Judge in Texas abortion case is an Obama-appointee and ‘country boy at heart’ who sees both sides – Houston Chronicle

On Friday, Pitman will hear arguments by videoconference on a request from the Justice Department of President Joe Biden for an injunction that could temporarily halt America’s most restrictive abortion law in half a century. Since the law went into effect Sept. 1 the number of Texas residents seeking out-of-state procedures has skyrocketed. The man who rules in United States v. State of Texas will approach the case with a thoughtful and open mind, according to friends, attorneys and judges who know him.

On HoustonChronicle.com: ‘Save Chick-fil-A’ case could impact the future of Texas abortion ban

His biography is of a man who repeatedly rose to the top of his field without losing favor of polarizing forces on either side of the political spectrum. In scenes of bipartisan cohesion hard to conjure today, Senate Republicans John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchinson successfully submitted his name to President Barack Obama for U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas 2009. In 2014, Cornyn and Sen. Ted Cruz backed him for a lifetime appointment to the district’s federal bench. Pitman stated in his official questionnaire with the judiciary that he’d never belonged to a political party.

“He’s not someone who is easily characterized one way or the other,” said attorney Jeff Edwards, who heads a small firm in Austin. “He’s someone who really does respect the process and will give you your day in court.”

“He will come down hard when he has to or it’s appropriate,” Edwards said. “Like most judges, he cares about the result but he cares just as much about the manner in which the result is obtained.”

Carolyn Ostrom, a fellow lawyer and longtime friend, said that having walked the line between worlds Pitman may be uniquely suited to being a judge.

“He’s well-suited for these difficult cases because of his particular upbringing,” she said. “Maybe his upbringing helps him to see both sides.”

Turned down Yale

Pitman, 58, is a sixth generation Texan. He is the youngest of five siblings raised in the Church of Christ, said Sherrard “Butch” Hayes, an attorney and longtime friend. Pitman’s late mother took care of the home and his late father worked as a pharmaceutical salesman.

When he was young, Pitman played violin and raised dozens of homing pigeons, Hayes said. By 12, Pitman was an officer in the American Pigeon Growers Association; by 17 he’d won the association’s grand national championship for best in breed.

He was an avid reader, loved science and considered a career in medicine before he discovered the law.

His siblings had all attended Abilene Christian, and although he’d been offered a scholarship to Yale, Pitman followed their path and studied psychology. His parents were pleased he’d be close to home. He enjoyed college but he told the Dallas Voice several years ago, Abilene “was not a place that welcomed gay and lesbian people.” It wasn’t until law school at the University of Texas in the 1980s that he met out gay men and began being open about his sexuality, friends said.

His family members were not all on board after he came out, but he remained close with some of them. He traveled the world and enjoyed the outdoors with friends who were like family.

Ostrom recalled the judge sneaking over on Christmas Eve to help “Santa” set up a trampoline in her family’s backyard for Pitman’s godchildren. He owned a farm for a while outside Austin where he rode horses. He later took up cycling. He loves his two dogs, and keeps an eye on the clock at night so as not to miss giving an insulin shot to the diabetic one. A few years ago, Pitman married “a super bright introspective guy” from the Canary Islands, who is an architect, Hayes said.

On HoustonChronicle.com: UT law professor warns Congress of broader threat from Texas abortion ban

“I think that being gay has given me, in the end, helpful perspectives in doing my job,” he told the Dallas Voice.

Lawyers said he doesn’t have the normal airs of a federal judge. He’s careful and gets the law right but he never forgets that cases are about people. He has been extremely conscientious about COVID-19 safety, according to lawyers who recently visited his courtroom. He nixed a request this week by the Justice Department to have an in-person hearing Friday.

Friends said he is even-tempered and has a mischievous sense of humor.

El Chapo indictments

After law school, Pitman clerked for U.S. District Judge David O. Belew Jr. in his hometown. He had a brief stint with Fulbright & Jaworski, doing environmental work in the energy sector, Ostrom said. But the bulk of his years were spent as a front-line federal prosecutor in the Western District handling narcotics, firearms, fraud, immigration and gang cases. He also served in the late ’90s with the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys in Washington, D.C.

On Sept. 11 as interim U.S. attorney, Pitman set up the first anti-terrorism task force in the western region. In 2003, the Western District judges picked him to be a U.S. magistrate judge.

Six years later, Pitman put his name in for U.S. attorney, the top law enforcement officer in the district. Although the two Republican senators backed him, the nomination stalled for a couple years after some conservatives raised concerns about him being gay. He became the first openly gay U.S. attorney in Texas, and later the first openly gay federal judge in the three states represented by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

During his tenure at the helm, the U.S. Attorney’s Office landed indictments for Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman among two dozen high ranking officers in the Sinaloa cartel. The notorious drug kingpin was ultimately sentenced to life by a Brooklyn federal judge.

At Pitman’s confirmation hearing for district judge in 2014, Cornyn told his fellow senators, “I was proud to support Robert for U.S. attorney, and I am proud to support him for the nomination at the federal bench.”

On HoustonChronicle.com: Data shows how Texas’ new abortion law disproportionately impacts Black people, border towns

When Sen. Chuck Grassley asked, “What is the most important attribute of a judge?” Pitman responded, “I believe the most important attribute of a judge is integrity. For a judge, integrity means strictly adhering to the rule of law and rendering fair and impartial decisions.”

For a while after he took the bench, Pitman managed a docket with cases stretching from San Antonio to Waco. He has also worked for several years as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

Not everyone has applauded his decisions in some high-profile cases, including his ruling against Attorney General Ken Paxton in a case challenging dropoff ballots, and his ruling in favor of the pipeline company Kinder Morgan in a case brought by the Sierra Club seeking to halt construction of a $2 billion natural gas pipeline, which drew criticism from environmentalists. In the Title IX lawsuit brought by 15 Jane Does against Baylor University, Pitman ruled the plaintiffs could not seek punitive damages or changes impacting the school’s current or future Title IX enforcement but they could seek actual and compensatory damages on their allegations that Baylor acted with deliberate indifference when they sought help after being sexually assaulted by fellow students.

As a magistrate and judge, Pitman consistently ranks among the top judges in the Austin Bar Association’s annual poll. More than 85 percent of lawyers in 2021 gave him high marks for dedication, temperament, impartiality and application of the law.

His fellow judge in Austin, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, said Pitman has “absolutely the best judicial temperament you could want — he’s calm, not excitable, listens to everybody and works hard to get the job done.” Yeakel noted that he and Pitman each have more than 400 civil and over 100 criminal cases on their docket and because they’re located in Austin the cases are sometimes extremely complicated.

Yeakel said he thinks Pitman will manage the abortion case like any other high-profile matter.

“You put aside personal beliefs, hear the arguments on both sides and rule the way you see the law,” he said.

But it’s not easy being in the public eye, he said: “It is extremely difficult because judges are like football coaches in that everybody in America knows how to do our job better than we do.”

gabrielle.banks@chron.com