Honorees

Hon. Leland Nielsen

1919-1999

Lee Nielsen was born June 14, 1919, on a wheat farm in Vesper, Kansas.  He grew up on the farm in a Danish community.  The farm had been in the family for 114 years.  He attended a tiny grammar school with only a handful of students. 

Early on, he decided to make his living with his head instead of his back.  He was educated at Washburn College, graduating in 1941, and then went on to his law degree at the University of Southern California Law School (1946).  He went into private practice in Los Angeles, 1946-1947, became a Deputy City Attorney there from 1947-1951.  He began his private practice in San Diego from 1951-1968 and was a highly regarded lawyer.  He had cases against the best of the day such as the “King of Torts,” Melvin Belli and secured two wins, one hung jury, and two losses in legal battles with Belli.  (SDUT 9/25/99).

He was appointed to the  Superior Court for San Diego County in 1968 and served until 1971 when he became a federal district court judge. While on the superior court, with Judge Howard Turrentine, Nielsen inaugurated the criminal readiness and settlement department which proved so essential to the disposition of cases.

As a federal judge (1971-1999), he became “the fifth judge in the busiest district in the nation just after Congress approved three additional positions.”  His colleagues on the bench often turned to Judge Nielsen as a settlement judge in criminal cases.  Judge Nielsen presided over many notable criminal and civil matters including the dissolution of the Westgate financial empire of C. Arnold Smith,  one of the largest financial scandals in San Diego history. 

In 1983, Nielsen conducted a jury trial of a wife who had killed her Marine husband in a case that established the battered wife syndrome defense in federal court.  Though he lacked authority to grant probation on the second-degree murder conviction, Nielsen paroled the mother of four after she had served ten months of her three-year sentence (UPI 11/9/83).  In 1985, he found a criminal defense attorney not guilty in a bench trial on charges of tampering with grand jury witnesses in a case that captured the attention of the national defense bar (SDUT 3/30/85; National Law Jrl 4/22/85).

He was a workhorse of the bench and always willing to help out others on the bench by taking cases when they were involved in long trials.   He also found time to serve for twenty years on the important Advisory Committee Rules on Criminal Procedure, the last five as Chair.

But his valiant service in World War II was perhaps the greatest service in a long career of devoted work for his country.  He was in the service prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor joining up in October 1941.  Of the 55 in his air class, 38 died in the war.  His first duty was in the Aleutian Islands in the summer of 1942.  His unit sank two destroyers off Kiska, but two of the six planes in his unit were shot down and his navigator was killed.  His parents were notified he was missing in action.  Then he went to England (January 1944).  From there, he took part in 30 combat missions over occupied Europe.  As a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps, Major Captain Nielsen  served as a staff officer in the 97th Bomb Wing for ten months flying A-20s, B-25s and B-26s.  He became Operations Officer of the 671st Bomb Squadron on December 20th, 1944.

During those thirty harrowing missions over Europe, the danger was ever present and many crews did not return to home base.  On one mission, a bombing and strafing mission on February 22, 1945, his cockpit was struck by flak shattering the glass along side his head, severely cutting his face and knocking him unconscious.  As his plane went into a dive, he regained consciousness.  Bleeding and with his goggles shattered, he proceeded to the target and bombed it with good results.  For this heroism, Captain Nielsen received the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor in combat awards.  The award was presented April 6, 1945, in Luxembourg, by Five Star General Arnold, the supreme commander of the Army Air Forces.  He was also promoted to Major and also won the Air Medal with 14 clusters.

Judge Nielsen was a compassionate man with a great sense of humor and perspective.  He died September 23, 1999, still a member of the federal bench. 

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