Susan Yvonne Illston

American judge (born 1948)

Susan Yvonne Illston (born 1948) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California . She was nominated by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1995. She assumed senior status in 2013.

Education and career

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Illston was born in Tokyo , Japan, raised in the military & attended Fort Knox High School. She graduated from Duke University , receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1970 & she received a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1973. Prior to her appointment, Illston worked in private practice first as an associate, then as a partner, at Cotchett, Illston & Pitre in Burlingame , California from 1973 to 1995.

Federal judicial service

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On the recommendations of Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein , Illston was nominated by President Bill Clinton on January 23, 1995 and confirmed by the Senate on May 25, 1995 by voice vote , receiving her commission the following day.

She took senior status on July 1, 2013.

Notable cases

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DiLoreto v. Downey

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Sitting by designation of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals , in 1999 Illston wrote the panel decision in DiLoreto v. Downey Unified School District Board of Education, 196 F.3d 958 (9th Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 529 U.S. 1067 (2000), which held that an athletic fence which a public high school made available for commercial advertising is a nonpublic forum from which religious messages could be excluded without violating the First Amendment .

321 Studios v. Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, Inc.

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In February 2004, Illston ruled in _321 Studios v. Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, Inc. _ that the company's software, which was intended, according to the company, to allow consumers to make backup copies of DVDs by "circumventing" so-called "copy protection " methods, was illegal under Federal law. She issued an injunction at the behest of several Hollywood studios and ordered 321 Studios to stop selling their product. However, despite finding that the software violated Federal law, she ruled that copies made by consumers (of their own legally purchased DVDs) were, in fact, legal. She wrote in her opinion, "It is the technology itself at issue, not the uses to which the copyrighted material may be put...Legal downstream use of the copyrighted material by customers is not a defense to the software manufacturer's violation of the provisions [of copyright law]."

US v. Arnold

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In August 2006, Illston sentenced Patrick Arnold, a chemist who developed an undetectable performance-enhancing drug for BALCO , to three months in prison.

US v. Bonds

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In March 2009, Illston presided over a perjury case involving Barry Bonds .

Kyriacou v. Peralta Community College Dist.

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In April 2009, Illston ruled that two students who were threatened with suspension by their community college, the College of Alameda , could sue the school for free speech infringement.

Center for Biological Diversity v. Bureau of Land Management (2006 and 2021 cases)

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In October 2009, (case 3:06-cv-04884-SI) Judge Illston ruled in favor of environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity , that sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over a 5,000 mile expansion of off-roading trails in California 's Mojave Desert . Illston found that the BLM had violated its own regulations when it designated the routes in 2006 without adequately analyzing the impacts on air quality, soils, plant communities and sensitive species such as the endangered Mojave fringe-toed lizard . Illston called the BLM's plan "flawed because it does not contain a reasonable range of alternatives" to limit damage to sensitive habitat and pointed out that the desert and its resources are "extremely fragile, easily scarred, and slowly healed." The court also found that the BLM had failed to follow route restrictions established in the agency’s own conservation plan, resulting in the establishment of hundreds of illegal off roading routes during the past three decades. Illston ruled that the plan specifically violated the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA).

The Bureau of Land Management was required, as a result of the lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity, to prepare a new inventory of routes and to reconsider the routes that would be

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Judicial Career

Biography