Neil Wake

Neil Wake

Nonpartisan

United States District Court for the District of Arizona (senior status)

Tenure

2016 - Present

Years in position

8

Prior offices

United States District Court for the District of Arizona

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Education

Bachelor's

Arizona State University, 1971

Law

Harvard Law School, 1974

Personal

Birthplace

Phoenix, Ariz.

Neil Vincent Wake is a federal judge on senior status with the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. He joined the court in 2004 after being nominated by President George W. Bush. Judge Wake assumed senior status on July 5, 2016.

Education

Wake graduated from Arizona State University with his B.A. in 1971, and from Harvard Law School with his J.D. in 1974.

Professional career

Wake was an attorney in private practice in Arizona from 1974 to 2004.

Judicial career

District of Arizona

Nomination Tracker
Nominee Information
Name: Neil Vincent Wake
Court: United States District Court for the District of Arizona
Progress
Confirmed 142 days after nomination.
ANominated: October 22, 2003
AABA Rating: Unanimously Well Qualified
Questionnaire:
AHearing: January 22, 2004
Hearing Transcript: Hearing Transcript
QFRs: (Hover over QFRs to read more)
AReported: March 4, 2004
AConfirmed: March 12, 2004
AVote: Voice vote

Wake was nominated to the United States District Court for the District of Arizona by President George W. Bush on October 22, 2003, to a seat vacated by Paul Rosenblatt. The American Bar Association rated Wake Unanimously Well Qualified for the nomination. Hearings on Wake's nomination were held before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary on January 22, 2004, and his nomination was reported by U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on March 4, 2004. Wake was confirmed on a voice vote of the U.S. Senate on March 12, 2004, and he received his commission on March 15, 2004. Wake assumed senior status on the court on July 5, 2016.

Noteworthy cases

Maricopa County’s jails still deficient in providing health care (2014)

A federal order to Maricopa County to improve jail conditions for inmates was ordered to remain in effect on October 1, 2014. The order was initially given in 2008 and instituted by the United States Department of Justice. In the order, the county was told to do something about overcrowding in its jails, plus improve the care given to prisoner medical and mental health needs. The county felt that it had met all the requirements of the order and sought relief in 2013.

Judge Neil Wake, however, found that the county was still failing in providing the necessary medical and mental health care that some inmates require. Specifically, Judge Wake said that, while some areas of health care had improved, the county was still inadequate in its provision of proper monitoring for suicide and in placing the most severely mentally ill inmates. Plaintiffs provided evidence showing multiple instances where health care was lacking in the county jails that resulted in serious injury or death to inmates.

Judge Wake gave the county until September 2015 to get the remaining issues resolved.

Articles:

• Think Progress, "Federal Judge Orders Arizona Sheriff To Stop Putting Prisoners’ Health In Danger," October 1, 2014
• AZ Central, "Federal judge finds medical issues persist in MCSO jails," September 30, 2014

Death penalty case on First Amendment grounds leads to botched execution (2014)

See also: United States District Court for the District of Arizona (Wood v. Ryan, CV 14-1447-PHX-NVW)

On July 11, 2014, Judge Neil Wake ruled that the execution of Arizona death row prisoner Joseph Wood would not violate the inmate’s First Amendment rights, regardless of the fact that the state refused to reveal detailed information about the drug protocol that would be used to bring about his death.

In the underlying case, Wood was sentenced to be executed following the murder of his former girlfriend and her father in 1989. Wood, along with a handful of other death row prisoners, filed a civil rights complaint in June 2014 in an attempt to get an injunction to prevent their execution. In that suit, Wood’s attorney contended that Arizona was “violating the public’s 1st Amendment right to be informed about the manner in which the state plans to carry out the most serious penalty available in the criminal justice system.”

In his opinion, Judge Wake found that Wood had already been provided with enough information related to his execution, such as the type of drugs that would be used, the specific dosage, and the drugs’ expiration dates, and ruled that information was “sufficient for an ‘informed public debate’” over their usage.

