WASHINGTON (AP) — Louis F. Oberdorfer, who served as a deputy to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy during the 1960s and for decades as a federal judge in Washington, has died.
Oberdorfer died Thursday on his 94th birthday, according to Sheldon Snook, a spokesman for the federal court in Washington.
The Alabama native oversaw the Justice Department's tax division under Kennedy from 1961 to 1965. President Jimmy Carter appointed him to be a judge in 1977.
Oberdorfer ruled on a number of high-profile cases over the years, including a case in which he ordered the District of Columbia to give the Ku Klux Klan permission to march to the U.S. Capitol. He also made headlines for ignoring mandatory prison terms for crack cocaine crimes. Congress has since changed the law.
