Gesell, Gerhard A.

▪ 1994

      U.S. judge (b. June 16, 1910, Los Angeles, Calif.—d. Feb. 19, 1993, Washington, D.C.), upheld citizens' rights over the power of the government while presiding over landmark legal cases, including the Watergate scandal, the Iran-contra affair, the legalization of abortion, and the release of the top-secret Pentagon Papers, a government study about the Vietnam War. Gesell graduated from Yale University in 1932 and from its law school in 1935. He served as staff lawyer and adviser (1935-41) to Chairman William O. Douglas at the Securities and Exchange Commission before joining the firm of Covington & Burling, where he specialized in antitrust and corporate law. He was appointed to the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., by Pres. Lyndon Johnson in 1967 and gained prominence in 1969 when he struck down the District of Columbia's ban on abortion. Gesell, a decisive jurist, ruled that the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers could publish the Pentagon Papers, which the Nixon administration had tried to block. In 1974 he ruled that national security was not a valid reason for agents to have broken into the office of the psychiatrist Daniel Ellsberg (an author of the Pentagon Papers) at the Watergate complex in 1971. In the Watergate scandal Gesell ruled that the 1973 dismissal of special prosecutor Archibald Cox had been illegal and that Pres. Richard Nixon would have to surrender his secret White House tapes. He also sentenced Nixon's chief adviser on domestic affairs, John D. Ehrlichman, to 20 months to 5 years in prison for his role in the break-in. In 1989 Gesell presided over the criminal trial of Lieut. Col. Oliver North, who, as a deputy director of the National Security Council, was charged with helping to divert Iranian funds to Nicaraguan rebels in what became known as the Iran-contra affair. When a jury found North guilty of 3 of 12 charges, Gesell reasoned that North was one of the subordinates in the illegal operation and gave him a lighter-than-expected sentence—a $150,000 fine, two years of probation, and 1,200 hours of community service. Gesell remained on the bench until his death.

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