West Virginia Federal Trial Judge Appointed by Ford Dies at 100

A long-serving West Virginia federal trial court judge appointed by President Gerald Ford has died at the age of 100.

John T. Copenhaver Jr. died May 12, according to a news release from the US District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.

Copenhaver took senior status in 2018, but continued to carry a full caseload, according to a biographical account posted by the court.

Only eight other judges born in the 20th century continued to serve after turning 100, federal judiciary data shows. Senior Judge I. Leo Glasser, who turned 102 in April, remains on the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York. US District Court for the Western District of Missouri Senior Judge Howard F. Sachs retired fully shortly after he turned 100 last year.

“I am stopping at age 100, partly because parties and lawyers may question anyone being competent that long, and partly because I am somewhat frail,” Sachs told the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle.

Several judges who were appointed by Ford or his predecessor, President Richard Nixon—most of whom were later nominated to appellate court judgeships—still sit on the federal bench, though all have assumed senior status.

Copenhaver was born in Charleston, W. Va., where his father was mayor in the 1950s, in 1925. He graduated from the Kentucky Military Institute and then served in the US Army during World War II as a medic.

After the war, Copenhaver earned undergraduate and law degrees from West Virginia University and then clerked for US District Judge Benjamin Franklin Moore.

Copenhaver served as a referee in bankruptcy and then as a bankruptcy judge, until he was appointed to the federal bench in 1976.

During his time as a district judge, Copenhaver developed a reputation for being thoughtful, fair, and warm but firm.

“He’s the sort of judge that you would want making a decision on cases of national significance,” said Richard Gottlieb, a West Virginia lawyer who has practiced in Copenhaver’s court since trying his first case as an assistant attorney general before him in 1977. “When you saw him at the grocery store—Charleston’s a small town—he was always so kind and polite and he’d inquire about your family,” Gottlieb said.

In tributes shared by the West Virginia Bar on its website, others described Copenhaver as “the consummate gentleman to everyone,” and recounted interactions with him around Charleston.

“His impact on the Southern District of West Virginia and the judiciary is truly immeasurable,” Chief Judge Frank W. Volk said in the court’s news release.

Gabriele Wohl, who clerked for Copenhaver after she graduated from law school, said she had framed an email from Copenhaver above her desk. “He had his assistant type out the email, so it says at the bottom: ‘this email is being sent on behalf of Judge Copenhaver,” said Wohl, a partner at Bowles Rice LLP.

“It has these kind words like in two sentences, and they’re just worth more than a billion kind words because they came from him,” Wohl said. “It’s something that I look at every day and encourages me.”