Editor's note: This story about Judge David Winder, who died Tuesday, was originally published June 7, 1997.

When the state of Utah was sued over the parental-consent requirement in its birth-control law in 1984, Doug Balvin, the attorney defending the state, was dying of cancer.

So Balvin and his supervisor, then-Deputy Atty. Gen. Paul Warner, initiated a conference call with U.S. District Judge David K. Winder and opposing counsel to ask for more time.

``We had a hearing coming up and we asked for a continuance because Doug's treatment was making him sick and he wasn't ready,'' said Warner.

Winder interrupted when the opposing attorney began to object.

``I'm only going to say this once,'' said the judge. ``We will do whatever we can short of infringing on anyone's rights to accommodate Mr. Balvin. I see no compelling reason why we cannot delay the hearing and Mr. Balvin can take as long as he needs.''

Later, Winder told Balvin to dispense with the customary practice of standing up whenever a lawyer addresses the judge in court. ``You just stay seated,'' Winder told the ailing attorney.

``It was one of the most inspiring displays of sensitivity and kindness that I have ever seen from the bench,'' said Warner.

Later, when Winder was informed that Balvin had died, the judge was visibly shaken. Still, he ruled against the state.

``A lawyer never likes to lose a case. But if you're going to lose, you want to lose in Judge Winder's courtroom,'' said Warner, now an assistant U.S. attorney for Utah. ``When he rules against you, he does it in a way that you are never embarrassed. You walk away knowing that everything about his deliberations and his ruling were extremely professional.''

Winder, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for Utah, will take senior status beginning Monday. That is a semiretirement status, meaning he can take as many or as few cases as he wishes.

He plans, with his wife, Pam, their three children and several grandchildren, to simply relax for at least four months. That is something, colleagues say, he has rarely done during his 65 years.

Few retiring officials in any branch of government receive the unbridled praise heaped on Winder.

A recent profile of Winder in the Utah Bar Journal describes an incident at the conclusion of a complicated intellectual-property-rights case when the jury foreperson asked a court clerk: ``We just wanted to know if all the judges were as nice as Judge Winder.''

``My mother isn't as nice as Judge Winder,'' the clerk replied.

Sympathy for Troubled

Winder as a youth was a ``wise guy'' in church, he said in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune last week, and was almost banned from running for student-body president at Granite High School because of ``poor citizenship marks.''

When he did run, he got in more trouble for parading a cow down the halls of the school as a campaign stunt.

``My campaign manager's family owned Jordan Meat and Livestock,'' he said. ``So we borrowed a cow and put a sign on it that said, `Vote for Jersey. This is no Bull.' You see, my nickname was Jersey because my family owned Winder Dairy. ''

Winder lost the election. But experiences that landed him in trouble help explain his attitude toward those who come before him in the courtroom.

``Those times helped significantly because my own parents stuck by me,'' he said. ``My family stuck by me. It's helped me to understand that you have got to be realistic in judging people. Americans have so much freedom and do such oddball things at times, you have to be careful not to condemn them and write them off.''

Rating High on All Counts

Winder has been revered as among the best of his profession since he was appointed to the 3rd District Court bench by the late Gov. Scott Matheson in 1977.

After only one year on that court, Winder was voted Judge of the Year in 1978 by the Utah State Bar. He was appointed to the federal court by then-President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and was selected from among 39 colleagues as the best federal judge in the 10th Circuit by American Lawyer Magazine in 1983.

In a Salt Lake Tribune survey sent to more than 4,000 practicing lawyers last year, Winder was the highest rated judge in all courts in Utah, both federal and state.

The judges were rated on temperament, knowledge of the law, diligence, intellect, decision-making, and impartiality. Winder's lowest cumulative score in any category was a 3.7 out of 4.0. His overall rating was 3.75.

``He is the single best federal district court judge in the country,'' said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. ``I couldn't be more high on any judge.''

Advocate for Fairness

A graduate of the University of Utah and Stanford Law School, Winder said he became a lawyer, ``sort of by default. I graduated in history and didn't know what to do with it. I could have gotten a teaching certificate. But I applied to law school and got accepted. My dad paid my tuition.''

Winder was a prosecutor in the Salt Lake County Attorney's Office before being appointed assistant U.S. attorney in 1963. He later became chief deputy to then-District Attorney Jay Banks. He joined the Salt Lake City law firm of Strong and Hanni where he practiced mostly insurance defense work in personal-injury cases for 11 years.

He was attracted to the bench, Winder said, because he liked the idea of deciding cases in the most fair way he could, rather than being an advocate 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.''

Doing His Homework

Besides his polite demeanor, Winder is known for a stout work ethic that begins at 5 a.m. after his daily morning jog. Say several colleagues: Nobody prepares and studies like Winder.

``One of the most courageous things I've ever seen was when Judge Winder presided over the Vicki Singer case,'' said Salt Lake City attorney Gordon Roberts.

The case stemmed from the death of John Singer, a polygamist who had taken his children and his second wife's children out of the public schools and defied a court order to return them. He was shot during a confrontation with state police. His widow, Vicki Singer, filed an $11 million federal lawsuit against state officials.

It was complex litigation that lasted two years. Singer's lawyer was flamboyant Wyoming attorney Gerry Spence.

``Judge Winder dismissed the entire case on a motion for summary judgment without a trial,'' said Roberts. ``He was under extreme pressure to proceed to trial because of the sensational nature of the case. But he concluded it was without merit and wrote a more than 200-page decision. He was upheld in everything he did when the case was appealed to the 10th Circuit.''

Other notable decisions by Winder include:

» His ruling that the media had to be allowed into federal hearings on the cause of the Wilberg Mine fire that killed nearly two dozen miners in Carbon County in 1984.

» His ruling that prohibited the mining of coal in the Kaiparowits Plateau in southern Utah. (``My wife was thrilled,'' he said. ``I got a congratulatory telegram from Robert Redford.'')

» His ruling in 1980 that halted an Internal Revenue Service effort to acquire the names of people who made tax-deductible donations to Brigham Young University.

» His order to enforce a settlement between the state Division of Child and Family Services and child advocates who claimed the state had failed to adequately protect the abused and neglected children in its care. Winder, however, refused the plaintiff's request to place the agency in receivership.