District court service

Walker was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on June 25, 1985, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated by Judge Morris E. Lasker. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on July 19, 1985, and received commission on July 22, 1985. His service terminated on December 19, 1989, due to elevation to the court of appeals. He was succeeded by Judge Sonia Sotomayor. As a district judge, Walker presided over a variety of civil and criminal proceedings, including notably the 1989 tax fraud trial of billionaire hotel magnate Leona Helmsley, whom he sentenced to four years in jail.^[3]

Court of appeals service

Walker was nominated by President George H. W. Bush on September 21, 1989, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated by Judge Irving Kaufman. He was confirmed by the Senate on November 22, 1989, and received his commission on November 27, 1989. He served as Chief Judge from September 30, 2000 to September 30, 2006. He assumed senior status on September 30, 2006. He was succeeded by Judge Debra Ann Livingston.^[3]

Walker was awarded the Learned Hand Medal for "excellence in Federal Jurisprudence" by the Federal Bar Council^[4] and in 2006 the Robert L. Haig Award for "distinguished public service" by the New York State Bar Association, and the J. Edward Lumbard Award for "outstanding service" by the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office.

Judicial administration

Walker has served as Special Counsel to the U.S. Administrative Conference (1987–1992) and president of the Federal Judges' Association (1993–1995). As chief judge, Walker was engaged with all three levels of federal court administration. He led the Court of Appeals, chaired the Second Circuit Judicial Council with responsibility for all of the courts within the Second Circuit (consisting of the states of Connecticut, New York, and Vermont), and on the national level was a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, chaired by the Chief Justice of the United States (2000–2006). He was also selected by Chief Justice William Rehnquist to be a member of the Conference's Executive Committee (2003–2006) and its Budget Committee (1990–1999). He was selected by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to be a member of its Committee on International Judicial Relations (2006–2012), and to be the Chair of the Conference's Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability (2009–2013). As Chief Judge of the Second Circuit, Walker managed the dislocations from the courthouse at 40 Foley Square in lower Manhattan caused by the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, oversaw the establishment by Judge Jon O. Newman of a separate calendar for a sudden crush of 5,000 immigration appeals in 2005, and obtained funding for the total renovation of the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse at 40 Foley Square which was completed under the supervision of Chief Judge Walker and his successor, Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs.

Court cases

Walker has authored several hundred decisions in various areas of federal law including influential precedents in the areas of constitutional law, criminal law, criminal and civil procedure, securities law, bankruptcy law, intellectual property law, and international law, including the following selected appeals.

Central and Eastern Europe

Walker has worked across Central and Eastern Europe to promote the development of judicial institutions in individual countries and to foster collaboration among judiciaries across the region and the United States. In 2011, he was instrumental in organizing the first Conference of the Chief Justices of Central and Eastern Europe, hosted by the CEELI Institute in Prague, which was attended by the chief justices, presidents and high officers of the supreme courts that region of the world. Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Jr. delivered the opening remarks and participated in the first conference.^[8] The Conference, now an ongoing institution that meets annually in a different member country, provides a unique forum for the heads of judiciaries of 24 former communist countries to share their experiences, discuss problems and offer solutions, while developing ongoing personal relationships.

The Chief Justices Conference arose out of CEELI's Judicial Integrity Round Tables.^[9] In 2006, while on a trip to Hungary, Walker saw a need for closer communication among the chief justices of Central and Eastern European countries. He then led the roundtable discussions on judicial integrity among the heads of the Supreme Court in the region at the CEELI Institute in Prague in 2007 and 2010.^[9] At the 2010 roundtable, the participants expressed a desire to hold regular conferences on an ongoing basis. After the first Chief Justices Conference in 2011, Walker has represented the Ceeli Institute and remained an advisor to the Conference. He helped plan and participated in subsequent Chief Justice Conferences hosted in Albania (2012), Montenegro (2013), Georgia (2014), Croatia (2015), Serbia (2016), Hungary (2017), Lithuania (2018) and Slovakia (2019). Since 2013, the Russian Federation has actively participated in the work of the Conference.

