A. David Mazzone

Who was A. David Mazzone?

A. David Mazzone was a lawyer, Massachusetts assistant district attorney, assistant United States attorney, Massachusetts Superior court judge. He served for twenty-six years as a Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

"He will forever be remembered by the people of Massachusetts for his landmark rulings that led to the cleanup of Boston Harbor," United States Senator Edward M. Kennedy said to the Boston Globe shortly after Mazzone's death in October 2004.

He was born Armando David Mazzone in Everett, Massachusetts, to immigrant parents. He was a star tight end on the Everett High School football team, where he won all-scholastic honors, and he later played tight end on the Harvard College team. After graduating from Harvard in 1950, he became a supervisor at Inland Steel Corp., a steel mill in East Chicago, Indiana. He served in the United States Army for two years during the Korean War, then returned to the steel mill and enrolled at DePaul University Law School. After law school, he opened a small law office in Chicago, but soon returned to Massachusetts, where he spent two years as an Assistant District Attorney of Middlesex County and four years as an Assistant United States Attorney under Arthur W. Garrity Jr. In 1965, Mazzone and three other Assistant U.S. attorneys, resigned to open their own law firm, Moulton, Looney and Mazzone. He remained in private practice until his appointment to the Superior Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by Governor Michael Dukakis in 1974. In 1977, was nominated to the federal bench by President Jimmy Carter, and he was sworn in in March, 1978.