (written by Judge Michael Boudin) in Massachusetts v. United States Department of Health and Human Services. The decision struck down section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denied federal benefits to all same-sex couples, even those legally married under state law.

In 2015, Torruella dissented from a First Circuit decision denying Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's request for a writ of mandamus compelling the district court to grant a change of venue of Tsarnaev's trial due to widespread pretrial publicity. In July 2020, Torruella joined the opinion of Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson in vacating the federal death sentence of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, on the basis of legal errors in the sentencing proceedings. The First Circuit remanded to the district court for a new penalty phase. In a concurring opinion, Torruella wrote that he would have gone further to hold that the district court's denials of Tsarnaev's motions for change of venue were an abuse of discretion that "denied Tsarnaev the right to a fair trial and sentencing determination," given the huge media coverage of the bombing in the Boston area. Torruella cited the precedent in the trial of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombing, in which a change of venue to Denver was granted.

In June 2020, Torruella wrote for the unanimous panel when it found that Nestlé's chocolate wrappers did not need to disclose if they were made from cocoa production in Ivory Coast using forced child labor.

Sailing career Torruella competed for Puerto Rico in four Olympic sailing events: 1964: Enoshima in the Finn (31st) 1968: Acapulco in the Flying Dutchman (28th) 1972: Kiel in the Flying Dutchman (27th) 1976: Kingston in the Soling (22nd)

Torruella was captain of the Puerto Rican team in each of the four Olympics. He also competed in the 1975 and 1979 Pan American Games. In the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Torruella served as a coach; he was informed of his appointment to the First Circuit while coaching in summer 1984.

As a yachtsman, Torruella made several long-distance sea voyages, including two trans-Atlantic crossings in 1992, on the 500th anniversary of Columbus's first voyage; a few years later, Torruella undertook an 8,000-mile sailing trip across the Caribbean Sea and Panama Canal to the Pacific Ocean, where he visited the Galápagos Islands and Puerto Montt, Chile, before traveling to Buenos Aires, Argentina, via Cape Horn.

Personal life and death Torruella met his wife, Judith (Judy) Wirt in 1955 and had two sons (including fellow Puerto Rican Olympic sailor Juan Jr.), two daughters, eight grandchildren, and numerous great-grandchildren. Torruella died on October 26, 2020, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from a massive heart attack, at the age of 87.

Publications