Charles Merrill Hough

Charles Merrill Hough (May 18, 1858 – April 22, 1927) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and previously was a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Education and career Born on May 18, 1858, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Hough received an Artium Baccalaureus degree in 1879 from Dartmouth College and read law in 1883. He entered private practice in New York City from 1884 to 1906. Federal judicial service Hough was nominated by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 20, 1906, to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.), to a new seat authorized by 34 Stat. 202. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 27, 1906, and received his commission the same day. Hough's most historically memorable judicial ruling came in 1908 in United States vs. Press Publishing Co. Hough quashed a libel suit brought by the federal government on behalf of President Roosevelt against a newspaper, the New York World, that had been critical of the way the administration handled the Panama Canal startup. The Supreme Court of the United States unanimously upheld Hough’s ruling in 1911.