Diane Wood

Diane Pamela Wood
File:Diane Wood in 2008.JPG Wood in 2008
Judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
Incumbent
Assumed office 1995
Nominated by	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	William Joseph Bauer
Personal details
Born	(1950-07-04) July 4, 1950 Plainfield, New Jersey
Nationality	United States
Spouse(s)	Robert L. Sufit (m. 2006) Dennis J. Hutchinson (m. 1978, div. 1998) Steve Van (m. and div. in early 1970s)
Alma mater	University of Texas at Austin University of Texas School of Law

Diane Pamela Wood (born July 4, 1950) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.

Wood was born in Plainfield, New Jersey. When she was young, she moved with her family to Texas, where her mother still lives. Wood graduated with a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin's Plan II Honors program in 1971. She earned her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 1975, where she was an editor of the Texas Law Review, graduated with high honors and Order of the Coif, and was among the first women at the University of Texas admitted as a member of the Friar Society. Wood then clerked for Judge Irving Goldberg of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from 1975 to 1976 and for Associate Justice Harry Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1976 to 1977. She was among the first women to clerk at the Supreme Court.

After working in private practice and the Executive Branch, Wood became the third woman ever hired as a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Wood was nominated to the Seventh Circuit by President Bill Clinton on March 31, 1995. She was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate and received her commission on June 30, 1995. Wood is considered an intellectual counterweight to the Seventh Circuit's conservative heavyweights, Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook.

Recently, many commentators have called Wood a leading candidate for nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama. She was a candidate to replace Justice David Souter when he retired, though that seat went to Sonia Sotomayor, and many commentators say that she has another chance to be named now that Justice John Paul Stevens has decided to retire after the current Term ends in 2010.

Early life

Diane Pamela Wood was born on July 4, 1950, in Plainfield, New Jersey to Lucille Padmore Wood and Kenneth Reed Wood. Wood lived in nearby Westfield, New Jersey, where her father was an accountant at Exxon, and her mother worked for the Washington Rock Girl Scout Council. She is the middle of three children; she has an older sister Judy and a younger brother Bob. When Wood was sixteen, Exxon transferred her father’s job to Houston, Texas, and the family moved there. In 1968, Wood graduated as valedictorian from Westchester High School in Houston.

College and law school

Wood went on to the University of Texas at Austin, in the Plan II Honors program. In May 1971, after three years of study, Wood earned a B.A. with highest honors and special honors in English. At the time, she intended to go on to graduate studies in comparative literature. However, she decided to go to law school instead, and enrolled in the University of Texas School of Law in 1972. During law school, Wood was an editor of the Texas Law Review and a member of the Women's Legal Caucus. Wood earned her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 1975, graduating at the top of her class with high honors and Order of the Coif.

Professional career

Wood clerked for Judge Irving Goldberg of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from 1975 to 1976 and for Associate Justice Harry Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1976 to 1977. Wood was one of the first women to serve as a law clerk for a Supreme Court Justice. After clerking at the Supreme Court, Wood was an attorney-advisor for the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State from 1977 to 1978. From 1978 to 1980, she practiced at the law firm Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.

Wood began her teaching career as an assistant professor of law at Georgetown University from 1980 to 1981. In 1981, Wood settled in Chicago and joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School. She was the third woman ever hired as a law professor at the University of Chicago and the only woman on the faculty when she began in 1981. Wood served as Professor of Law from 1989-1992, Associate Dean from 1990-1995, and (as the first woman to be honored with a named chair) the Harold J. and Marion F. Green Professor of International Legal Studies from 1992-1995. Since her appointment to the Seventh Circuit, Wood has continued to teach at the University of Chicago Law School as a Senior Lecturer in Law, along with fellow Seventh Circuit judges Frank Easterbrook and Richard Posner.

Wood was a special assistant to the Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1985 to 1987. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for international, appellate, and policy in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.

Wood holds memberships in the American Law Institute and the American Society of International Law. She is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves on its Midwest Council. In the past, she was also a member of the American Bar Association. She has served on the governing councils of the ABA’s Section of Antitrust Law and its Section of International Law and Practice. Wood has pursued various law reform projects through the American Bar Association and the Brookings Institution Project on Civil Justice Reform. She was also instrumental in developing the University of Chicago’s first policy on sexual harassment. She has been a member of Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women.

