U. S. Judge John T. Elfvin, 91, dies
Known for doing things his way
John T. Elfvin, a retired judge who was long known as a rebel in the federal court system, died Tuesday afternoon in a Lancaster nursing home. He was 91.
Judge Elfvin, whose 33-year judicial career was rocked by several controversies, was appointed by President Gerald R. Ford in 1974. He carried a heavy caseload until age 90, retiring in October 2007 after a series of medical problems.
Admired by colleagues for his work ethic and wry sense of humor, Judge Elfvin was also known for doing things entirely his way, a quality that sometimes got him into trouble.
“He sometimes made decisions that were a little unconventional, but he was a very scholarly, hard-working judge,” said Richard J. Arcara, the chief federal judge in Western New York. “He didn’t always take the safe course. He did things his own way because he loved the law. He did what he thought was right.”
“He had his critics because he was independent,” added Buffalo attorney
Paul J. Cambria, who practiced before Elfvin many times. “He didn’t march in lock step with everyone else. He was an independent thinker and had the guts to express it.”
His former judicial assistant and close family friend, Rosalie Zavarella, said Judge Elfvin also was a down-to-earth man who had a great sense of humor about all things, including himself.
“He never closed his door to anybody,” she said Tuesday. “He was a wonderful man and a great friend . . . more than a boss.”
Judge Elfvin is survived by the former Peggy Pierce, his wife since 1960. He supported and sometimes assisted his wife during her decades of extensive volunteer service to Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
He was born June 30, 1917, in Montour Falls, near Watkins Glen.
Judge Elfvin graduated first in his law school class at Georgetown University Law Center in 1947. He then moved to Buffalo to work in private practice and later went into politics, serving on the Common Council and Erie County Board of Supervisors, the forerunner of the County Legislature.
In 1972, then-President Richard M. Nixon named him U. S. attorney, the region’s top federal prosecutor. Two years later, he became a federal judge.
During his decades on the bench, Judge Elfvin tangled repeatedly with prosecutors and occasionally made headlines with his controversial actions inside and outside the courtroom.
His most controversial case was the protracted legal battle over the bloody 1971 revolt by prisoners in Attica Correctional Facility. Attorneys for former inmates complained bitterly about his rulings. They especially criticized him for taking a Barbados vacation in 1992, while jurors were deliberating the case, and trying to preside over the case by telephone.
Harsh public criticism of his actions prompted Judge Elfvin to end the vacation early and return to Buffalo.
In 1999, Judge Elfvin stepped down from the case, and it was assigned to another judge, who worked out a settlement between inmates and New York State. Judge Elfvin later described the case as the most difficult and memorable one of his career.
In 2006, a higher court removed him as the sentencing judge in the case of Timothy Toohey, an old friend from Lewiston who had pleaded guilty to tax fraud. Three different sentences that Judge Elfvin gave to Toohey were overturned by an appeals court before he was removed from the case.
“As is obvious, it’s quite a mess,” Judge Elfvin said at the time.
The comment was typical of a man who never ducked tough questions about his actions and was candid in admitting his mistakes.
But the judge’s career also had high points.
In 1999, he became one of the first federal judges in the nation to use DNA evidence to free a man who had been wrongly convicted of rape. The Lackawanna man, Warith Habib Abdal, had spent 17 years in prison for the crime.
Many local attorneys saw Judge Elfvin’s rebellion against strict federal sentencing guidelines as his finest hour. The judge sometimes felt the sentences dictated by the guidelines were far too severe, so he gave defendants much shorter prison terms.
“That’s crazy,” Judge Elfvin said in 2002, referring to guidelines that directed him to sentence an Olean drug dealer to 240 years in prison. Instead he sent the man to prison for 30 years.
The U. S. Justice Department appealed Judge Elfvin’s sentences several times, and prosecutors often won. But in a landmark January 2005 decision, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the guidelines were advisory, not mandatory.
“Judge Elfvin had it right all along,” Arcara said. “He always said the guidelines should be advisory . . . Ultimately, the Supreme Court agreed with him.”
He could be feisty in court at times, but Judge Elfvin was usually even-tempered and quick with a joke. He would sometimes joke about his complete lack of computer skills. He kept an old computer — one that didn’t work — at his desk in his chambers on the top floor of the federal courthouse.
“They tell me I have to have one, so here it is,” he once said.
In 1987, Judge Elfvin became a senior — or semi-retired — judge. Until age 90, he continued to work a nearly full-time schedule, even though he could have retired and taken his full salary as a pension.
To Arcara, that service was a classic example of Judge Elfvin’s love for his work and his dedication to the federal courts.
“He was always an asset to this court,” Arcara said.
Judge Elfvin’s death in ElderWood Health Care Facility at Linwood followed a lengthy illness. He had been in and out of hospitals and nursing homes since Dec. 7, Zavarella said.
No memorial arrangements have been announced.
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