# Matthew Kennelly

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{{Short description|American judge (born 1956)}}
{{For|the Australian baseball player|Matt Kennelly}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific_prefix          =
| name                      = Matthew Kennelly
| honorific_suffix          = 
| image                     = Matthew Kennelly (cropped).jpg
| alt                       = 
| caption                   = Kennelly in 2019
| office                    = [Senior Judge](/source/Senior_status) of the [United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois](/source/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Northern_District_of_Illinois)
| term_start                = October 7, 2021
| term_end                  = 
| office1                   = Judge of the [United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois](/source/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Northern_District_of_Illinois)
| term_start1               = April 22, 1999
| term_end1                 = October 7, 2021
| appointer1                = [Bill Clinton](/source/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Bill_Clinton)
| predecessor1              = [Paul Edward Plunkett](/source/Paul_Edward_Plunkett)
| successor1                = [Nancy L. Maldonado](/source/Nancy_L._Maldonado)
| pronunciation             = 
| birth_name                = 
| birth_date                = {{Birth date and age|1956|10|06}}
| birth_place               = [Marion](/source/Marion%2C_Indiana), [Indiana](/source/Indiana), U.S.
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| education                 = {{nowrap|[University of Notre Dame](/source/University_of_Notre_Dame) ([BA](/source/Bachelor_of_Arts))}}<br>[Harvard University](/source/Harvard_Law_School) ([JD](/source/Juris_Doctor))
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}}
'''Matthew Francis Kennelly'''<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1RKTfIlnrIUC&pg=PA725|page=725|title=Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Fifth Congress, Second Session, on Confirmations of Appointees to the Federal Judiciary, September 9; October 1; October 6; October 7, 1998|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|year=1999}}</ref> (born October 6, 1956) is a [senior](/source/Senior_status) [United States district judge](/source/United_States_federal_judge) of the [United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois](/source/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Northern_District_of_Illinois).

==Education and career==

Kennelly was born in 1956 in [Marion, Indiana](/source/Marion%2C_Indiana). He graduated from [University of Notre Dame](/source/University_of_Notre_Dame) with a [Bachelor of Arts](/source/Bachelor_of_Arts) degree in 1978 and [Harvard Law School](/source/Harvard_Law_School) with a [Juris Doctor](/source/Juris_Doctor) in 1981, where he was Executive Director of the [Harvard Legal Aid Bureau](/source/Harvard_Legal_Aid_Bureau). He served in private practice in [Chicago](/source/Chicago), [Illinois](/source/Illinois), from 1981 to 1982. He served as a [law clerk](/source/law_clerk) for Judge [Prentice Marshall](/source/Prentice_Marshall) of the [United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois](/source/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Northern_District_of_Illinois) from 1982 to 1984. He reentered private practice in 1984 and served in that capacity until his appointment to the federal bench in 1999.

==Federal judicial service==

On January 26, 1999, [Bill Clinton](/source/Bill_Clinton) nominated Kennelly to be a judge on the  [United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois](/source/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Northern_District_of_Illinois)  to a seat vacated by [Paul Edward Plunkett](/source/Paul_Edward_Plunkett). He was confirmed by the [United States Senate](/source/United_States_Senate) on April 15, 1999, and received his commission on April 22, 1999. He assumed [senior status](/source/senior_status) on October 7, 2021.

==Notable rulings==
{{See also|NSA warrantless surveillance (2001–2007)}}
He gained widespread attention when he presided over the case of ACLU v. AT&T in 2006,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060725/ap_on_re_us/phone_records_lawsuit |title=Judge dismisses phone records lawsuit - Yahoo! News |access-date=2017-01-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060805200638/http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060725/ap_on_re_us/phone_records_lawsuit |archive-date=2006-08-05 |url-status=dead }}</ref> "a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois on behalf of author [Studs Terkel](/source/Studs_Terkel) and other activists who said their constitutional rights were violated because of an NSA program of gathering phone company records."
:The court is persuaded that requiring AT&T to confirm or deny whether it has disclosed large quantities of telephone records to the federal government could give adversaries of this country valuable insight into the government's intelligence activities.

Kennelly ruled that Terkel and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit did not show that their particular records were seen by the government; therefore, they had no standing in suing the government.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{FJC Bio|nid=1390941}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-legal}}
{{s-bef|before=[Paul Edward Plunkett](/source/Paul_Edward_Plunkett)}}
{{s-ttl|title={{nowrap|Judge of the [United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois](/source/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Northern_District_of_Illinois)}}|years=1999–2021}}
{{s-aft|after=[Nancy L. Maldonado](/source/Nancy_L._Maldonado)}}
{{s-end}}

{{United States 7th Circuit senior district judges}}
{{Multidistrict Litigation Panel}}
{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kennelly, Matthew}}
Category:1956 births
Category:Living people
Category:University of Notre Dame alumni
Category:Harvard Law School alumni
Category:Judges of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Category:United States district court judges appointed by Bill Clinton
Category:People from Marion, Indiana
Category:20th-century American judges
Category:21st-century American judges

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Matthew Kennelly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Kennelly) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Kennelly?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.