DAVID HAMILTON

• Served as a District Court judge in Indiana during the Clinton administration
• Struck down a provision requiring that abortion clinics provide women with information about alternatives to abortion 18 hours before the procedure was to take place
• Ruled that the Indiana State Legislature should not be permitted to open its sessions with Christian prayers
• Ruled against an amendment requiring convicted sex offenders to provide law-enforcement authorities with personal information
• Was selected by President Barack Obama to sit on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
• Board member of the Indiana Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union
• Fundraiser for ACORN

Born in 1957 in Bloomington, Indiana, David Hamilton is a nephew of former Democrat congressman Lee H. Hamilton. David was raised in southern Indiana and went on to earn a bachelor's degree from Haverford College in 1979 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1983. He also did graduate work as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Tübingen in Germany.

From 1983 to 1984, Hamilton worked as a law clerk for Judge Richard Dickson Cudahy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Next, he spent five years in private practice at the Indianapolis-based law firm of Barnes & Thornburg. From 1989 to 1991, he served as legal counsel to Indiana Governor Evan Bayh.

Hamilton then returned to Barnes & Thornburg as a partner until 1994, when he was nominated by President Bill Clinton to serve as a federal judge for a District Court in Indiana. Though Hamilton had no previous judicial experience and the American Bar Association rated him as “not qualified,” the U.S. Senate approved the selection.

During his tenure as a federal judge, Hamilton issued a number of controversial rulings. In 2003, for example, he struck down a provision known as the “informed-consent law,” which required abortion clinics to provide women with information about alternatives to abortion 18 hours before they were scheduled to undergo the procedure. Hamilton proclaimed the law unconstitutional -- even though the Supreme Court had upheld a materially identical law in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision. The Seventh Circuit court subsequently overturned Hamilton's decision and issued a strongly worded rebuke, noting that “No court anywhere in the country has held any similar law invalid...”

In November 2005, Hamilton ruled that the Indiana State Legislature should not be permitted to open its sessions with Christian prayers. Ordering that all invocations offered in the Legislature should “refrain from using Christ’s name or title,” he argued that the use of such terms would amount to promoting the Christian religion and thus run afoul of the First Amendment. "All are free to pray as they wish in their own houses of worship or in other settings," he said. "Those who wish to participate in a practice of official prayer must be willing to stay within constitutional bounds."

But while Hamilton judged the use of Christ’s name in the Legislature to be unlawfully “sectarian,” he saw no problem if a Muslim cleric should choose to invoke the name of “Allah.” Hamilton reasoned as follows:

“The Arabic word ‘Allah’ is used for ‘God’ in Arabic translations of Jewish and Christian scriptures. If those offering prayers in the Indiana House of Representatives choose to use the Arabic Allah, the Spanish Dios, the German Gott, the French Dieu, the Swedish Gud, the Greek Theos, the Hebrew Elohim, the Italian Dio, or any other language’s terms in addressing the God ... the court sees little risk that the choice of language would advance a particular religion or disparage others.”

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals again overturned Hamilton's decision.

In 2008 Hamilton ruled that an amendment to an Indiana state law requiring convicted sex offenders to provide law-enforcement authorities with personal information (such as e-email addresses or online user names) was unconstitutional. Said Hamilton: “The ability of the individual to retreat into his home and therefore to be free from unreasonable intrusion by the government stands at the very core” of constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.

On March 17, 2009, President Barack Obama selected Hamilton to sit on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, an important Chicago-based bench whose jurisdiction extends over Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. People for the American Way called Hamilton “an ideal choice” for the Seventh Circuit seat.

Hamilton is a board member of the Indiana Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and a fundraiser for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

Hamilton's brother, John, is married to Dawn Johnsen, whom President-elect Obama nominated (in November 2008) to serve as assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department.


Much of this profile is adapted from the article "The President's Radical Court Pick," written by By Vasko Kohlmayer and published by FrontPageMag.com on April 30, 2009.