Walker began working on issues of legal reform and judicial administration in Eastern Europe in 2004 when Chief Justice of Albania Thimjo Kondi sought assistance with the administration of the Albanian judiciary. Walker made multiple trips to Albania to assist with the establishment of a judicial conference modeled upon that of the U.S. federal judiciary and to teach judicial ethics. He has discussed legal reform issues with Presidents Alfred Moisiu and Bamir Topi and prime ministers Fatos Nano and Sali Berisha.^[10] He worked with Kondi's successor, Chief Justice Shpresa Beçaj, to host the second Chief Justices Conference in Tirana in 2012. President Moisiu awarded Judge Walker the "Medal of Special Merit" for his work in Albania.

Elsewhere in Eastern Europe, Walker has discussed law reform issues with leaders in various countries where he has also given remarks and met with law school faculty and students, bar associations and judges. In 2008 he helped organize a conference on rule of law and law school accreditation in Georgia where he discussed rule of law issues with President Mikheil Saakashvili, having worked on law reform the previous year with Chief Justice of the Georgian Supreme Court Konstantin Kublashvili.

China

Since 1986, Walker has been active in rule of law programs and exchanges with China. He has participated in exchanges with Chinese judges in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Xiamen and Haikou.^[11] He has lectured or spoken on U.S. law and rule of law topics in Beijing at the National Judges College,^[12] National Prosecutors College,^[13] Peking University, Renmin University,^[14] China University of Political Science and Law,^[15] and Beijing Normal University;^[16] in Shanghai at Fudan University, East China University of Political Science and Law and at the joint China program of Zhejiang University Guanghua Law School and Thomas Jefferson Law School in Hangzhou.^[17]

He has conferred on issues of legal reform with Chinese officials including President of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) Xiao Yang, SPC vice-president Wan Exiang, Procurator-General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate Cao Jianming, vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Huang Mengfu, and Director of the State Council Information Office Wang Chen.^[18] In 2002, he helped arrange with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor a judicial delegation to meet in Beijing with the Supreme People's Court to discuss problems of local protectionism by courts and accompanied Justice O'Connor to a meeting with President of China Jiang Zemin in Zhongnanhai. In 2009, working with China law expert professor Jerome Cohen and other American scholars and judges, Walker led the American delegation at the inaugural Sino-American Dialogue on the Rule of Law and Human Rights, a Track II dialogue co-sponsored by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the China Foundation for Human Rights Development, in Nantong^[19][20][21] and thereafter in other venues. More recently, working with experts at Yale and Stanford and with the Supreme People's Court, he has participated in workshops in China and submitted papers to support a system of precedent in China, known as the "Guiding Cases System," under the auspices of the Supreme People's Court.

Elsewhere in Asia, Walker participated in rule of law programs in 2010 in Thailand and in 2012 in South Korea where he met with the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court and with judges and law students and faculty.

Middle East

Walker spoke at "Arab Judicial Forum 2003: Judicial Systems in the 21st Century," a conference on judicial reform in the Middle East that was held in Bahrain in 2003 and attended by 17 countries, and the "Regional Forum on the Role of Civil Society in Promoting the Rule of Law in the Arab Region" held in Jordan in 2008. He has also been engaged with training programs for Iraqi officials and judges held in Iraq, Jordan and Bahrain. He has conferred with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Iraq, Medhat al-Mahmoud, on issues relating to the rule of law and human rights.

Fatal traffic accident

On the evening of October 17, 2006, while driving home, Walker's Ford Escape automobile struck a police officer, Daniel Picagli, who was directing traffic in a rainstorm at a road construction site for AT&T in New Haven, Connecticut.^[22][23] There were no construction signs or traffic cones marking off the site.^[24] Picagli died four days later on October 21, 2006. "He had been wearing a black raincoat and a reflective vest".^[25] Police Chief Francisco Ortiz said the "officers did not feel it was necessary to test Walker for drugs or alcohol".^[25] Walker stopped immediately, and New Haven police have said the cause was not related to drugs or alcohol.^[26] A police investigation reported that Walker "was traveling at a slow speed through the dark and rainy construction site."^[27] The prosecutor declined to press charges, saying nothing indicated "intentional, negligent or reckless conduct" by Walker.^[28]