Judge Charles C. Simons
Charles Casper Simons was appointed in 1923 by President Warren G. Harding to
a new seat approved by Congress when Judge Tuttle successfully argued that the
workload had become too heavy for a single judge to handle expeditiously.
He was Michigan’s first Jewish judge. After the Volstead Act was passed in 1919
enforcing the 18th Amendment prohibiting the manufacturing and sale of alcoholic
beverages, the federal court was confronted with a flood of cases.
In 1923 Judge Simons heard the first Volstead Act case in which a brewery was charged with making and trucking liquor. Judge Simons left the Eastern District bench in 1932
when he was elevated to the Sixth Circuit by President Herbert Hoover.