Who appointed Walter Herbert Rice?

President Jimmy Carter appointed Walter Herbert Rice to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in 1980.

Was Walter Herbert Rice appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?

Walter Herbert Rice was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.

What was Walter Herbert Rice's confirmation vote?

Walter Herbert Rice was confirmed by voice vote on May 21, 1980. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.

Southern District of Ohio / Appointed 1980 / Senior status since 2004

Walter Herbert Rice

Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio

Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and confirmed by voice vote, Walter Herbert Rice is a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. He earned a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1962. Rulings & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1937 · age 89
Appointed by: Jimmy Carter, 1980
Confirmed: by voice vote
Education: Northwestern 1958 · Columbia Law School 1962
Succeeded: Timothy Sylvester Hogan
Succeeded by: Michael Ryan Barrett

Federal judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1980	Southern District of Ohio succeeded Timothy Sylvester Hogan	Carter (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

Northwestern University	B.A.	1958
Columbia Law School	J.D.	1962
Columbia University	M.B.A.	1962

Judicial Record

Caseload & case types

In our data, Rice was assigned 7,246 district-court cases (1976–2026). Median time from filing to termination: 307 days across 7,038 closed cases.

Civil rights17%

Contract13%

Social Security13%

Prisoner & habeas9%

Personal-injury torts9%

Labor & ERISA9%

Other29%

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 275 of Rice’s decisions reviewed on the merits by the U.S. courts of appeals in our data, 221 were affirmed, 44 reversed or vacated, and 10 affirmed in part and reversed in part. 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, Rice authored 578 published opinions for the court (1980–2012). Most cited: Reynolds v. City of Dayton (158 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

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1982	Reynolds v. City of Dayton	533 F. Supp. 136	158
1986	Taylor v. Checkrite, Ltd.	627 F. Supp. 415	64
2007	Kay v. National City Mortgage Co.	494 F. Supp. 2d 845	57
2003	Raasch v. NCR Corp.	254 F. Supp. 2d 847	44
2002	Centerville ALF, Inc. v. Balanced Care Corp.	197 F. Supp. 2d 1039	44
1985	Bouquett v. Clemmer	626 F. Supp. 46	43
1981	Brown v. ASD Computing Center	519 F. Supp. 1096	42
1995	Women's Medical Professional Corp. v. Voinovich	911 F. Supp. 1051	37
1982	Thompson v. Kerr	555 F. Supp. 1090	33
1981	Nation v. United States Government	512 F. Supp. 121	33
1987	Williams v. Dayton Police Department	680 F. Supp. 1075	32
1984	Bronson v. BOARD OF EDUC. OF CITY SCHOOL DIST.	604 F. Supp. 68	32
1983	Sight & Sound of Ohio, Inc. v. Wright	36 B.R. 885	32
1983	Hunter Sav. Ass'n v. Baggott Law Offices Co., LPA	34 B.R. 368	32
2002	Jones v. Marcum	197 F. Supp. 2d 991	30

Showing the 15 most-cited of 578 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 Walter Herbert Rice?: President Jimmy Carter appointed Walter Herbert Rice to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in 1980.
Was Walter Herbert Rice appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?: Walter Herbert Rice was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.
What was Walter Herbert Rice's confirmation vote?: Walter Herbert Rice was confirmed by voice vote on May 21, 1980. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.
Which court is Walter Herbert Rice on?: Walter Herbert Rice is a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

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