Federal judicial service

Wood was nominated by President Bill Clinton on March 31, 1995, to a seat vacated when William Joseph Bauer took senior status. She was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate and received her commission on June 30, 1995. Wood became the second woman ever to sit on the Seventh Circuit. On the bench, Wood is known for building consensus on the court and rallying other judges around her positions. Neil A. Lewis has called Wood an “unflinching and spirited intellectual counterweight" to the Seventh Circuit's well-known conservative heavyweights, Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook.

Wood is considered a likely candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court in an Obama Administration. Speculation that she might be appointed intensified after Justice David Souter's retirement announcement, and Wood was the first candidate interviewed for the post by President Obama, who met with her at the White House while she was visiting from Chicago. Since Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he would retire at the end of October Term 2009, Wood's name was again widely put forward as a likely replacement.

Noteworthy rulings

• Bayo v. Napolitano, No. 07-1069 (7th Cir. Jan. 20, 2010) (en banc). The Visa Waiver Program allows citizens of 35 countries to travel to the United States for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa. In exchange for this benefit, people entering the United States under the terms of the program must sign a document waiving their rights to contest deportation, including the right to a hearing on the issue. Bayo claimed that he had not understood the waiver that he signed. A panel of the Seventh Circuit, which did not include Wood, decided that Bayo was entitled to relief. The Seventh Circuit voted to rehear the case en banc. Wood wrote the opinion for the unanimous en banc court. First, Wood reinforced the principle that an alien’s waiver of constitutional due process rights to which the alien would otherwise be entitled must be done in a manner that is both knowing and voluntary. Second, Wood wrote that, despite this due process protection, the government is entitled to rely upon any valid, existing ground to remove an alien illegally in the United States.

• Bloch v. Frischholz, 533 F.3d 562 (7th Cir. 2008) (Wood, J., dissenting): An observant Jewish family affixed their mezuzah (a small religious symbol required by rabbinical law) to the outer doorpost of their condominium unit. The condo association repeatedly removed the mezuzah, and the family sued, asserting that this was intentional discrimination based on their religion and ethnicity, in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The majority the Seventh Circuit panel held that the Fair Housing Act does not apply when someone has already acquired a property by rent or sale and that the condo association was enforcing a neutral rule so the law did not require accommodation of religion. Wood dissented because there was sufficient evidence of intentional discrimination to allow the plaintiffs to proceed to a trial. After the panel decision issued, the Seventh Circuit reheard the case en banc and unanimously reversed the panel majority. Wood’s dissenting opinion, highly protective of the right to free exercise of religion, became the unanimous opinion of the Seventh Circuit. Bloch v. Frischholz, 587 F.3d 771 (7th Cir. 2009). Two judges who initially opposed Wood’s position joined the unanimous court.

• Germano v. International Profit Association, 544 F.3d 798 (7th Cir. 2008): Invoking the Americans with Disabilities Act, Michael Germano sued a company that he believed had rejected his job application because of his severe hearing impairment. Although the company welcomed Germano’s application initially, the company refused to hire him after it became aware of his hearing disability during a phone conversation that was conducted using a telecommunications relay service. The lower court decided that conversations conducted with a communications assistant, which Germano hoped to introduce, were hearsay and therefore inadmissible at trial. Wood decided that a communications assistant was the equivalent of a foreign-language interpreter, and therefore a party tying to keep such testimony out had to point to evidence that it was unreliable. Wood remanded the case, instructing that Germano should have a chance to present his side of the story to the lower court because any other ruling would undermine Congress’s intent to place persons with hearing impairments on a level playing field with others. Multiple treatises have cited Wood’s opinion on this point

• United States v. Thompson, 484 F.3d 877 (7th Cir. 2007) (joining opinion of Easterbrook, J.): Georgia Thompson was convicted of corruption charges in a 2006 case, but was released by a unanimous panel of the Seventh Circuit on the same day that oral argument was heard. The panel, including Wood, felt this unprecedented move was necessary given that the government's evidence was extraordinarily thin.

