Myron Herbert Thompson


Myron Herbert Thompson is a Senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Education and career

Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, Thompson received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 1969 and a Juris Doctor 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.

Federal judicial service

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 Judge Frank Minis Johnson. 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.

Notable case

On October 29, 2019, Judge Thompson issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Human Life Protection Act from taking effect in Alabama as prescribed on November 15, 2019. The Alabama law "imposes criminal liability on abortion providers for nearly all abortions, completed or attempted, regardless of fetal viability. In essence," the Court said, "the Act imposes a near-total ban on abortion." Judge Thompson concluded, “The court is persuaded that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that the Act violates an individual’s constitutional right to obtain a pre-viability abortion, and thus that it violates her constitutional rights.” https://www.scribd.com/document/432554248/Myron-Thompson-Order#from_embed In a 2014 ruling, Thompson ruled an Alabama law regulating abortion unconstitutional, in Planned Parenthood Southeast, Inc., v. Strange, citing the undue burden standard.