Edward S. Northrop, 92; Former Chief U.S. Judge, Maryland State Senator

Edward S. Northrop, 92, a former chief judge on the federal bench in Baltimore whose four decades of rulings included sentencing antiwar priest Philip F. Berrigan to prison, died Aug. 12 in a nursing home in Sandy Springs, Md.

The cause of death was complications from an abdominal tumor.

Born in Chevy Chase, Md., Northrop graduated from George Washington University and later from that university’s law school.

He served in the Navy during World War II, working mostly from Washington as head of the Joint Intelligence Collection Agency.

Northrop became a partner in a Washington law firm after the war and ran for statewide office in Maryland.

He served two terms in the state senate.

Appointed to the U.S. District Court in 1961 by President Kennedy, he became chief judge of the court in 1970.

In 1968, he sentenced Berrigan to six years in prison for pouring blood on Selective Service System files in Catonsville, Md.

“You have transcended the tolerable limits of civil disobedience,” he told Berrigan at sentencing. “You deliberately set out to use violent means to destroy the very fabric of our society.”

Northrop took senior status on the court in 1981, and continued hearing cases through the late 1990s.