39, he was the youngest federal judge in the country. He served as Chief Judge from 1969 to 1990. He was a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 1981 to 1984. He assumed senior status on April 1, 1994. His service terminated on October 19, 1994, due to his death in Cleveland. Notable cases On the bench, Battisti earned a reputation as a jurist who was willing to take on the most controversial cases. Some of his rulings generated heated debate, including his acquittal of eight former Ohio National Guardsmen implicated in the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. As his obituary in The New York Times stated, "The Kent State case came to an abrupt halt when [Judge Battisti] dismissed it on the ground that Government prosecutors had failed to prove 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that guardsmen had willfully intended to deprive the students of their rights". He is primarily remembered, however, for his historic ruling in Robert Anthony Reed III v. Rhodes, which found that the Board of Education for the City of Cleveland public school system had violated the law by practicing racial segregation. Battisti's comprehensive order for desegregation featured 14 components, including a provision reassigning students to achieve integration. This component precipitated an outcry among local opponents of "court-ordered busing." While Battisti was lauded by supporters for what they termed as his courage and fortitude, he faced criticism from the Cleveland Board of Education and segments of the larger community. His landmark ruling in the Cleveland desegregation case later prompted fellow Youngstown native Judge Nathaniel R. Jones, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, to characterize Battisti as "an unlikely hero" of the civil rights movement. Jones said, "He withstood much of the hostility and acrimony, bitterness and ostracism of the community in order to be true to his oath and the Constitution". Even critics of the ruling were disinclined to question Battisti's motives. Colleagues described him as a deeply religious man whose abhorrence of racial injustice was profound and sincere. In 1986, Battisti ordered the deportation to Israel of Ukrainian immigrant John Demjanjuk, on the grounds that Demanjuk had misrepresented himself in his immigration application. The protracted case garnered national and international media attention. An obituary noted that upon Battisti's death, "scores of cases remained on his docket, including a