Richard Alan Enslen

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Enslen went to Kalamazoo College and then served in the United States Air Force, during the Korean War, from 1951 to 1954, and graduated from Wayne State University Law School with a Bachelor of Laws in 1958. In 1985, Enslen received a Master of Laws from the University of Virginia School of Law. He worked as an assistant trust officer with First National Bank & Trust Company in Kalamazoo in 1958. He served in the United States Peace Corps in Costa Rica from 1965 to 1968. He served as a municipal court judge in Kalamazoo from 1968 to 1969, and as judge of a Michigan District Court from 1969 to 1970. When not in public service, he maintained a private law practice in Kalamazoo.[1] In 1970, Enslen was the Democratic Party candidate for the United States House of Representatives in the race for Michigan's 3rd congressional district seat. He lost in the general election to incumbent Republican Garry E. Brown. He returned to private practice in Kalamazoo from 1970 to 1979.[2]

Enslen was nominated by President Jimmy Carter on November 30, 1979, to a seat vacated by Judge Noel Peter Fox on the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 20, 1979, and received his commission on December 21, 1979. Enslen served as Chief Judge of the court from 1995 to 2001, and assumed senior status on September 1, 2005 but stopped hearing cases in 2009.[2] Enslen died on February 17, 2015, in Kalamazoo.[3] As of 2020, he is the last judge appointed by a Democratic president to the Western District of Michigan.

• Richard Alan Enslen at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• Biography at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
• The Political Graveyard
• United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan Official Website