TACOMA — Franklin D. Burgess, 75, the U.S. District Court judge in Tacoma who made a landmark ruling in 1998 allowing the Makah tribe to resume whaling after seven decades, died Friday after a battle with cancer.
“It’s such a tremendous loss,” said Robert Lasnik, chief judge for the U.S. District Court for Western Washington.
Judge Burgess was diagnosed with cancer last year and had reduced his workload recently, although he continued to put in hours at the federal courthouse in Tacoma until a few weeks ago, when he was hospitalized, Lasnik told The News Tribune of Tacoma.
Judge Burgess was moved from St. Joseph’s Hospital to a hospice care center Friday and died surrounded by his family, Lasnik said.
Judge Burgess, appointed by President Bill Clinton, took the oath of office as a U.S. district judge in 1994, becoming the second black man appointed to the federal bench in Western Washington.
He ruled against animal groups’ challenges in 1998 to essentially uphold a U.S.-sanctioned gray whale quota under international rules to the Makah under the tribe’s 1855 treaty with the federal government.
The tribe attempted a hunt soon afterward in October 1998, then again in May 1999, taking one whale in the latter effort.
After an appellate court in San Francisco ruled that an environmental assessment must be conducted before any further whaling by the Makah, the case was sent back to Judge Burgess.
After the assessment was completed in 2001, Judge Burgess rejected another challenge against the Makah whaling by pro-animal groups that was overruled by the appellate court in San Francisco in 2002. The hunts have been on hold indefinitely since then.
Other cases Judge Burgess oversaw included a challenge to Washington state’s blanket primary election system and the trial of Briana Waters, who was convicted in a devastating 2001 eco-terror fire at the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture.