Wood continued to seek additional information and appealed to the Ninth Circuit, where a divided panel composed of Judges Jay Bybee, Ronald Gould and Sidney Thomas, delayed the death row inmate’s execution on July 19, 2014. The judges cited Wood's First Amendment right to obtain more knowledge about the way in which he would be killed, including the qualifications and certifications of the personnel who would perform the execution. This was the first time that an appellate court ruled that a prisoner had the right to obtain such explicit details about the manner in which he would be executed.

Arizona officials filed a motion for reconsideration of the panel’s ruling en banc, which was later denied by the judges of the Ninth Circuit on July 21, 2014, although the decision was divided. Arizona then filed a motion with the Supreme Court of the United States to lift the Ninth Circuit's stay, and the high court granted that motion.

On July 23, 2014, Wood was executed. The procedure was supposed to take 10-15 minutes, but it took Wood almost two hours to die. Wood reportedly gasped for the duration of the execution process, which led his attorney to file an emergency appeal with Judge Wake, as he believed his client was still alive. In it, the attorney wrote that the execution “violated Mr. Wood’s Eighth Amendment right to be executed in the absence of cruel and unusual punishment,” and requested that the Arizona Department of Corrections save Wood’s life. His attorney even called Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in an attempt to get the high court to intervene. In a last ditch effort to save his client's life, Wood’s attorney called three justices of the Arizona Supreme Court.

Wood died before any judge could intervene, and Justice Kennedy eventually denied the request. Arizona probed the circumstances behind Wood’s death.

Petition deadline upheld (2014)

See also: United States District Court for the District of Arizona (Arizona Green Party, et al. v. Ken Bennett, No. CV-14-00375-PHX-NVW)

On May 16, 2014, Judge Wake upheld the state's petition deadline for newly-qualifying political parties. In his opinion in Arizona Green Party v. Bennett, Wake held that the deadline as established was necessary in order to allow the state sufficient time to prepare for the qualifying party's primary election (which occurs six months after the petition filing deadline). Some opponents of the deadline pointed to the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Anderson v. Celebrezze, which held that Ohio's early filing deadline for independent presidential candidates violated the voting and associational rights of the candidates' supporters. The Green Party filed a notice of appeal.

Lethal injection delay case (2012)

See also: United States District Court for the District of Arizona (Robert Towery, et al v. Janice Brewer, et al, No. CV-12-245-PHX-ROS)

Judge Wake denied a preliminary injunction that would have ceased, or at least delayed, two executions due to changes for the lethal injection protocol by the Arizona Department of Corrections.

Judge Wake regularly ruled in favor of the Arizona Department of Corrections against the allegations put forth by the Federal Public Defender's Office, which asked for the delay in the executions of two men, Robert Moormann and Robert Towery. Moormann, 63, was executed on February 29, 2012, and Towery, 46, was executed on March 8, 2012.

The new protocol, argued the federal defender, gave too much power to the Corrections Director Charles Ryan, as well as lessened the required qualifications of executioners, and eliminated the chance of a condemned prisoner to meet with his or her attorneys in person on the day they were scheduled to be executed.

This request was denied by Judge Wake, who also ruled in December of 2011 that the Corrections Department never violated a prisoner's right in following its own department protocol.

Moorman was on Arizona's death row for 27 years for brutally killing and dismembering his adoptive mother Roberta when she was 74 years old, in addition to serving a life sentence for the kidnapping of an eight-year old girl in 1972. Towery was executed for killing a man while he robbed his home in 1991.

See also

• United States District Court for the District of Arizona
• United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit
• News: Federal Judge Denies Preliminary Injunction, February 24, 2012

External links

• Judge Wake's biography from the Federal Judicial Center

Footnotes

Political offices
Preceded by: Paul Rosenblatt	District of Arizona 2004–2016 Seat #4	Succeeded by: Susan Brnovich

Arizona courts

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Federal courts:

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: District of Arizona • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: District of Arizona

State courts:

Arizona Supreme Court • Arizona Court of Appeals • Arizona Superior Court • Arizona Justice Courts • Arizona Municipal Courts

State resources:

Courts in Arizona • Arizona judicial elections • Judicial selection in Arizona