Aleta Arthur Trauger

Aleta Mae Grillos Arthur Trauger : 0:1:06  (born December 9, 1945) is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee . As of May 1, 2024, her rulings have set 117 precedents of case law.

Contents

• 1 Education and career

  • 1.1 Federal judicial service

• 2 Notable cases

• 3 Honors

• 4 References

Education and career

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Trauger was born in Denver, Colorado . She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Cornell College in 1968, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Vanderbilt University in 1972, and a Juris Doctor from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1976.

She was a law clerk and associate in private practice at Barrett Brandt & Barrett in Tennessee from 1974 to 1977. She began working there while a first-year law student. In late 1977, U.S. Attorney Hal Hardin hired her as a federal prosecutor; she served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee from 1977 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1982, serving in the Northern District of Illinois from 1979 to 1980.

In 1981, alongside Bob Lynch Jr, she prosecuted former Tennessee Governor Leonard Ray Blanton for extortion , conspiracy , and mail fraud

relating to Blanton's sale of liquor licenses to his friends. Trauger has credited this case with establishing her reputation and credibility in a male-dominated profession.

She was in private practice from 1983 to 1984, and again from 1984 to 1985, returning to private practice from 1985 to 1991. In 1983, Trauger worked as in-house legal counsel for the College of Charleston , the first person to hold the position.

She was one of the founding members of the Tennessee Lawyers' Association for Women, established July 7, 1989.

Trauger served as Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen 's first chief of staff in 1991, leaving the position when she and husband Byron Trauger adopted a baby.

Federal judicial service

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From 1993 to 1998, she was a United States bankruptcy judge for the Middle District of Tennessee.

On September 22, 1998, President Bill Clinton nominated Trauger to a seat on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee vacated by Judge John Trice Nixon . She was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 21, 1998, and received her commission on October 22, 1998. This made her the first female U.S. District Judge in the Middle District of Tennessee.

Notable cases

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On March 22, 2000, Trauger heard her first case from the District bench involving the death penalty . In the case of _State of Tennessee v. Robert Glen Coe _, Trauger issued a stay a mere 16 hours prior to his scheduled execution. Coe's attorneys had claimed he was not mentally competent, but did not prove that to Trauger's satisfaction, so she lifted the stay. The Tennessee Supreme Court then issued a decree setting Coe's execution date for April 5, 2000; Tennessee had not executed an inmate since 1960 when the case came before Trauger.

On March 14, 2014, in the case Tanco, et al. v. Haslam, et al., Trauger issued a preliminary injunction ordering Tennessee to recognize the marriages of three same-sex couples consummated out-of-state. In her ruling, Trauger did not directly hold Tennessee's ban unconstitutional , but stated that, "At some point in the future, likely with the benefit of additional precedent from circuit courts and, perhaps, the Supreme Court , the court will be asked to make a final ruling on the plaintiffs’ claims. At this point, all signs indicate that, in the eyes of the United States Constitution , the plaintiffs’ marriages will be placed on an equal footing with those of heterosexual couples and that proscriptions against same-sex marriage will soon become a footnote in the annals of [American history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States "History of the United States"

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