Carl Muecke (pronounced Mick-ee) died this week in Flagstaff, Arizona. He was 89 years old and a retired federal district court judge. He had been born to German immigrants in New York and had worked in the Roosevelt WPA before he joined the marine corps. As a result of his experiences in the  war and his background, he became a strong civil libertarian. After his discharge he moved to Phoenix to work as a newspaper reporter. When the paper folded he became a labor organizer and at thirty years of age entered law school. He was appointed to the federal bench by Lyndon Johnson over the objections of Barry Goldwater. He was proud of being a liberal judge. He played a major role in desegregating Arizona schools even before the Supreme Court made it the law. As a federal judge he was in conflict the Arizona governor Symington over the rights of prisoners and his injunction to stop logging in areas controlled by the U.S. Forest Service as well as his other rulings in civil rights cases. Due to his rulings he received death threats and media abuse. In one case involving the sentencing of executives of large milk companies for price fixing, Muecke, instead of imposing fines which would be paid to the government, ordered them to serve 45 days working for community agencies providing help for the needy and to pay the fines he imposed to charitable organizations. As his wife said: "He always did what he thought was right. He took his job and his life seriously." Muecke retired from the bench in 1997.