Peirson Mitchell Hall

Peirson Mitchell Hall (July 31, 1894 – December 8, 1979) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California and the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

Education and career Born on July 31, 1894, in Armour, South Dakota, Hall attended two years of high school in Tecumseh, Nebraska. Hall, along with Clifford W. Henderson and Henry G. Bakes, "persuaded the city to lease a 640-acre bean and barley patch then known as Mines Field," which became the Los Angeles International Airport.

In 1929, Hall ran for election as Los Angeles city attorney but lost to Erwin P. Werner in the June final, 152,566 to 82,444. He returned to private practice in Los Angeles from 1929 to 1934. Jailing of 10 people for refusal to answer questions in a grand jury proceeding about Los Angeles Communist leaders and organizations. Freeing of war crimes suspect Andrija Artukovic, former interior minister in Croatia, when Hall ruled that no extradition treaty existed between the United States and Yugoslavia, which had sought Artukovic for trial.

Aviation law Hall was considered the foremost authority of aviation law among the nation's 500 federal judges.

Personal Hall was married five times. He and his first wife were divorced in 1929, and Hall sued journalist Fred H. Girnau for libel when Girnau printed a two-column article asserting that testimony at the divorce proceedings showed that Hall "used the pretty face of his wife for a punching bag." Hall's attorney declared the statement untrue and Mrs. Hall said the report was false and malicious. The longest marriage was to Gertrude May Engel, beginning in 1930. They had two daughters, Mary and Suzanne, and were divorced in 1956 after court battles that lasted several years. She died in 1964. His fourth wife was Kathryn Kyle Black, whom he married in Kansas City, Kansas, in November 1956. She died in 1970. Next he married Mari Bahn, who died in February 1973.

Hall was a Mason and an Elk.