John Roll
 John Roll    (judge) | |||||||||||||||||
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| Born | John McCarthy Roll 1947-02-08 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||
| Died | 8 January 2011 (Age 63) Casas Adobes, Arizona, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | University of Arizona, University of Virginia School of Law | ||||||||||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholic | ||||||||||||||||
| Children | 3 sons | ||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Maureen | ||||||||||||||||
| Victim of | • murder • 2011 Tucson shooting | ||||||||||||||||
A judge shot less than 72 hours after ruling against US government
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Unlike so many, Judge Roll backed the Constitution and its provisions for individual liberty even when it was not popular.
Contents
Career
Roll was a bailiff for the Pima County Superior Court from 1972 to 1973.
Murder
Judge Roll was killed on 8 January 2011, in the 2011 Tucson shooting, which claimed 6 lives and injured 13 more. The commercially-controlled media concentrated on the killing of US Representative Gabrielle Giffords.[1] Peter Meyer has suggested that "the main object was intimidating all other US judges with how they can be killed violently and with few aware of how or why they died."[2]
Unfinished cases
Judge Roll announced he was about to rule against the Obama administration in the case U.S. v. $330,520.00 in US Currency and Saturn Aura XE 2007, filed in November 2010 and involving bulk cash smuggling into or out of the United States.[3]
In separate and earlier cases, Judge Roll had ruled in favor of illegal immigrants in allowing a case to go forward where a rancher and his wife held several illegal immigrants at gunpoint near Douglas, Arizona. This ruling angered many conservatives nation-wide in Arizona and generated enough threats to the Judge that he was assigned federal marshal protection.[3]
