Gerhard Gesell

Gerhard Alden Gesell (June 16, 1910 – February 19, 1993) was a United States federal judge. He presided over trials of the Watergate Seven in 1974.

Born in Los Angeles, California, Gesell received an A.B. from Yale University in 1932, and an LL.B. from Yale Law School in 1935.

He was a Trial Attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1935 to 1940, and then a Technical Advisor to the SEC chairman from until 1941. He was in private practice in Washington, D.C. from 1941 to 1967. In 1945 and 1946, he served as chief Assistant Counsel for the Democrats' side during the Pearl Harbor hearings. He chaired the President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces from 1962 to 1964.

On November 29, 1967, Gesell was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia vacated by Spottswood W. Robinson, III. Gesell was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 7, 1967, and received his commission on December 12, 1967.

In 1974, Gesell presided over trials of the so-called Watergate Seven, arising from dozens of felony charges in the Watergate scandal. All the defendants had held cabinet rank or senior staff positions in the White House of President Richard Nixon. Those convicted or pleading guilty in these trials were: John N. Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, Gordon Strachan, and Robert Mardian. Kenneth W. Parkinson was acquitted. Judge Gesell later was to rule that the office tape recordings of President Nixon were in the public domain because they had been played during a Watergate trial, a finding upheld by the Supreme Court.