John Thomas Noonan

John T. Noonan, Jr. is a Senior Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with chambers in San Francisco, California, appointed in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan. He has had senior (retired) status since the end of 1996. Prior to his appointment to the bench, Noonan was the Robbins Professor of Law at Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, where he also served as chair of religious studies (1970-73), chair of medieval studies (1978-79), and director of the Natural Law Institute. In a scholarly career spanning more than half a century, Noonan has written major works, some of them now classics, on a stunningly broad range of topics including usury, bribery, contraception, religious freedom, federalism, professional ethics, marriage and annulment, abortion, and jurisprudence. Noonan's works deal with both historical and contemporary developments on legal or moral issues, including areas where law and morality overlap Noonan has served as an Overseer of Harvard University, as vice president of the American Association for Legal and Political Philosophy, governor of the Canon Law Society of America, a trustee of the Population Council and the University of San Francisco, and as a board member of the Center for Human Values in Health Sciences and of the Institute for the Study of Ethical Issues. Noonan has received honorary degrees from many universities, including the Catholic University of America, University of Notre Dame, and the College of the Holy Cross.