Northern District of Illinois / Appointed 1979 / Served to 2009

James Byron Moran

Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and confirmed by voice vote, James Byron Moran was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He earned a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1957. Rulings & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived
1930–2009
Appointed by
Jimmy Carter, 1979
Confirmed
by voice vote
Education
University of Michigan 1952 · Harvard Law School 1957
Succeeded by
Joan B. Gottschall

Federal judicial service

YearCourtAppointed byVote
1979Northern District of IllinoisCarter (D)Voice vote

Party letters show the appointing president’s party, not the judge’s own. A voice vote means the chamber approved aloud. No senator-by-senator tally is recorded.

Confirmation vote

Voice vote

The Senate approved this confirmation aloud, with no senator-by-senator tally recorded. Recorded roll-call votes begin in 1989.

Education

Judicial Record

Caseload & case types

In our data, Moran was assigned 3,437 district-court cases (1972–2008). Median time from filing to termination: 153 days across 3,436 closed cases.

Labor & ERISA21%
Real property16%
Contract12%
Other federal statutes11%
Civil rights10%
Prisoner & habeas10%
Other20%

Case assignment is from CourtListener’s PACER-derived docket records: a partial sample, not a complete caseload, reflecting the judge last assigned each case. How we count.

On appeal

Of 25 of Moran’s decisions reviewed on the merits by the U.S. courts of appeals in our data, 24 were affirmed, 1 reversed or vacated. This is a historical count of appellate outcomes for cases we could match, not a judgment of the judge, and not a complete record. How we count.

In our data, Moran authored 625 published opinions for the court (1979–2009). Most cited: Adair v. Hunt International Resources Corp. (91 citations).

A selective record from published opinions in the CourtListener corpus, not every ruling; most unpublished district orders are not included. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge.

Recent & notable rulings

Showing the 15 most-cited of 625 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

Who appointed James Byron Moran?
President Jimmy Carter appointed James Byron Moran to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in 1979.
Was James Byron Moran appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?
James Byron Moran was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.
What was James Byron Moran's confirmation vote?
James Byron Moran was confirmed by voice vote on July 23, 1979. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.
Which court was James Byron Moran on?
James Byron Moran was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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29 years on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Data as of 2026-08-10. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).