Henry Woods, 83; U.S. Judge Was Removed From a Whitewater Case

Henry Woods, 83, a federal judge who was removed from a Whitewater case because he was a friend of President Clinton, died of undisclosed causes Thursday in Little Rock, Ark.

Born in Abbeville, Miss., Woods earned his law degree at the University of Arkansas. He was an FBI agent and honored trial lawyer before President Carter appointed him a U.S. District Court judge for eastern Arkansas in 1979.

In 1996, an appeals court panel removed Woods from a Whitewater case against Arkansas’ then-Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. Woods had dismissed an indictment against Tucker, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it and said Woods should let another judge handle the case. Tucker later pleaded guilty in the case after it was assigned to another judge.

Woods also was involved in the Little Rock School District’s 1982 lawsuit against the state and neighboring districts over desegregation of the Little Rock district. The 8th Circuit Court reversed an order in which Woods required the predominantly black Little Rock district to merge with two nearby, predominantly white districts.