Robert James McNichols

Robert James McNichols (April 19, 1922 – December 20, 1992) was a United States federal judge in Spokane, Washington.

Born in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, McNichols was in the U.S. Army during World War II, from 1940 to 1941 and from 1943 to 1946. He attended Washington State College in Pullman and the Gonzaga University School of Law in Spokane. Following his first year as a law student in 1949, he worked for the Spokane Stock Exchange as a quotation clerk, and received an LL.B. from Gonzaga in 1952.

McNichols was a law clerk to state supreme court justice Edward Schaellenback in 1952. He was a deputy prosecuting attorney of Spokane County from 1953 to 1954, and was in private practice in Spokane with the firm of Winston and Cashatt for 24 years, from 1955 to 1979.

McNichols was a federal judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington. McNichols was nominated by President Jimmy Carter on November 6, 1979, to a new seat created earlier that year by 92 Stat. 1629. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 5 and received his commission on December 10, 1979, and was sworn in on January 4, 1980. He was chief judge from 1980 to 1989, and assumed senior status in 1991 on April 20. He served in that capacity for twenty months, until his death from lung cancer in Spokane in late 1992. He is buried in Idaho at the St. Thomas Cemetery in Coeur d'Alene.

His older brother Ray McNichols (1914–85) was also a federal judge, in Idaho. During his investiture to the federal bench in January 1980, the elder swore the younger in.

External links

• Robert James McNichols at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• Robert James McNichols at Find a Grave

Legal offices
Preceded by new seat	Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington 1979–1991	Succeeded by William Fremming Nielsen