• United States v. Warner & Ryan, 498 F.3d 666 (7th Cir. 2007): Former Illinois Governor George Ryan and his associate Lawrence Warner appealed after they were convicted under the federal mail fraud statute and the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The underlying charges were based on corruption in the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office during the time when former Governor Ryan held that position. Major contracts and leases were steered to Warner-controlled entities. Wood, over one dissenting vote, affirmed both convictions. She found that the lower court had acted within its discretion to handle difficult evidentiary and jury issues during the six-month trial. Wood also framed an important new interpretation of the RICO statute, deciding that because two of Illinois’s most powerful executive offices and its electoral process had been used to defraud its citizens, the State of Illinois itself could be considered a RICO enterprise for purposes of the RICO conspiracy prosecution. Finally, Wood also concluded that the federal mail fraud statute – a law that makes it a crime for elected officials to deprive citizens of their intangible right to honest services – was not unconstitutionally vague. This Term, the Supreme Court is considering three challenges to the federal mail fraud statute.

• Jiang v. Gonzales, 485 F.3d 992 (7th Cir. 2007) (joining opinion by Evans, J.).

• Walker v. O'Brien, 216 F.3d 626 (7th Cir. 2000): Wood, writing for the panel, held that the requirements of the Prison Litigation Reform Act do not apply to properly characterized habeas corpus actions because those actions are not “civil actions” within the meaning of the Act.

• St. John's United Church of Christ v. City of Chicago, 502 F.3d 616 (7th Cir. 2007): Wood, writing for the majority, held that the O'Hare Modernization Act’s amendment of the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act did not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment because it was a law of general applicability that did not target the plaintiff Church.

• National Organization for Women v. Scheidler, 267 F.3d 687 (7th Cir. 2001) and 396 F.3d 807 (7th Cir. 2005); see also National Organization of Women v. Scheidler, 510 U.S. 249 (1994) (permitting case to go forward under RICO); 537 U.S. 393 (2003) (reversing 267 F.3d 687, construing extortion predicate to RICO violations); 547 U.S. 9 (2006) (construing Hobbs Act and holding that physical violence is not covered): Wood, writing for the panel, held that the district court did not err in concluding that the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act authorized private plaintiffs to seek injunctive relief. In addition, the court recognized the First Amendment protected the rights of abortion protesters. Wood wrote:

  Protection of politically controversial speech is at the core of the First Amendment, and no one disputes that the defendants' speech labeling abortion as murder, urging the clinics to get out of the abortion business, and urging clinics patients not to seek abortions is fully protected by the First Amendment.

  However, Wood held that the injunction issued by the district court, which prohibited violent conduct by protesters, struck a proper balance and avoided any risk of curtailing activities protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court reversed. 537 U.S. 393 (2003). Many have misinterpreted the decision as one primarily concerned with the rights of abortion protesters, but Supreme Court commentators clarify, "Wood’s opinion was a judgment primarily about injunctive relief and the breadth of the racketeering statute, not on the right to provide an abortion or to protest."

• Illinois ex rel. Ryan v. Brown, 227 F.3d 1042 (7th Cir. 2000): Wood, writing for the panel, held that the State of Illinois itself, rather than taxpayer plaintiffs, was the correct party to sue under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to recover losses stemming from a corrupt loan to public official.

• Fornalik v. Perryman, 223 F.3d 523 (7th Cir. 2000): Wood, writing for the panel, held that an Immigration and Naturalization Service district office order putting a minor alien in deferred status pending an application to proceed as an abused child of a visa recipient under the Violence Against Women Act took precedence over an earlier removal order issued by another INS district office.

