Howard Bashman reports some very very sad news: Judge Edward Becker of the Third Circuit has died. I’m with Howard: Becker was a giant of the law and a wonderful man. If I’m ever embroiled in a law suit, I would want a judge like Edward Becker deciding it. He was brilliant, fair, tremendously thoughtful, and always scholarly. A real mensch.
You can read a terrific profile of Judge Becker from 2003 here. It begins:
After 33 years on the federal bench and the piano bench, he’s a nationally treasured jurist whose profound opinions and pop-tune piano-playing are celebrated by the highest court in the land.
But U.S. Third District Appeals Chief Judge Edward Becker, who will be 70 on Sunday, still lives in the Northeast Philadelphia house he grew up in and still rides the Frankford El from Northwood to work, where his opinions have impressed everyone from Supreme Court justices to the late South Philly ward leader Buddy Cianfrani.
Ed Becker was my second-cousin-once-removed. That is, his maternal grandmother and my mother were first cousins, descended from a highly respected rabbinical family in Lithuania. I am one of the JAWETZ (also JAWITZ) family’s genealogists and Ed helped me gather information on our Philadelphia branches. He was always kind and helpful. He was my junior by ten years and I would have hoped he’d survive me.
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