Robert J. Kelleher

Robert Joseph Kelleher (March 5, 1913 – June 20, 2012) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California and an American tennis player and official, inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2000.

Education and career

Born on May 5, 1913, in New York City, Kelleher received an Artium Baccalaureus degree in 1935 from Williams College and a Juris Doctor in 1938 from Harvard Law School. He was a trial attorney for the United States Trucking Company in New York City from 1939 to 1940. He was an associate attorney for the United States Department of the Army in Los Angeles, California from 1941 to 1942. He served in the United States Naval Reserve from 1943 to 1945. He was in private practice in Santa Monica, California, from 1945 to 1948. He was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of California from 1948 to 1951. He was in private practice in Beverly Hills from 1951 to 1971.

Federal judicial service

Kelleher was nominated by President Richard Nixon on December 15, 1970, to the United States District Court for the Central District of California, to a new seat authorized by 84 Stat. 294. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 17, 1970, and received his commission on December 21, 1970. He assumed senior status on March 5, 1983. Kelleher became the oldest serving federal judge in America in 2012 after Wesley E. Brown died at the age of 104. He died on June 20, 2012 at the age of 99 in Los Angeles.

Notable cases

In 1977, Kelleher served as the judge in the separate trials of Christopher Boyce and Andrew Daulton Lee, the subjects of the 1985 movie The Falcon and the Snowman and the book of the same name. He also participated extensively in the activities of the Southern California Tennis Association.