The elderly elite of Kansas City share their life journeys, what motivated them along the way, the lucky breaks and tough times, and advice for staying active and relevant in their later years.
Written by David Hodes
Interviewed by David M. Block, David Hodes and Pete Mundo
Judge Howard Sachs
Birth date: September 13, 1925, Age: 99
“I don’t quickly call out winners or losers or form opinions. I keep in mind that there may be some things I don’t know that would affect my ultimate judgment about people.”
Senior Western Missouri District Judge Howard F. Sachs has settled into retirement after a long and illustrious career. Spoiler alert: He’s not really retired. But wow, has he had a knack for being in the right place at the right time.
Sachs graduated from KC’s Southwest High School in 1942 and went on to attend Williams College for two years, which is a private liberal arts men’s college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He then enlisted in the Navy as an electrician for the USS North Dakota and served until the end of World War II. Sachs witnessed the signing of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay. He finished college at Williams as valedictorian in 1947, then attended Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 1950. From 1950 to 1951, Sachs clerked for Judge Albert A. Ridge, U.S. District Court, Western District of Missouri, before setting up his own practice in 1951.
Sachs was recommended by Senator Thomas Eagleton as district judge, nominated by Jimmy Carter on May 17, 1979, confirmed by the Senate on September 25, 1979, and received his district judge commission on September 26, 1979.
He took office on October 5, 1979, served as chief judge from 1990 to 1992 and assumed senior status on October 31, 1992.
The Longest Serving Judge
Sachs guesses that he is the longest serving district judge at this point. “But I’m not continuing forever,” he says. “I’ll be 100 years old in September of 2025, and I don’t think judges should be serving after 100. At one point I was saying 95 and out. But I was going pretty well at 95. I continue on today with some light practice, four days a week.”
Sachs served as chairman of the Board of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City and helped orchestrate the admission of women and African American lawyers into the Kansas City Bar Association.
During the time he clerked for Judge Ridge, Sachs was assigned the Swope Park Swimming Pool case, which challenged the constitutionality of segregated municipal pools in Kansas City. In 1962, Sachs drafted the ordinance that finally ended segregated public accommodations in Kansas City, Missouri.
He contributed to the opinion in that case, siding with the argument made by the NAACP’s chief attorney at the time, Thurgood Marshall, that segregated public swimming pools violated the constitution of the United States.
Sachs says that probably the most significant case he had was when the TWA flight attendants went on strike and the various issues that came out of that strike. “In fact, it went to the Supreme Court on two different issues,” he says. “The first one, they agreed with me by a four to four vote because there was one judge who had retired, so they had only eight justices.”
More to the Man
But there’s more to this great man, as pointed out by former Kansas City mayor and now Congressman Emanuel Cleaver during a recognition of the judge’s 40 years on the bench, with a tribute in the House of Representatives on October 1, 2019: “Judge Howard F. Sachs is widely known for his unparalleled devotion to the legal profession and his well-analyzed, clearly expressed opinions rooted in the bedrock of justice,” Cleaver said. “Distinguished by his intellectual interest, faithfulness to precedent and reserved demeanor, Judge Sachs has established an inspirational legacy steeped in justice, fairness and due process.” Cleaver added that the judge kept a slate of cases that he worked on. That’s still the case now, five years later.
What Today Brings
What Sachs does today is read. A lot. He reads history or biography stories and some politics. “Reading keeps me happy,” he says. “That is my principal activity, almost my complete activity. As long as I have some books to read or a couple of magazines, that keeps me satisfied. I would hope that if I make it to 100 that will still be true.”
He never, or rarely, exercises. He likes to swim, but he sees people “running around the block or something maybe once a week and think they’re losing weight. I don’t go for things like that,” he says.
Is working as a district judge still fun for him? “I think I’m doing some good, particularly in sentencing, which is very important to people, especially in criminal cases,” he says. “I think I can help out the court by continuing to help with sentencing. But I also have some civil cases, too. I like to have the challenge of working to the extent that I do.”
Sachs doesn’t really give out advice, but he has memories of good advice others gave him. “When I came on the court, Judge Ridge, the senior judge at the time, told me: ‘Remember to take your time. Nobody can push you. You should take whatever time you need to decide something or rule on something. Don’t make decisions just because you think you’re under the gun.’”
Changes and Adjustments
Sachs had those moments in life where other opportunities presented themselves. But unlike what happens to most people considering what to do next, politics played a role.
He tells the story of being nominated for a vacancy in the Court of Appeals six months after his appointment as district judge. But that court had a different method of delivering justice. On the Court of Appeals, three judges have to decide things. In the district court, the judge is working on his own. “When you’re trying to write up something for three judges, which is the case in the Court of Appeals, you have to say things that you think they would find acceptable. It’s really an advantage to me to decide things on my own and say things that I want to.”
The door to that particular vacancy opportunity was slammed shut when Ronald Reagan won the election in 1980. “With the change of party, my nomination died.”
Sachs has seen much over his lifetime, from the invention of television to the revolution of space travel to the sudden creation of the internet. But it’s not really surprising to him. “Basically, it seems to me that life goes on in the same way even though methods change,” he says.
“I’m not continuing forever. I’ll be 100 years old in September of 2025, and I don’t think judges should be serving after 100.”
