Larry Alan Burns

Judicial service In 1997, Burns was appointed to serve as a United States Magistrate Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. He was nominated as a United States District Judge by President George W. Bush on May 1, 2003, to a new seat on the Southern District of California created by 116 Stat. 1758.

Notable cases On March 4, 2006, Burns sentenced former U.S. Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham to eight years and four months in federal prison for taking $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors in return for smoothing the way for government contracts. It was the longest sentence ever imposed up to that time on a former member of Congress. During the sentencing, Burns told Cunningham "You undermined the opportunity and option for honest politicians to do a good job."

On November 5, 2007, Burns sentenced Francisco Javier Arellano Félix, head of the notorious Arrellano Felix drug cartel, to life in prison. During the sentencing hearing, Burns told Arrellano Felix "Your family name will live in infamy." U.S. authorities had captured Arrellano Felix a year earlier in international waters off Mexico's Baja California coast. Burns later sentenced brothers Benjamin Arrellano Felix and Edward Arrellano Felix and other cartel lieutenants to long prison terms.

On January 12, 2011, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit selected Burns to be the presiding judge for the trial of Jared Lee Loughner. Burns was selected, in part, for his prior experience with cases involving the federal death penalty.

On December 20, 2012, Burns wrote an op-ed column in the Los Angeles Times calling for a reinstatement of the federal assault weapons ban. In the article, Burns described himself as an ardent conservative and gun owner who nonetheless felt there was no "social utility" for high-capacity clips. Besides the 31-round magazine Loughner used in his Glock, Burns cited as examples the 100-round drum magazine used by James Holmes in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, shooting and the 30-round magazine used by Adam Lanza in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Burns called for Congress to reinstate the ban without the grandfather clause of the original ban, which allowed those who already owned a weapon on the banned list to keep it. "If we can't find a way to draw sensible lines with guns that balance individual rights and the public interest," Burns wrote, "we may as well call the experiment with American democracy a failure."