Federal judge of 40 years dies

As a labor lawyer, Gerald Heaney represented the teacher's association and helped make the Duluth school district the first in Minnesota to adopt the same pay scale for men and women.

As a political figure, Heaney helped form the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

As a U.S. Circuit Court judge, Heaney authored or helped write opinions that led to the desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Ark.; Omaha, Neb.; and St. Louis.

The retired federal judge, longtime DFL party activist and decorated World War II hero has died at 92.

Heaney's son, William, said his father died Tuesday morning in Duluth.

Heaney retired from the bench in 2006 after a career that involved more than 3,000 decisions, including ground-breaking desegregation rulings.

Heaney joined with the likes of Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy and Orville Freeman to help form the DFL Party. In 1966, then-U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy recommended to President Lyndon Johnson that he name Heaney a federal judge.

"(Then-U.S. Sen. and future Vice President) Walter Mondale joined in that recommendation," Heaney told the News Tribune in 2006. "Hubert was then vice president and my best friend; Orville Freeman was secretary of agriculture. If I were going to be turned down with that kind of support, I would have had to have been awfully bad."

Mondale said he was saddened by the word of Heaney's passing.

"He was a great and decent human being, a superb judge and a really caring human being,'' Mondale, 82, said Tuesday by phone from his Minneapolis office, where he is senior counsel for the Dorsey and Whitney law firm. "He meant a lot to Duluth and that community. I believe he should have been on the Supreme Court. He was just a brilliant guy, and in on all the great issues. He was a superb federal circuit judge for 40 years.''

The federal courthouse in Duluth was renamed on Oct. 6, 2007, and is now known as the Gerald W. Heaney Federal Building and United States Courthouse and Customhouse.

Before becoming a judge, Heaney spent 20 years in a Duluth private law practice concentrating on labor law. He was an instrumental member of the committees that created the Seaway Port Authority of Duluth and WDSE, the Duluth area's public broadcasting station. He also led the Duluth Inter-Racial Council, which sought to create fair employment opportunities in Duluth, and served on the committee that created the University of Minnesota Duluth. He was named to the Duluth Hall of Fame in 2006.

Rural upbringing,

military career

Heaney grew up during the Depression in the southeastern Minnesota town of Goodhue. He said he learned his work ethic from his father, who ran a meat market and farmed on the side.

He attended the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul and earned his law degree from the University of Minnesota in 1941. He entered the Army during World War II. As an officer with the Second Ranger Infantry Battalion, he participated in the D-Day landing at Normandy. He was decorated with the Silver Star for extraordinary bravery and also earned the Bronze Star.

Heaney lived on London Road in Duluth and had chambers in federal courthouses in Duluth, St. Paul and St. Louis. He and his wife, Eleanor, settled in Duluth in 1945 and had been married for 64 years.

"He was fortunate to have a great wife who supported him in everything that he did,'' University of Minnesota Duluth Chancellor Kathryn A. Martin said.

Martin said Heaney was an influential person in promoting the development of the UMD campus and its programs and was a firm believer that the school should get its fair share of the legislative appropriations to the university system.

Heaney, a former member of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents, played key roles in establishing the Natural Resources Research Institute and the Medical School at UMD. He also raised money for student scholarships because he didn't think anyone should be turned away from the university because they couldn't afford it, Martin said.

"I think he should be remembered as a very gifted member of the judiciary, but maybe more importantly as a great human being,'' Martin said. "He was very passionate about people, always wanting to help the unions and to support the unions and to help the people that are marginalized by society.''

Heaney retired from the bench only four years ago, at age 88.

"I want to quit before somebody tells me, 'Jerry, you're over the hill. You don't know what's going on,' " Heaney told the News Tribune in 2006. "I feel that I've had the intellectual capacity and the strength to do my share of the work and to do it as well as I can. I don't want to wear out my welcome."

Heaney said his most important accomplishments were in equal rights cases.

"It has been in the area of human and civil rights," he said in 2006. "Because my feeling and my strong belief has been that the Constitution of the United States gives everybody equal opportunity for a job, education and a home. That's where in my political work and work on the court that I really tried to have the greatest influence."

Legal scholars say the most significant case of his career is the St. Louis schools desegregation case in which he wrote the majority of the opinions reviewing the decisions of a lower court.

Missouri schools were segregated by law until 1972. Then Minnie Liddell, a black mother from St. Louis, went to court seeking better schools for her children.

Heaney and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals first heard the case Liddell v. Board of Education in 1980. Heaney wrote the opinion that integrated the St. Louis schools by allowing black children to transfer to a suburban school.

The court required the state to pay the suburban schools the costs of educating the children and made the state pay the transportation costs.

"After a few years, we had 13,000 young black kids who were getting up every morning and catching a bus to go out to the suburban areas," Heaney said in 2006. "It also worked to the advantage of the city schools, because the city schools continued to get the same tax dollars from property taxes and were able to reduce class size to institute all-day kindergarten and some preschool programs to improve the educational opportunities for those kids who remained behind.

"That, to me, is the most important thing that I did in 40 years."

Heaney also was involved in decisions that integrated the St. Louis police and fire departments.

Mondale said he would stop into the building now named for Heaney whenever he came to Duluth. "When I started as an elective officer in the early '60s, Jerry knew Duluth, Northeastern Minnesota and the Range,'' Mondale said. "He'd give me a lot of advice on where to go, what to do and who to see. I was glad to testify for him as a senator when he was nominated for the bench. A couple of years ago, I told him that I was glad to do so. He said, 'Yes, but you were late.' Apparently, I was two minutes late,'' Mondale said. He said he planned to attend Heaney's funeral.

A spokesman at Dougherty Funeral Home in Duluth said that Heaney's visitation will be held from 5-7 p.m. Monday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary, with the funeral service to be held there at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday.

News Tribune staff writer John Myers contributed to this report.