Judge James Robertson dies at 81

Hon. James Robertson

James Robertson, a retired federal district judge in Washington, D.C., has died at age 81. Judge Robertson was the trial judge in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Before attending law school, he served in the Navy, an experience that may have influenced his ruling in Robinson v. Dalton, which involved the "vessel exception" to the right to turn down captain's mast under Article 15, UCMJ. The D.C. Bar, of which he had been president, ran this obituary.