Davenport, Ronald R.

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Duquesne Law Review Volume 17 Number 2 Article 2 1978 Austin L. Staley - In Memoriam - On Law and Scholarship Ronald R. Davenport Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/dlr  Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Ronald R. Davenport, Austin L. Staley - In Memoriam - On Law and Scholarship, 17 Duq. L. Rev. 239 (1978). Available at: https://dsc.duq.edu/dlr/vol17/iss2/2 This Front Matter is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Duquesne Law Review by an authorized editor of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. Duquesne Law ReviewVolume 17, Number 2, 1978-1979Austin L. StaleyIn MemoriamOn Law and ScholarshipRonald R. Davenport*This volume of the Law Review is dedicated to the memory ofAustin L. Staley, Class of 1928, former Chief Judge of the ThirdCircuit Court of Appeals. The dedication is particularly fitting. Bydefinition, a Law Review is a scholarly work. And Austin Staley wasa scholarly man. Scholarship is often a quality overlooked in evalu-ating members of the bench. It should not be overlooked in weighingthe considerable contributions Austin Staley made to our judicialsystem.In reflecting on Judge Staley's long and illustrious career, or in-deed upon the careers of other eminent jurists, we tend more tothink, with Socrates, that "Four things belong to a judge: to hearcourteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decideimpartially." There is no question that these things belonged toAustin Staley. He both owned and exercised them with a markeddegree of sobriety and equanimity. By so doing, he employed andtempered that unique power given only to judges in our democracy.In our federal judicial system, those who serve at the district courtlevel literally have the power of life and death over those citizensbefore the bench. Those who serve at the appellate level make cer-tain that this power is properly exercised by the district court. Be-cause of this power, judges have rightly held a special place in theminds and hearts of all people aware of our system of justice. Anhistoric reputation for fairness and honesty has imbued our federalsystem with the respect and admiration, not only of those of us who* Dean of the School of Law, Duquesne University.Duquesne Law Revieware privileged to grace its membership, but of the public at large.Typically, federal appellate court judges write more than thirtyopinions in the course of a court term. These opinions not onlydecide the fate of particular litigants, they make law and provideresource materials for scholars.Judges, be they in the majority or for the dissent, are variouslypraised, ridiculed, attacked, and scorned. Publishing an opinion ismore than giving the rationale for a decision, it is tantamount to abaring of the judicial soul, for it records for all time the legal philoso-phy and scholarly competencies of the author.During his almost thirty years of service on the federal bench,Judge Austin Staley wrote 353 majority opinions. These opinionshave been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States andused by professors from law schools throughout the country. His"Staley, J." at the end of the opinion does not indicate where hereceived his legal education, of course, but the language of the opin-ion does indicate the quality of the man behind that signature. Aslawyer, judge, and scholar, Austin L. Staley reflected the very bestof the Duquesne Law School tradition. He embodied all that wewere, are, and will be.Vol. 17: 239

Austin L. Staley - In Memoriam - On Law and Scholarship

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Austin L. Staley - In Memoriam - On Law and Scholarship

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