GERALD W. HEANEY:

Gerald William Heaney was born in Goodhue, Minnesota, on January 29, 1918, to William J. and Johanna (Ryan) Heaney. He attended St. Thomas College (1935-1937). He received his BSL degree in 1938, and his LL.B degree in 1941, both from the University of Minnesota. He was admitted to the Minnesota bar in 1941, and worked as a lawyer in the Securities Division of the Minnesota Commerce Department (1941-1942). He served in the United States Army (1942-1946) and was a member of the Lewis, Hammer, Heaney, Weyl & Halverson law firm (Duluth, Minnesota), 1946-1966). Heaney was named a judge on the United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit) in December 1966. He assumed semi-retired Senior Judge status in January 1989. A longtime Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party activist, Heaney held various appointed posts in the party in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also a Minnesota member of the Democratic National Committee (1955) and a member of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents (1964-1965). Heaney married Eleanor R. Schmitt on December 1, 1945. The Heaneys have two children. Heaney died June 22, 2010.

The United States Courts of Appeals are intermediate courts created by an act of March 3, 1891, to relieve the Supreme Court of considering appeals in cases originally decided by federal courts. They are empowered to review final and certain interlocutory decisions of district courts, except where the law provides for direct review by the Supreme Court. They also review orders of federal administrative bodies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Labor Relations Board. The U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, is based in St. Louis, Missouri, and hears appeals of cases heard by lower Federal courts in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

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Judge Heaney's Case Files (1966-2006, 257 boxes) pertain to appeals of lower court decisions in murder, drug, sexual abuse, product liability, immigration, robbery, age discrimination, and other cases, some involving the death penalty. Some of the cases are from the second, third, and fourth circuits. The balance of the collection consists of two groups of material: Judicial and Court-Related Files (35 boxes and 5 oversize folders in an eleventh, partial box shared with material from other collections) and Non-Judicial, Personal and Political Files (10 boxes).

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The collection is organized into the following sections:

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Access Restrictions:

Due to the presence of Social Security numbers, access to the Papers is restricted. Files must be reviewed and redacted before they can be used in the Reading Room. Please consult library staff for more information.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Gerald W. Heaney Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples

Accession Information:

Accession numbers: 12,319; 12,654; 13,082; 13,312; 13,228; 13,365; 13,518; 13,704; 13,913; 14,395; 14,628; 14,943; 15,250; 15,356; 15,590; 15,783; 16,321

Processing Information:

Processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with a Basic Project grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Processed by: Kathryn A. Johnson, November 1991; David B. Peterson, October 1997, March 2001; Meagan Kellom and Shelby Edwards, November 2010

Catalog ID number: 990017158230104294

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Case Files comprise the largest component of the collection, and provide insight into the thinking and contributions of Heaney as an individual jurist. These files are Heaney's own files on cases in which he participated as an appeals court judge. They typically include correspondence and memoranda, court documents, transcripts, judicial opinions, newspaper clippings, conference notes, and similar records pertaining to cases before the court. These cases involve appeals of decisions of lower federal courts in murder, drug possession and trafficking, embezzlement, child and sexual abuse, product liability, immigration and deportation, felony theft, armed robbery, securities violations, breach of contract, age discrimination, and similar cases. Some of them involve the death penalty. Appellants and respondents include individuals; federal and state agencies; insurance companies, banks, and other businesses and corporations; labor unions; prison inmates; and others. Some of the individuals are juveniles. Many of the individual names given in folder titles are those of federal and state government officials (especially cabinet secretaries and prison wardens), and these cases involve their respective agencies, not the officials as private individuals. Correspondents include Heaney and fellow appeals court judges, clerks of court and other appeals court staff, and attorneys. There are some cases from the Second, Third, and Fourth Circuit Courts of Appeals, which Heaney was asked to help decide after becoming a Senior Judge.