W. Mansfield, Judge in Contra Case, Dies at 75

Walter Roe Mansfield, the federal circuit judge who helped select the special prosecutor investigating the Iran- contra arms aid scandal, died Jan. 7 of a stroke. He was 75.

Mansfield, who was appointed to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York in 1971, had been semi-retired since 1981.

A spokesman for the appeals court, which serves Connecticut, Vermont and New York, said Mansfield suffered the stroke while vacationing in New Zealand.

Served on Panel

Since 1984, Mansfield had served on the judicial panel that appoints independent counsels to investigate sensitive matters.

The panel’s most recent action was the Dec. 19 appointment of Lawrence E. Walsh, a former New York federal judge and high Justice Department official, as special prosecutor in the Iran- contra investigation.

As an appeals court judge, Mansfield issued decisions in several major cases, including boxer Muhammad Ali’s lawsuit against the New York State Athletic Commission, the Attica prison inmates’ case against then-Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and Texaco’s legal battle with Pennzoil. In the latter case, early last year he upheld a lower court ruling that required Texaco to post a $1-billion bond to secure a $12-billion judgment that Pennzoil had won.

Full Workload

Mansfield took the semi-retired status of senior judge in 1981, but continued to carry a nearly full workload.

Before his appointment to the U.S. District Court of the Southern District in Manhattan in 1966 and to the appellate court five years later, Mansfield was an assistant federal prosecutor in New York.

As chairman of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 1978 to 1984, Mansfield became a major figure in directing the response of the judiciary to concerns about the cost and pace of civil litigation.