Quick Facts
Biography
Myron Herbert Thompson (born 1947) is a Senior United States District Judge.
Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, Thompson received a B.A. from Yale University in 1969 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1972. He was an Assistant Attorney General of Alabama from 1972 to 1974, and was then in private practice in Dothan, Alabama until 1980. He was the first African American employee of the state of Alabama who was not a janitor or a teacher.
On September 17, 1980, Thompson was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to a seat on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama vacated by Frank M. Johnson, Jr.. Thompson was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 26, 1980, and received his commission on September 29, 1980. He served as chief judge from 1991 to 1998. He took senior status on August 22, 2013.
In a 2014 ruling, Thompson ruled an Alabama law regulating abortion unconstitutional, in Planned Parenthood Southeast, Inc., v. Strange (also known as Planned Parenthood Southeast, Inc., v. Bentley), citing the undue burden standard.