NAPLES, FL — A former Saginaw mayor, U.S. representative, and federal judge has died.
U.S. District Judge Russell James Harvey died Saturday, July 20, at his Naples, Florida, home. He was 97.
Harvey, known professionally as R. James Harvey, was born in Iron Mountain on July 4, 1922, to a self-employed logger. His mother had emigrated from England and was a homemaker.
According to research compiled and provided by David Ashenfelter, public information officer for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Harvey graduated from high school in 1940 and enrolled classes at the University of Michigan. Though he planned to become a teacher, he ended up enlisting in the Army Air Corps in 1942, hoping to become a pilot during World War II.
Alas, he “washed out” of flight school, something he described as “one of the saddest days of my life” in an interview with the Historical Society for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan conducted in the 1990s. Nevertheless, Harvey excelled in navigation, attained the rank of first lieutenant and spent a year instructing navigators and bombardiers at Langley Field, Virginia. The war with Japan ended before he could be sent to the Pacific as a navigator on a Boeing B29 Superfortress.
He returned to the University of Michigan and he enrolled in law school on the GI Bill, receiving his law degree in 1948. The same year, he married fellow student June Elizabeth Collins, with whom he had two children, Diane and Thomas.
Harvey in 1949 became an assistant city attorney in Saginaw. In 1955, voters elected him to a two-year term on the Saginaw City Council, followed by a two-year term as the city’s mayor in 1957.
He was elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1960, serving seven terms. In this capacity, he served on the House Banking, Public Works and Interstate and Foreign Commerce, and House Administration committees.
President Richard M. Nixon in 1973 nominated Harvey to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The U.S. Senate confirmed Harvey to the position in December, with him taking the bench in February 1974.
At that time, he hadn’t practiced law in 14 years and had never served as a state judge. Even so, he spent the next 18 years presiding over cases in federal courthouses in Bay City, Flint, Detroit, and Port Huron. Five of those cases ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Arguably the most notable of these five involved Dow Chemical Co. suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for conducting warrantless aerial photography of its plant in Midland. Harvey ruled in Dow’s favor in 1982, saying the EPA’s conduct constituted an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment and violated Dow’s reasonable expectation of privacy. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Harvey and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed.
Some of Harvey’s other noteworthy cases are as follows:
- In 1974, he ordered Michigan recreation officials to allow two 16-year-old girls to play in a slow-pitch softball state championship. State rules required girls to be at least 17 to play, but there was no such age limit for boys. Harvey also dispatched deputy U.S. Marshals to a Dearborn tournament site to prevent anyone from interfering with the girls, the star players of their team.
- In 1977, Harvey ruled the Saginaw County Jail was violating inmates’ rights by denying them regular physical exercise and visits from family members and subjecting them to arbitrary punishment from guards. Harvey gave the county 30 days to come up with a plan to correct the problem.
- In 1979, he sentenced Detroit mob captain Anthony Giacalone, a suspect in the disappearance of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, to 12 years in prison for a loan sharking conspiracy.
- In 1988, the judge upheld the city of Warren’s right to ban an adult bookstore from opening on its south side. The owner said the city violated her constitutional rights; the city said the store’s booths, raised dancing floor, and lighting didn’t comply with the city building code.
- In 1990, Harvey ordered a Southfield man to stop filing federal lawsuits challenging the existence of the state of Michigan. The man had sought $100 million in damages, alleging that the state “creates and maintains a secret conspiracy and racketeering organization of lawyers and judges contrary to the federal Constitution, thereby ending its lawful existence as a state.”
While a judge, Harvey served as vice chair of the National Conference of Federal Trial Judges, on the Board of Visitors of the University of Michigan Law School, and as a member of the Budget Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference. Throughout his lifetime, he also met 10 U.S. presidents.
Harvey went on senior status with a partial caseload in 1984 and retired in 1992, relocating to Naples with his wife. She died in February 2016. Harvey also survived his two children, who died in adulthood. He is survived by four grandchildren.
“Really, I don’t think that in my career I had any breaks, any instances where somebody gave me a break or an opportunity and, as a result of that, I did this or that,” Harvey said in his ‘90s interview with the Historical Society. “Most of the breaks were because I had self-motivation and because I set out to do something and I did it.”
Asked how he would like to be remembered, Harvey said: “As a fair judge.”
Funeral arrangements are pending.