{{Short description|American judge (born 1948)}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = | name = Sim Lake | honorific_suffix = | image = | alt = | caption = | office = Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas | term_start = July 5, 2019 | term_end = | office1 = Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas | term_start1 = August 12, 1988 | term_end1 = July 5, 2019 | appointer1 = Ronald Reagan | predecessor1 = Ross N. Sterling | successor1 = Drew B. Tipton | pronunciation = | birth_name = Simeon Timothy Lake III | birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1944|}} | birth_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | citizenship = | party = | other_party = | height = | spouse = | partner = | relations = | children = | parents = | mother = | father = | relatives = | education = Texas A&M University (BA)<br>University of Texas (JD) <!--Embedded templates / Footnotes--> | footnotes = }} '''Simeon Timothy Lake III''' (born in 1944) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. His notable trials include the trial of Enron Chairman Ken Lay and former Chief Executive Officer Jeff Skilling.
==Education and career==
Lake was born in 1944, in Chicago. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Texas A&M University in 1966, where he participated in the MSC Student Conference on National Affairs committee. He received a Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law in 1969, graduating number one in his class.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/enron/3619919.html|title=Enron judge comes to trial well-prepared|date=28 January 2006 |publisher=}}</ref> He was in private practice of law in Houston, Texas from 1969 to 1970. He was in the United States Army from 1970 to 1971 as a Judge Advocate General's Corps prosecutor in Vietnam. He was in private practice of law in Houston from 1972 to 1988, with the law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski LLP.<ref name="fjc.gov">{{FJC Bio|nid=1383571|inline=yes}}</ref>
===Federal judicial service===
Lake was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1988, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas vacated by Judge Ross N. Sterling. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 11, 1988, and received commission on August 12, 1988. He assumed senior status on July 5, 2019.<ref name="fjc.gov"/>
==Notable cases==
Besides the Enron cases, Lake has participated in other notable cases: *In 2004, he ordered the Bible removed from a display on the grounds of the Harris County Civil Courthouse. *In 1999, he ordered the Houston Independent School District to pay private school tuition for a disabled student it could not accommodate. *In 1997, he directed an acquittal and mistrial of Stanislaw Burzynski on three dozen counts of fraud after a jury deadlocked on the fate of the doctor who used unproven therapies to counter act cancer progression, to which he had many patients with positive results.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.chron.com/business/enron/article/Enron-judge-comes-to-trial-well-prepared-1873125.php|title=Enron judge comes to trial well-prepared|first1=Mary|last1=Flood|first2=Copyright 2006 Houston|last2=Chronicle|date=January 28, 2006|website=Houston Chronicle}}</ref>
On October 23, 2006, Lake sentenced Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling to the minimum possible sentence under federal guidelines, 24 years, with significantly less time actually expected to be served by Skilling. Lake imposed this rather lenient sentence despite federal laws that would have allowed for a significantly longer prison sentence.
In April 2013, Judge Lake ruled<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/nation_world/Judge_Animal_snuff_films_protected_by_1st_Amendment.html|title=Judge: Animal snuff films protected by 1st Amendment|first=Sam |last=Wood |website=www.inquirer.com|date=19 April 2013 }}</ref> that videos showing cruelty to animals are protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution despite laws against cruelty to animals and evidence that cruelty to animals can be a precursor to cruelty to human beings<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ijo.sagepub.com/content/47/1/71.short|title=From Animal Cruelty to Serial Murder: Applying the Graduation Hypothesis|work=sagepub.com|access-date=12 May 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151010001048/http://ijo.sagepub.com/content/47/1/71.short|archive-date=10 October 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=The Relationship of Animal Abuse to Violence and Other Forms of Antisocial Behavior|first1=ARNOLD|last1=ARLUKE |author1-link=Arnold Arluke |first2=JACK|last2=LEVIN|first3=CARTER|last3=LUKE|first4=FRANK|last4=ASCIONE|date=1 September 1999|journal=Journal of Interpersonal Violence|volume=14|issue=9|pages=963–975|doi=10.1177/088626099014009004|s2cid=145797691}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/anim5&div=9&id=&page=|title=Animal Cruelty and Violence against Humans: Making the Connection|journal=Animal Law|date=1999 |volume=5 |page=81 |last1=Lockwood |first1=Randall }}</ref> as well as murder.<ref>{{YouTube|SYGHBWFZBfI}}</ref> A petition has been launched to reverse this ruling.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}
==See also== * List of United States federal judges by longevity of service
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{FJC Bio|nid=1383571}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20060207160854/http://www.chron.com/content/news/photos/02/10/21/players/photo21.html Short bio] * [http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/enron/3619919.html Long special piece]
{{s-start}} {{s-legal}} {{s-bef|before=Ross N. Sterling}} {{s-ttl|title={{nowrap|Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas}}|years=1988–2019}} {{s-aft|after=Drew B. Tipton}} {{s-end}} {{United States 5th Circuit senior district judges}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lake, Simeon Timothy III}} Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century American lawyers Category:21st-century American judges Category:Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas Category:Lawyers from Chicago Category:Texas A&M University alumni Category:Texas lawyers Category:United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps Category:United States district court judges appointed by Ronald Reagan Category:University of Texas School of Law alumni