Colleagues of retired United States District Judge William M. Acker, Jr., are remembering him this week as a brilliant and compassionate jurist who ruled on a variety of cases during a three-decade career on the federal bench.
He died Thursday. He was 90.
Acker was nominated to the bench for the Northern District of Alabama by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. He retired September 30, 2016 after twenty years as a senior judge, a status that allows judges to handle reduced caseloads.
A native of Birmingham, Acker was a private first class in the Army from 1946 to 1947, before attending Birmingham-Southern College. He then continued to Yale Law School, where he graduated in 1952. Acker worked in private practice in Birmingham until 1982, when he was confirmed to a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.
Acker worked for Reagan's campaign in Alabama in 1976 and again in 1980 and kept a photo of himself with Reagan on a wall inside his courthouse office.
"I loved Reagan as a person," Acker stated in a paper he wrote after the former president's death. "Almost everybody has a hero. Reagan was mine."
Usually wearing a bow tie, Acker continued to show up for work and rule on cases at his office and courtroom in the Hugo Black U.S. Courthouse until 2016, when he was in his late 80s.
U.S. Chief District Judge Karon O Bowdre said Friday that she and the other federal judges have missed Acker since he retired two years ago. "We have all missed his wisdom and humor since he retired. I will never forget his wide grin, the twinkle in his eye, or how he loved to entertain the law clerks and his colleagues with humorous stories of his great adventures."
"Most attorneys who appeared before Judge Acker remember him as a brilliant judge who always pulled something relevant from the law or facts that wasn't easily apparent," Bowdre said.
"When I was in practice and had a hearing before him, I knew I had to be 150 percent prepared and even though I was, he always had a question for which I didn't have an answer. I held him in such high esteem that, when I joined the bench, I was a bit nervous about becoming his colleague. But my first day as a judge, he quickly put me at ease. He walked through my office door with a grin the size of the room and gave me a huge bear hug! That's when I learned that this judge who could be intimidating in court was really a jovial person who truly loved life, the law, and lawyers. He was a wonderful colleague who always had time to share advice or tell a great story."
U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Haikala called Acker "one of a kind."
"I could talk about his kind and compassionate heart (that he sometimes tried to camouflage behind a stern gaze) or his unfailing ability to laugh at himself or his deep concern for his colleagues, but the thing that sets Judge Acker apart is his passion for our democratic government, especially the judicial branch, and his unflinching honesty in his interpretation and application of the law," Haikala said. "He is the quintessential independent jurist, and he cherished every moment that he served as a judge.
"I feel tremendously fortunate to have had the opportunity to get to know Judge Acker. I learned so much from him," said Haikala, who became a federal judge in 2013 after serving as a federal magistrate judge. "I treasure the time that I served with him, and I envy my colleagues who were able to spend more time with him on the bench."
Despite his conservative politics, Acker had friends with those on the other side of the political spectrum. Among those was Oscar Adams, the state's first black Alabama Supreme Court justice.
Acker wrote in an essay that he and Adams tried cases together as lawyers in private practice and that he was the one who nominated Adams to become the first black member to the Birmingham Bar Association.
Birmingham attorney Wayne Morse described Acker as fearless. "Controversy did not faze him," he said. "Somewhere Clarence Darrow is hearing how Judge Acker would have tried the Scopes case as a lawyer."
Acker also didn't always do things like other judges. He never invoked God during courtroom proceedings, according to one Birmingham Post Herald story in 1997. When swearing in jurors Acker never had them declare "so help you God" at the end of the oath. Instead it ended with "under penalty of perjury."
''From the date of investiture in 1982 until today, this court has been constantly embarrassed by its hypocrisy, and the hypocrisy of the other federal courts, in allowing ourselves, while standing imperiously above the crowded courtroom, to be publicly blessed while denying that privilege to little children in public schools,'' Acker wrote in one 1990 opinion.
Acker's notable cases include:
- In 2008 Acker ruled unconstitutional a federal law that assessed punitive damages against retailers that printed too much credit card information on customers' receipts. He dismissed four federal lawsuits that had accused businesses of violating the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act, which banned retailers from showing more than the last five digits of a person's account number or the card's expiration date on a receipt. He wrote in an opinion that the law, which was passed in 2003, is ''on its face and its application to these defendants, a bomb that has already exploded or is sure so to explode that it needs defusing.''
- In 2012 he ordered a historic Navy plane be forfeited to federal authorities, who say it was brought into the country illegally. He ordered the Douglas AD-4N Skyrader aircraft, its log books, four 20 mm M3 aircraft cannons and assorted aircraft parts be forfeited to the government.
- In 1997 he ruled against the practice of politicians making get-out-the-vote calls on the basis of race, a decision he said could affect everything from advertising to Shakespeare. Acker ruled that a Birmingham marketing firm working for the re-election of then-Gov. Jim Folsom violated federal anti-discrimination laws in 1994 by having black workers exclusively call blacks voters and white workers telephone only whites. The law ''might well prevent advertisers from employing, based on race, actors to solicit products to a certain group.'' ''It might even go so far as preventing the exclusive hiring of black actors to play such roles as Othello,'' he wrote. ''Nevertheless, this is the state of law, and this court has found no authority to the contrary.''
- In 1994 he sentenced a man described as a ''rabid'' sports fan to two years of probation and community service for his guilty plea to illegally intercepting a letter about former Alabama football star Antonio Langham's dealings with an agent.
- In 1995 he sentenced former state Rep. Pat Davis to five years and three months in prison for her conviction for extorting $19,200 from United Mine Workers official John Stewart.
- In 1996 he declared Alabama's state school board districts unconstitutional and ordered them redrawn.
- In the 1990s he presided over a lawsuit by two women Birmingham police officers who say they were punished by then police chief Arthur Deutcsh after publicly complaining about corruption in the department. A federal jury ruled in their favor and ordered Deutcsh and a police captain to pay the women more than $311,000, but Acker ordered the city pay the damages. A federal appeals court in 2000 overturned the jury verdict and Acker's ruling.
But one of the highly publicized cases Acker will most be remembered for is one in which he and U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon fought Jefferson County's attempt in the 1980s and 1990s to collect occupational taxes on their income. The judges eventually lost at the Eleventh Circuit and Alabama Supreme Court.
In 1997 he made news nationwide when he recused himself from all government cases after the U.S. Justice Department got involved in his legal battle with Jefferson County.
Before becoming a judge, one of the most notable cases he handled as a lawyer was one in which he sued on behalf of his wife and neighbors to stop the daily lunchtime chimes at the Protective Life Insurance Company building at Office Park, between the cities of Mountain Brook and Homewood, near their home. They claimed the chimes were a nuisance.
A judge said the chimes were not a nuisance. And while the Alabama Supreme Court in 1977 agreed, it also noted "We most strenuously emphasize, however, that even 'bells sweetly ringing' may, under proper circumstances, constitute an actionable nuisance; for, surely, what is 'music' to one ear may well be 'noise' to another."
Details of a memorial service or funeral for Acker have not been announced.
AL.com reporter Ivana Hrynkiw contributed to this report