A longtime southern Illinois judge has passed away.
The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Illinois says Judge Kenneth Meyers died on Saturday.
Six years after graduating from law school in 1969, Meyers was appointed the first full-time United States Magistrate Judge for the then Eastern District of Illinois. He served in that capacity for eleven years. His primary responsibility was to handle litigation arising from the federal penitentiary in Marion. At one point, he presided over a case involving the lockdown of the Penitentiary following the murder of two prison guards. His ruling in that case set the first guidelines for implementing prison lockdowns.
Soon after that ruling, Meyers was appointed Chief Judge of the U.S Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Illinois.
He retired in 2015 after 40 years on the federal bench.
