Hans A. Linde, a retired justice on the Oregon Supreme Court who achieved a national reputation for his work on state constitutional law and other legal topics, died Monday. He was 96.
“Hans was, by far, the most nationally prominent Oregon law professor or judge ever,” said Tom Balmer, former chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court.
During Linde’s long law career, he was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and a professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, as well as a Fulbright lecturer in Germany.
In 1977, Linde was sworn in as a justice for the Oregon Supreme Court, where he served until 1990.
“While many lawyers, judges, and law professors tend to think narrowly, Hans thought broadly and creatively,” Balmer said. “He looked at things from different perspectives.”
Balmer said that Linde’s work on the independent importance of state constitutions, a subject he began writing about 50 years ago, was “hugely influential around the country.”
Charles Hinkle, senior counsel at the Portland-based law firm Stoel Rives, called Linde “a brilliant scholar.”
Among the important opinions Linde wrote while on the Supreme Court, Hinkle said, was Sterling v. Cupp (1981), which clarified “the rights of prisoners to be free from ’unnecessary rigor’ during their confinement, including freedom from invasion of personal bodily privacy by guards of the opposite sex.”
Hinkle added that Linde had “a prickly personality.”
“Even in formal writings, he could resort to mockery, sarcasm, and personal attacks directed against people who disagreed with him,” Hinkle said.
That side of Linde’s personality didn’t stop him from being widely admired.
“He was also the ‘intellectual godfather’ of the revival of state constitutional law,” said Gov. Kate Brown in a statement, “a pioneer of Oregon’s constitutional doctrines governing the rights of prisoners, search and seizure, equality of treatment, and free expression, to name just a few.”
“I will miss his intellectual leadership and his compassionate spirit,” the governor added.
Linde was born in Germany in 1924. In 1933, his Jewish family moved to Denmark and in 1939 to Portland to escape the Nazis.
In Portland, Linde attended Lincoln High School.
Linde served in the U.S. Army during World War II. When he returned, he attended Reed College. He graduated from the University of California Berkeley Law School in 1950.
Linde married Helen Tucker in 1945 and the couple had two children, Lisa and David.
“Our father and grandfather lived a life few of us can imagine,” his family said in a statement.
“From being a Jewish child in Nazi Germany, to coming to Portland after having read about it in a book, to serving in the American Army in World War II, to clerking for Justice William O. Douglas, to teaching generations of Oregonians to becoming a Justice on the Oregon Supreme Court,” the family said, “he is a portrait of the American dream and instilled in us an unwavering dedication to ensuring all Americans and those who want to become Americans have the same opportunities afforded to him.”
The family is holding a small, private memorial. They said they will hold something more public when it is safe to gather again.
-- Lizzy Acker
503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker
Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.