James A. Redden

James Anthony Jim Redden Jr. is a judge and politician from the U.S. state of Oregon. Since 1980, he has served as a District Court Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Oregon he took Senior Status in 1995. Before appointment to the bench, he was a trial attorney, and a career Democratic politician, serving as a legislator and in two of the states constitutional offices, Treasurer and Attorney General. As a politician, he was a key figure in some of Oregons most groundbreaking legislative initiatives, including brokering the deal which brought passage of the states 1967 public beach access law. Many of the cases he has heard in his quarter of a century on the federal bench gained national attention, often sparking controversy, including his dismissal of the 1975 guns and ammunition charges against American Indian Movement leader Dennis Banks, and his more recent 2005 and 2006 decisions halting the Bush administrations plans to reduce spillway flows on the Col

During the days of the Great Depression, Jim Redden was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the third child of James A. Redden, Sr., a dentist, and his wife, Alma. He spent his early childhood in their home on Bronson Terrace at the eastern edge of Forest Park, where for a time his father also maintained his dental office

Source: Wikipedia