Ralph Karl Winter Jr. (July 30, 1935 – December 8, 2020) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Ralph K. Winter Jr.
Second Circuit Court of Appeals
Chief Judge — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Born 1935 in Waterbury, CT
Died 2020 in North Haven, CT
FJC ID: 2621
Career output and lasting influence
Opinions attributed per year · peak 15/year
Later decisions citing those opinions, per year · peak 351/year
Second Circuit Court of Appeals · 1981–2020
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
- Judicial Conference of the United StatesMember · 1997–2000
- Yale Law SchoolFaculty · 1962–1982
- ↳research associate and lecturer · 1962–1964
- ↳assistant/associate professor · 1964–1968
- ↳professor of law · 1968–1982
- American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C.Adjutant scholar · 1972–1981
- Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, U.S. Senate Committee on the JudiciaryConsultant · 1968–1972
- Washington, D.C.Guggenheim Fellow · 1971–1972
- Brookings Institute, Washington, D.C.Senior fellow · 1968–1970
Law clerk , Hon. Thurgood Marshall · 1961–1962
Law clerk , Hon. Caleb M. Wright · 1960–1961
Appointments
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second CircuitChief Judge1981–2020 · Appointed by Ronald Reagan (Republican)Term ended: Death
Education
LL.B. · 1960- Yale UniversityB.A. · 1957