• Goldwasser v. Ameritech Corp., 222 F.3d 390 (7th Cir. 2000): Customers of Ameritech, a major telecommunications provider, sued the company under the antitrust laws. They argued that Ameritech had monopolized the market by failing to meet its obligations under the Act to assist competitors by, for example, giving those competitors access to their network. Wood noted that even a monopolist has no affirmative duty to help its competitors. Looking carefully at the complaint, Wood concluded that the plaintiffs had alleged only that Ameritech had violated the Telecommunications Act, which was not enough to show that the antitrust laws have been violated. The opinion displays great deference to Congress’s comprehensive scheme to deregulate the telecommunications market. Four years later, the position that Wood took in Goldwasser about the relationship among these laws was expressly approved in the Supreme Court’s decision in Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP., 540 U.S. 398 (2004).

• Toys "R" Us, Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission, 221 F.3d 928 (7th Cir. 2000): The Federal Trade Commission determined that the toy retailer Toys "R" Us had violated the FTC Act and federal antitrust laws by pressuring toy manufacturers not to sell to discount warehouses. In the FTC's view, Toys "R" Us had committed two different violations: it had organized a horizontal cartel among the toy manufacturers, and it formed a network of vertical agreements with individual manufacturers that flunked scrutiny under the antitrust law's rule of reason. Recognizing the FTC's broad discretion in such matters, Wood affirmed the FTC's finding of a violation as well as its remedial decree, but she did so only ont he ground that Toys "R" Us had arranged unlawful horizontal restraints that were against the interests of top manufacturers, discount warehouses, and consumers. Wood declined to adopt the more controversial conclusion that the vertical agreements between manufacturers are retailers have an adverse effect on competition. Wood's vast understanding of antitrust and business law are on display in this opinion.

• Solid Waste Agency v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, 191 F.3d 845 (1999): Wood, writing for the panel, held that the decision to regulate isolated waters based on their actual use as a habitat by migratory birds was within Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court reversed the decision. 531 U.S. 159 (2001).

• Smith v. Sheahan 189 F.3d 529 (7th Cir. 1999).

Writings

Wood has written extensively in various areas of the law, and a full bibliography can be found at the University of Chicago Law School website. Some representative works include:

• The Changing Face of Diversity Jurisdiction, Temple L. Rev. (forthcoming 2010) (initially given as the Arlin M. and Neysa Adams Lecture, October 2009).
• Trade Regulation: Cases and Materials, Casebook (with Robert Pitofsky & Harvey J. Goldschmid) (4th ed. 1997 to 6th ed. 2010).
• The Bedrock of Individual Rights in Times of Natural Disaster, 51 Howard L.J. 747 (2008).
• ‘Original Intent’ Versus ‘Evolution’, The Scrivener 7 (Summer 2005) (also published in Green Bag Almanac & Reader 267 (2007)).
• Our 18th Century Constitution in the 21st Century World, 80 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1079 (2005).
• Reflections on the Judicial Oath, 8 Green Bag 2d 177 (2005).
• The Rule of Law in Times of Stress, 70 U. Chi. L. Rev. 455 (2003).
• International Harmonization of Antitrust Law: The Tortoise or the Hare?, 3 Chi. J. Int’l L. 391 (2002).
• Sex Discrimination in Life and Law, 1999 U. Chi. Legal F. 1.
• Generalist Judges in a Specialized World, 50 SMU L. Rev. 1755 (1997).
• The Impossible Dream: Real International Antitrust, 1992 U. Chi. Legal F. 277.
• ‘Unfair’ Trade Injury: A Competition-Based Approach, 41 Stanford L. Rev. 1153 (1989).
• Class Actions: Joinder or Representational Device?, 1983 Supreme Court Rev. 459.

Personal

Wood is married to Robert L. Sufit, a professor of neurology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, to whom she was introduced by her fellow Seventh Circuit Judge Ilana Rovner. She previously was married in 1978 to Dennis Hutchinson, a professor at the University of Chicago School of Law. Wood married her first husband, Steve Van, while both were students in law school. Wood has three children with Hutchinson and three stepchildren. She plays oboe and English horn in the North Shore Chamber Orchestra in Evanston, Illinois and in the Chicago Bar Association Symphony Orchestra in Chicago, Illinois.

Wood lives in Hinsdale, Illinois.

She is Protestant.

See also

• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
• Barack Obama Supreme Court candidates

External links

• Photos of Judge Wood, The University of Chicago