Goodwin, Alfred T. (Alfred Theodore), 1923-2022
Biography
Alfred Theodore "Ted" Goodwin was born in 1923 in Bellingham, Washington, and grew up in multiple places in Oregon, Washington, and California. He studied at the University of Oregon in Eugene; his studies were interrupted by military service in the European theater during World War II. After the war, Goodwin earned a degree in journalism and subsequently attended the University of Oregon Law School, where he earned a juris doctor degree in 1951. Goodwin joined the Eugene-based firm Darling & Vonderheit. In 1955, Oregon Governor Paul Patterson appointed Goodwin as a Lane County Circuit Court judge. In 1960, Governor Mark Hatfield appointed Goodwin to the Oregon Supreme Court to fill the seat vacated by Justice Hall Stoner Lusk. Goodwin served on that court for almost ten years, during which he ruled in the case of Lowe v. City of Eugene, a challenge to the presence of a large Christian cross on Skinner Butte in Eugene; and in State ex rel. Thornton v. Hay, where Goodwin wrote for the court that Oregon beaches between mean high tide and visible vegetation belong to the public. In 1969, Hatfield, then a U.S. senator, nominated Goodwin to the U.S. District Court of Oregon. Just two years later, Goodwin was appointed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, also on Hatfield's recommendation. Goodwin remained on the Ninth Circuit Court for more than 40 years. For 20 years, he was the court's en banc (full bench) coordinator, and from 1988 to 1991, he was the court's chief judge. Goodwin's best-known ruling while on the Ninth Circuit was in the case Newdow v. U.S. Congress, et al., where he held that the inclusion of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional because it violated separation of church and state. He was also a member of the "spotted owl panel," whose rulings affected timber practices in the Pacific Northwest. Goodwin married Mary Ellen Handelin in 1949. The couple had four children: Karl, Margaret Ellen, Sara Jane, and James. In addition to his work as a judge, Goodwin raised sheep in Sisters, Oregon. He died in December 2022.
Sources: "A Life in Judging: Ted Goodwin of Oregon," by Stephen L. Wasby (Eastham, Mass.: self-published, 2015); "Alfred T. Goodwin (1923-2022)," by Stephen L. Wasby, Oregon Encyclopedia, https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/goodwin-alfred-t/
Found in 4 Collections and/or Records:
Oral history interview with Alfred T. Goodwin
Oral history interview with Alfred Goodwin conducted by Michael O'Rourke on August 26, 2006, as part of the United States District Court Oral History Project. Goodwin was a judge on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California.
Oral history interview with Alfred T. Goodwin
Oral history interview with Alfred T. Goodwin conducted by Rick Harmon from May 10, 1985, to September 3, 1986, as part of the United States District Court Oral History Project. Goodwin served on the Oregon Circuit Court for Lane County, the Oregon Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Alfred T. Goodwin papers
Stephen L. Wasby papers
Papers of Stephen L. Wasby (1937-2021), a political science professor. The papers relate to Wasby's research on Judge Alfred T. Goodwin of Oregon, including correspondence with Goodwin; on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals; and on obscenity laws in Oregon in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
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