Orrin Hatch: “the country, the judiciary, and the Senate have lost a patriot, a great man of character and integrity, a gifted judge…”

“the country, the judiciary, and the Senate have lost a patriot, a great man of character and integrity, a gifted judge, and a trusted friend with the passing last week of U.S. Circuit Judge Edward Becker. Edward Roy Becker was born on May 4, 1933, in his beloved Philadelphia. He practiced law there for more than a decade, until President Richard Nixon appointed him to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 1970. President Ronald Reagan elevated Judge Becker to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1981. The Third Circuit considers appeals from Federal district courts in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Virgin Islands. Judge Becker eventually served as the Third Circuit's chief judge for 5 years before taking senior status on his 70th birthday in 2003. Edward Becker lived for nearly all of his 73 years in his boyhood home in the Frankford section of Philadelphia. He read legal briefs while riding the train to the courthouse, where he was known for what the New York Times described as a lack of grandiosity rarely found in a Federal court. With an uncanny ability to play virtually any song by ear on the piano, Judge Becker accompanied Supreme Court Justices at their annual sing-a-longs that the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist hosted for the law clerks.…”