William Steger

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William Merritt "Bill" Steger (August 22, 1920 – June 4, 2006) handled some 15,000 cases in a career spanning 35 years as a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Texas. President Richard Nixon appointed Steger, based in Tyler, to the bench in 1970. Steger was also a former chairman of the Republican Party of Texas and was the unsuccessful GOP nominee for governor in 1960 and for the Third District U.S. House seat in 1962. In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower named him a U.S. attorney.

1 Early years, education, and military service
2 Republican political activities
3 Tenure on the federal bench
4 Steger's legacy
5 Last rites and religious faith
6 References

[edit] Early years, education, and military service

Steger was born to Merritt Steger and the former Lottie Reese in Dallas and attended public schools there. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1938. He attended Baylor University in Waco from 1938 to 1941. After Pearl Harbor was bombed, Steger left Baylor to volunteer for the Army Air Corps. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and received his pilot’s wings in November 1942. He flew 56 combat missions piloting British Spitfire aircraft in the Tunisian, Sicilian, and Italian campaigns. In recognition for his bravery as a fighter pilot in World War II, Steger received the Air Medal and four Oak Leaf Clusters and attained the rank of captain. Upon returning from overseas until his discharge from the Army in 1947, Steger served as a test pilot in an experimental program to test the first ever military jet aircraft.

After his military service, Steger returned to Dallas and married the former Ann Hollandsworth (born 1926) in 1948. He enrolled in the Southern Methodist University Law School and received his law degree in 1950. After graduation from law school, he opened his law practice in Longview, the seat of Gregg County.

[edit] Republican political activities

In Longview, Steger became involved in Republican politics. He was chairman of the Eisenhower-Nixon campaign in East Texas and was a delegate to the 1952 Republican National Convention, which met in Chicago. Thereafter, President Eisenhower named Steger as the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Texas. This appointment brought him and Mrs. Steger to Tyler, where he served as U.S. attorney until his resignation in 1959. Steger then joined the Tyler law firm of Wilson, Miller, Spivey, and Steger, where he practiced law until 1970. During his years of private practice in Tyler, he continued to remain active in Republican politics.

The Texas GOP nominated Steger as its candidate for governor in 1960. Though he was handily defeated by Democratic Governor Marion Price Daniel, Sr., he polled sufficient votes to allow the Republican Party to hold its first presidential primary in Texas in 1964, rather than selecting delegates in caucuses, as had been the custom. Daniel received 1,637,755 votes (72.8 percent) to Steger's 612,963 ballots (27.2 percent). Yet Senators John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson only narrowly won the Texas electoral votes that year over Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

Steger was president of the Smith County Republican Men’s Club in 1961. In 1962, he challenged veteran Democrat Lindley Garrison Beckworth, Sr., (1913 – 1984), then of Longview and later of Gladewater (both in Gregg County), for the Fifth District seat in the U.S. House. In a narrow loss, Steger received 24,803 votes (48 percent) to Beckworth's 26,915 (52 pecent). Beckworth was thereafter defeated for Democratic renomination in 1966.

Steger was also a Republican presidential elector in 1964, but the Johnson-Humphrey slate easily won Texas that year. In 1966, Steger was elected to the State Republican Executive Committee. In 1967, Steger was appointed subcommittee chairman of the Texas Republican Task Force on Crime and Law Enforcement. He was a delegate to the 1968 Republican National Convention, which met in Miami Beach, and he was reelected to the State Republican Executive Committee that same year.

In 1969 Judge Steger served as chairman of the Rules Committee at the state Republican Party convention, and later that year was elected chairman of the Republican Party of Texas. He served through the 1970 elections, which were keenly disappointing to the state GOP.

[edit] Tenure on the federal bench

In December 1970, President Nixon appointed Steger to the Tyler-based judgeship, which he held for the remaining 35 years of his life.

During his tenure on the bench Judge Steger presided over many noteworthy cases. In 1975, he held that a private hospital, although it received some state and federal financial support, could establish policies denying use of its facilities for elective abortions. In 1980, he presided over one of the first cases that applied the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (“RICO”) to obtain the conviction of numerous Gregg County officials for offenses ranging from solicitation of murder to facilitation of gambling.

In 1983, Judge Steger presided over United States v. Rex Cauble, another significant case involving the RICO statute. At the trial of that case, a jury convicted Cauble of masterminding an organization known as the “Cowboy Mafia” that imported tons of marijuana into the United States from South America.

In 1986, he tried United States v. DKG, Inc., a precedent-setting case, which involved the forfeiture of property purchased with funds derived from illegal narcotics transactions. As a result of that conviction, the government seized properties that were later auctioned for over $10 million and deposited in the U.S. Treasury.

[edit] Steger's legacy

For many years Judge Steger has been listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the Southwest, and Who’s Who in Law in America. He was a 32nd degree Mason and a Shriner. Judge Steger loved the outdoors and was an avid fisherman all of his life. Some of his happiest times were on the lake fishing with his law clerks and his many friends.

Steger will be remembered as a man of high moral character and integrity. Observers said that he loved being a judge and enjoyed presiding over an interesting lawsuit tried by good lawyers. He took senior status in 1987 but continued to handle a full docket. Failing health had kept him from the courtroom for the last few months prior to his death in East Texas Medical Center in Tyler. Former law clerks and fellow judges praised his fairness and honesty.

"When I took the job working for Judge Steger, I knew I was going to learn a lot about the law and how to be a good lawyer," said Matt Flanery, the judge's law clerk, in a story in the June 5, 2006, Tyler Morning Telegraph. "But after working for him for six years, I realize that he taught me how to be a good person and a good man. He is loved and well respected by all his former clerks. He had a way of making us feel like we were part of his family. And we're all really proud to be Steger clerks."

U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis said that Steger was a role model for him as well as for other judges and lawyers. Robert Davis, another of the 35 to 40 clerks who served during Steger's career, said Steger was the most honest and ethical man that he had ever met. He worked for Steger from 1989 to 1991. "He is my all-time hero," Davis said.

Attorney Robert Wilson, another former clerk, said that Steger was instrumental in the growth of the Republican Party of Texas into eventual majority status by helping to lay the long-term ground work for the political transformation of the state. "He will be greatly missed by many of us," Robert Wilson said. "There are so few great men like Judge Steger."

[edit] Last rites and religious faith

Graveside services were held at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Tyler on the afternoon of June 7, 2006, under the direction of Burks Walker Tippit Funeral Directors. Memorial services, which followed burial, were held in the Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, with Dr. Paul Powell and Dr. David Dykes officiating.

Judge Steger, who espoused his faith in Jesus Christ, was a charter member of Green Acres church. He was a founding trustee, a member of the original board of deacons, and an active member of the church choir for over 40 years. In addition to Ann, his wife of 58 years, Judge Steger was survived by three nieces and three nephews. Merritt Reed Steger, the son of the Stegers, preceded his father in death.

The family requested memorials to the Judge William M. Steger Endowed Scholarship, Baylor University School of Law, P. O. Box 97288, Waco, Texas 76798-7288 or the Meals on Wheels program, 3001 Robertson Road, Tyler, Texas.