Harlington Wood jr

(Redirected from Harlington Wood Jr )

American judge

Harlington Wood Jr. (April 17, 1920 – December 29, 2008) was an American lawyer , jurist , political figure and an amateur actor . He served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1976 until his death in 2008, after earlier serving as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois . He was considered one of the country's leading legal historians on the life and legacy of former lawyer and United States President Abraham Lincoln , but is perhaps best known for his involvement as an Assistant Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice in two separate Native American armed protests: the first being the occupation at Alcatraz Island , in San Francisco Bay , from 1969 through the summer of 1971, and the second being the Wounded Knee incident in 1973 at Wounded Knee , South Dakota . His accomplishments and impact as both jurist and statesman included participation in many recent events around the world, which he circled three times, including Russia , Outer Mongolia , Europe , Cambodia , Greenland , China , Japan and South America .

Early life and education

[(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harlington_Wood_Jr.&action=edit&section=1 "Edit section: Early life and education")
]

Wood was born in Springfield , Illinois , the son of Harlington Wood Sr., a lawyer who also served as a Sangamon County , Illinois, judge for sixteen years. He earned his Artium Baccalaureus degree in 1942 from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign . He served in the United States Army during World War II , attaining the rank of Major , and was present at the signing of the surrender of Tomoyuki Yamashita and Vice Admiral Denhici Okochi, Commander of the Japanese Navy in the Philippines, where they gave up the entire Imperial Japanese Armed Forces to American authorities at the High Commissioner's Residence in Camp John Hay in Baguio, Philippines on September 3, 1945, marking the end of World War II .[_citation needed
_] Upon returning from the Pacific, Wood entered law school at the University of Illinois College of Law at Champaign , graduating in 1948 with a Juris Doctor . After passing the bar , he went into private practice in Springfield, Illinois, with his father, from 1948 to 1958.

Legal career

[(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harlington_Wood_Jr.&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: Legal career")
]

In 1958, Wood was appointed United States Attorney for the southern district of Illinois by President Dwight D. Eisenhower . He returned to private practice in Springfield, from 1961 to 1968. In 1969 he was named Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys in the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. In 1972 he was appointed Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice by President Richard Nixon . During his time in the Department of Justice he was given many special assignments specifically dealing with issues of peacekeeping in locations around the United States: Wounded Knee; Culebra ; Alcatraz; anti-war demonstrations in Washington, D.C. ; and national political nominating conventions in Miami , Florida .

Wounded Knee

[(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harlington_Wood_Jr.&action=edit&section=3 "Edit section: Wounded Knee")
]

Main article: Wounded Knee incident

On Feb. 27, 1973, almost two hundred armed Oglala Sioux from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation with members of an activist group, the American Indian Movement (AIM), took over the reservation town of Wounded Knee, the site of a massacre in 1890 of three hundred Sioux by American soldiers. Their stated intent was to focus attention to what they considered government mistreatment of Indians, corruption within the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the tribal government 's complicity in discrimination. United States marshals and American troops subsequently surrounded the town, and for ten weeks the two sides traded intermittent gunfire, and two Sioux were killed. On March 13, Wood — then assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the US Justice Department — became the first govern

…