American legal scholar, Ronald Rotunda, Died at 73

Ronald D. Rotunda was born in 1945 and died in 2018.

He was a U.S. legal scholar and professor of law at Chapman University School of Law.

His first area of primary expertise is United States Constitutional law, and is the author of an influential 6-volume legal treatise on Constitutional Law.

Rotunda’s other area of primary expertise is Legal Ethics, often called Professional Responsibility.

The profeesor has also published an influential treatise on Legal Ethics, co-published by West-Thomson Reuters, ABA.

Rotunda was also a senior fellow, in 2000, at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.

During 1963, at 18 years old, he received a scholarship to attend Harvard University.

Later, he received a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

He married Marcia Mainland in February 1969.

Marcia was formerly an attorney in the office of University Counsel during his time at Illinois.[

During 1966, shortly after his conviction, Albert DeSalvo, The Boston Strangler, was one of Rotunda’s students in a law course for prisoners.

During an article about this experience Rotunda described DeSalvo as charming, helpful and well-groomed, in contrast to every other student at the prison.

He was formerly Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law.

Rotunda was employed there for twenty-five years.

The professor also served as an advisor to Ken Starr during Starr’s tenure as special prosecutor during the Clinton Administration.

Before that Rotunda had served on the investigative team during the Watergate scandal.

As an advisor to the Independent Counsel in 1998, he was asked for an opinion on “whether a sitting President is subject to indictment.”

Written in a 56-page response released by the National Archives following a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Times, Rotunda concluded, “It is proper, constitutional, and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting President for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the President’s official duties.

In this country, no one, even President Clinton, is above the law.

Rotunda was married to Kyndra Rotunda (and divorced in 2014).

Chapman University Law School printed his name on a chair in his honor.

The Rotundas were on faculty at George Mason University School of Law until departing in 2008 for Chapman University.

He passed away on March 14, 2018.