James David Whittemore (born August 29, 1952) is a senior United States district judge serving in the Tampa division of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. He was previously a Florida state trial court judge, a federal public defender, and an attorney in private practice who won a criminal case before the United States Supreme Court. As a federal judge, Whittemore presided over a number of high-profile cases, including a lawsuit against Major League Baseball to challenge its draft procedure, and the Terri Schiavo case, after the United States Congress had specifically given the Middle District of Florida jurisdiction to hear the seven-year-long fight over whether the brain-damaged Schiavo should be taken off life support.
Career output and lasting influence
Opinions attributed per year · peak 9/year
Later decisions citing those opinions, per year · peak 44/year
Florida Middle District Court · 2000–
Both charts share the same year axis. Opinion counts include only opinions in our corpus attributed to this judge so far — a year at zero can mean an attribution gap, not judicial silence. Influence typically outlasts the career: citations keep climbing after the last opinion.
- Gender
- Male
- Race
- White
Prior employment
- Circuit Court of Florida, Thirteenth Judicial CircuitJudge · 1990–2000
- Private practice, Florida1977, 1981–1990
Assistant federal public defender · 1978–1981
Appointments
2000–2017 · Appointed by William J. Clinton (Democratic)
Education
J.D. · 1977- University of FloridaB.S.B.A. · 1974