U.S. District Judge David Winder, widely considered one of Utah's finest judges and fondly remembered for his courtesy in the courtroom, died Tuesday at the age of 76 after a long illness.

"He had a perfect judicial temperament," said U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman. "He never demanded respect -- he earned it. He treated everyone who appeared before him with fairness and dignity."

Winder was appointed to the federal bench in Utah in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. He took senior judge status in June 1997, assuming a lighter caseload, and stopped hearing cases two years ago.

He was suffering from Parkinson's disease and a form of dementia, according to his son, Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder.

"He was a great man and a great role model," the sheriff said.

Winder first became a judge in 1977, when then-Gov. Scott Matheson named him to the state's 3rd District Court. There, he was nicknamed "Decent Dave," according to a statement from Utah's federal court.

After his appointment two years later to the federal bench, he worked long hours and quickly earned a reputation as efficient and attentive. In 1983, according to the court's statement, The American Lawyer magazine named him the best district judge in the 10th Circuit, calling him "the best of a new breed of younger, more professional judges."

Winder was born in Salt Lake City in 1932. He was "wise guy" as a youth, he said in a 1997 interview with The Salt Lake Tribune , describing parading a cow down the halls of Granite High School as a campaign stunt while running for student body president. His family owned Winder Dairy.

He earned his law degree at Stanford Law School in 1958 and worked as an assistant U. S. attorney and in private practice before he was named to the state bench.

He was attracted to the idea of striving to decide cases fairly, he told The Tribune , rather than advocating for causes in which he didn't always believe.

"It wasn't so much that I thought the system wasn't functioning right. I just didn't want to be part of that system anymore," he said.

Attorneys commonly cite a ruling in a case involving the 1979 death of polygamist John Singer as Winder's most courageous.

Singer, who had taken his children and his second wife's children out of the public schools and defied a court order to return them, was shot during a confrontation with state police. His widow, Vicki Singer, filed an $11 million federal lawsuit against state officials, and there was pressure to proceed to trial.

But Winder wrote a more than 200-page decision that said the suit lacked merit and dismissed it -- a ruling that was upheld by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Tuesday, his colleagues on the federal bench praised Winder for both his legal abilities and his human touch. Chief Judge Tena Campbell said Winder had "the best temperament."

"He was a first-class judge," said Judge Bruce Jenkins, who was appointed to the bench the year before Winder. "He was an easy colleague to get along with."

Paul Warner, who practiced before Winder as U.S. attorney for Utah before becoming a federal magistrate in 2006, described him as a role model.

"He was known for his decency, his humanity, his keen intellect and his fairness. He was the real deal, both on and off the bench," Warner said.

Lawyers considered Winder an outstanding jurist. Scott Matheson Jr., the late governor's son and a University of Utah law professor, described him as "the consummate federal judge."

Salt Lake City lawyer Fran Wikstrom praised him for his thorough study of case issues and a work ethic that put him in his chambers by 6 a.m. many days.

"He treated everyone with respect," Wikstrom said. "He had a real humility about him. We've been fortunate to have a really great trial judge."

A former law clerk for the judge, Salt Lake City lawyer Jeff Hunt, also said Winder was courteous to everyone. The judge was on a first-name basis with the woman who cleaned his courtroom and treated her the same as the attorneys who appeared before him, Hunt said.

Utah Supreme Court Justice Jill Parrish, who clerked for Winder from August 1985 to August 1986 immediately after finishing law school, said the judge was an excellent mentor.

"He took work very seriously, but didn't take himself very seriously," she said. "He spent a lot of time talking to his two law clerks about what just happened in the courtroom -- what [the lawyers] did well, what they didn't do well."

The lessons she learned from Winder helped her when she applied to be a judge, Parrish said.

She said Winder was fair and impartial.

"He was incredibly humble," she added. "I don't think he ever realized how well-respected he really was. He didn't realize his uniqueness."

Winder was preceded in death by his wife, Pamela Martin Winder, and is survived by his three children and their spouses: Ann and Larry Bugni, Kay and James Mitchell, and Jim Winder and his wife, Shawn.

pmanson@sltrib.com

-- Sheila R. McCann and Stephen Hunt contributed to this report.