Richard Posner death, Digi Mart USA News: Richard Posner, a prolific legal scholar and outspoken former federal appeals court judge, has died at the age of 87, according to a publisher report citing the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as a senior lecturer and where his son Eric Posner is a professor. The report said he died Tuesday.
Posner spent nearly 40 years on the Chicago-based 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, where he was known as an acerbic and witty writer and a tough questioner. Appointed to the court in 1981 by Republican President Ronald Reagan, he was known for opinions that ranged from conservative to liberal, and he described his approach to judging as pragmatic.
He was a leading figure in applying economic theory to legal rules and institutions. His 1973 textbook, The Economic Analysis of Law, is described in the report as foundational and still in print.
A 2000 study cited in the report found he was by far the most cited legal scholar of the second half of the 20th century.
Outside the courtroom, Posner wrote hundreds of academic articles and dozens of books and was willing to criticise American institutions. In 2016 he called the Supreme Court “highly politicized,” and said probably only a couple of the justices were qualified.
Former University of Chicago dean Saul Levmore praised him as “the greatest and most skilled judge in American history,” credited in the report to the New York Times.
Born in Manhattan in 1939 to immigrants from Europe, Posner entered Yale at 16 and later attended Harvard Law School, graduating first in his class in 1962. He then clerked for Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan.
He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Charlene, their two sons and four grandchildren.
