John G. Davies, Rodney King Judge and Olympic Medalist, Dies at 90

“It takes a lot of courage for a judge who sits and sees the facts up close through a microscope to do the right thing in the face of this kind of pressure,” Marvin L. Rudnick, a former federal prosecutor, told The New York Times when the sentences were handed down. “Judge Davies is that kind of judge.”

Appointed by President Ronald Reagan, Judge Davies delivered rulings in other pivotal cases during his tenure, from 1986 to 1998.

In 1991, he declared that an anti-obscenity clause in grants by the National Endowment for the Arts was unconstitutional because it amounted to an “obstacle in the path of the exercise of fundamental speech rights that the Constitution will not tolerate.”

The clause, which has since been removed, had been challenged by the Bella Lewitzky Dance Foundation in Los Angeles. The dance company manager signed an application form saying it had complied with the terms of the grant, but crossed out the anti-obscenity restriction.

In 1996, Judge Davies overturned the California conviction of Charles H. Keating Jr., the chief defendant in the 1980s savings-and-loan scandal, on the grounds that the state trial judge, Lance A. Ito, had given flawed instructions to the jury. Mr. Keating remained imprisoned on federal charges, which were also later overturned, but he admitted to wire and bankruptcy fraud in 1999 and was sentenced to time served.

In 1998, Judge Davies mediated a settlement under which Merrill Lynch Company agreed to pay $400 million to Orange County, Calif., to settle claims that the Wall Street brokerage firm helped drive the affluent county into bankruptcy by giving it reckless investment advice. The county had filed a civil suit against the company, but the District Court’s rules required mediation before trial.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/obituaries/john-g-davies-dead.html