Amy J. St. Eve

Amy J. St. Eve (born November 20, 1965, Belleville, Illinois) is a District Judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She joined the court in 2002 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.

Raised in Belleville, Illinois, St. Eve received her bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 1987. Three years later, in 1990, she earned her Juris Doctor degree from Cornell Law School. During her time at Cornell, she interned for a summer in the office of Sen. Alan J. Dixon, who was from her native Belleville.

Following law school graduation, St. Eve was in private practice at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York City from 1990 to 1994. She was an associate independent counsel at Whitewater Independent Counsel's Office, Little Rock, Arkansas from 1994 to 1996, where she successfully prosecuted former Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker and Whitewater partners Jim and Susan McDougal for fraud.

From 1996 until 2001, St. Eve served as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. She was a Senior counsel for Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, Illinois from 2001 until 2002, when she became a federal judge.

On March 21, 2002, St. Eve was nominated by President George W. Bush to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois vacated by George W. Lindberg, who had taken senior status. She was recommended for the post by U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald told the Chicago Tribune in 2003 that before St. Eve applied for the judgeship, "I didn't know Amy or know anyone who knew Amy. I was looking for the best qualified person."

She was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 1, 2002, and received her commission the following day.

Judge St. Eve was assigned to the Conrad Black case; she ordered his release in July 2010 pending a possible retrial. He was later resentenced, after his appeal, by Judge St. Eve to 13 months in prison. This was in addition to the time he had served thus far and which would complete his previously modified sentence, which had been reduced from 6 1/2 years to 42 months overall, according to June 2011 CNN and Associated Press reports related to his trial.

Conrad Black referred obliquely to Judge St. Eve in an article written for the National Post as a "...half-demented, much-criticized Chicago judge."