Federal judge T.S. Ellis III, whose legal scholarship and commanding courtroom presence was evident in numerous high-profile trials, has died after a long illness. He was 85.
Ellis oversaw the trials of former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and former U.S. Rep. William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson as well as the plea deal of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh across a judicial career that lasted more than 35 years.
His acerbic wit sometimes drew muted complaints at the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, where Ellis was based, but his legal reasoning was unquestioned.
Ellis died Wednesday at his home in Keswick, according to the Cremation Society of Virginia.
Thomas Selby Ellis III was born in Colombia in 1940 and frequently found ways in court to utilize his Spanish-language skills. He often told Spanish-speaking defendants who relied on interpreters to speak up as they pleaded for leniency, saying he wanted to hear their words for himself.
He joined the Navy after receiving an undergraduate degree from Princeton, and completed graduate studies at Oxford. He received his law degree from Harvard, graduating magna cum laude.
He was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.
In a courthouse known as the “Rocket Docket” for its speedy disposition of cases, Ellis’ courtroom reflected his iconoclastic nature. Rarely did his hearings start on time, though when he presided over jury trials his punctuality improved as he zealously guarded jurors’ time commitments.
He frequently chastised lawyers to cut short long-winded arguments, in what he called “a concession to the shortness of life.” But he was easily coaxed or diverted into telling stories from the bench recalling episodes from his long legal career.
He snapped at lawyers who annoyed him, but would often adopt a more conciliatory tone later in the same hearing, and apologize for his short temper.
His penchant for speaking freely drew raised eyebrows at what was arguably the highest-profile trial over which he presided: the prosecution of Manafort, on charges of tax and bank fraud related to his work advising pro-Russia Ukrainian politicians before managing Trump’s campaign.
Ellis ultimately delivered a 47-month sentence, and said as an aside that Manafort appeared to have lived “an otherwise blameless life,” a phrase he often used at criminal sentencings. Critics who found much to blame in Manafort’s long career working for clients including the tobacco industry and international despots were outraged by the comment.
In 2009, Ellis sentenced Jefferson, a former Louisiana congressman, to 13 years in prison for taking bribes, including $90,000 found hidden in his freezer. The case threw multiple curveballs at Ellis, including a sexual relationship between a key witness and an investigating FBI agent.
In 2017, Ellis reduced Jefferson’s sentence to time served after a Supreme Court case changed the rules for what constitutes bribery of public officials. He made clear, though, that he believed Jefferson’s actions were criminal, and called his conduct “venal.”
“Public corruption is a cancer,” he said at the time of Jefferson’s resentencing. “It needs to be prosecuted and punished.”
Ellis’ sentencing hearings often followed a familiar script in which he invited defendants to explain themselves “by way of extenuation, mitigation, or indeed anything at all” that they wanted to say on their behalf. He invariably told defendants before passing judgment that “you write the pages to your own life story.”
Ellis took senior status as a judge in 2007 but regularly worked an extensive docket. In recent years, with his failing health, his cases were reassigned.
