Early Years & Time at Loyola

Military Service, Private Practice, & U.S. Attorney's Office

Eastern District of Louisiana Court & Desegregation of Louisiana

D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals

J. Skelly Wright was appointed and confirmed to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy. Judge Wright would serve on the Court until his passing in 1988. Wright served as Chief Judge from 1978 to 1981 and served on the Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals from 1981 to 1987. 

J. Skelly Wright helped create several doctrines in property and landlord-tenant law during his tenure on the D.C. Circuit

• Wright rules in Edwards v. Habib that landlords may not evict tenants who raise housing code violations to authorities in the development of the retaliatory eviction doctrine.

• Wright developed the theory of implied warranty of habitability in the case Javins v. First National Realty Corp.

• Wright authors the opinion in Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Co. which speaks to the prohibition of exploiting the poor through contract unconscionability.

After transitioning from the Louisiana District Court to the D.C. Circuit Court Judge Wright continued to be known for ruling against unequal treatment. In the opinion in Hobbs v. Hansen that the District of Columbia's separation of students by testing and tracking is unequal to disadvantaged and poor students.

To the right: Famed portratist Richard Avedon photographed Judge Wright as part of his 1976 series: The Family.

On March 30, 1981, United States President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, Jr. Reagan was seriously wounded, but eventually recovered. Three other members of the president’s traveling party were injured in the assassination attempt.

Hinckley was charged with three federal and five District of Columbia offenses. The prosecution wanted to introduce statements made by Hinckley after he asked for an attorney and documents seized from Hinckley while incarcerated. District Court Judge Parker ruled the evidence would be suppressed at trial for violating Hinckley’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections. 

With Judge Wright leading the panel the D.C. Circuit opinion provides a concise analysis of both Fourth and Fifth Amendment Protections in 1982. Following Miranda v Arizona, The Fifth Amendment requires that once a defendant asks for an attorney, all interrogation must cease. The Fourth Amendment protects “the right to freedom from arbitrary interference with privacy, must and can be recognized even in a detention context”. Therefore, under the Exclusionary Rule, illegally obtained evidence cannot be used to rebut a defendant’s defense. This opinion has been cited over 300 times to date. - See U.S. v. Hinckley, 672 F.2d 115.

While on the Court of Appeals Judge Wright continued to advance the academic discussion of legal theories through law review articles. Below is a sample of his works:

• J. Skelly Wright, Public School Desegregation: Legal Remedies for De Facto Segregation, 16 W. Rsrv. L. Rev. 478 (1965)
• Wright, J. S. (1982). Money and the Pollution of Politics: Is the First Amendment an Obstacle to Political Equality? Columbia Law Review, 82(4), 609–645. https://doi.org/10.2307/1122194 

Many speeches and articles have addressed J. Skelly Wright's Life. Below is a list of selected works:

• 1974, Patricia A. Behlar, J. Skelly Wright: the Career and Constitutional Approach of a Federal Judge. LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses
• 1982, Arthur S. Miller & Jeffrey H. Bowman, Slow Dance on the Killing Ground: The Willie Francis Case Revisited, 32 DePaul Law Review 1.
• 1986, Alan M. Koschik, A "Capacity for Outr A "Capacity for Outrage": The Judicial Odysse ": The Judicial Odyssey of J. Sk y of J. Skelly Wright and On Courts and Democracy: Selected Nonjudicial Writings of J. Skelly Wright, 84 Michigan Law Review.
• 1988, William J. Brennan, Jr., Patricia M. Wald, Richard Parker, & Bill Monroe, In Memoriam: J. Skelly Wright, 102 Harvard Law Review 361.
• 1988, William J. Brennan, Jr., Tribute to Honorable J. Skelly Wright, 98 Yale Law Journal 207.
• 2002, Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States - Judge Robert A. Ainsworth, Jr. Memorial Lecture - February 4, 2004 - Four Louisiana Giants in the Law, 48 Loyola Law Review 253.
• 2014, Louis Michael Seldman, J. Skelly Wright and the Limits of Liberalism, Georgetown University Law Center.
• 2015, Johanna Kalb, J. Skelly Wright's Democratic First Amendment, 61 Loyola Law Review 107.
• 2015, Sally Katzen, J. Skelly Wright: A Clerk's Perspective of the Judge, 61 Loyola Law Review 15.
• 2015, Randall Kennedy, Judge J. Skelly Wright and the Racial Desegregation of Louisiana, 61 Loyola Law Review 57.
• 2015, Carol F. Lee, Judge J. Skelly Wright: Politics, Money, and Equality, 61 Loyola Law Review 93.
• 2015, Louis Michael Seidman, J. Skelly Wright and the Limits of Legal Liberalism, 61 Loyola Law Review 69.
• 2015, James E. Wright III, Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board: The Second Battle of New Orleans, Chronicles of the Case and the Judge, 61 Loyola Law Review 135.
• Carol S. Steiker, Choosing Our Heroes: Skelly Wright and Atticus Finch.
• More