by the United States Senate on May 5, 1969, and received his commission on May 6, 1969. He served as a Judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review from 1979 to 1982. He served on the United States Sentencing Commission from 1985 to 1991. He assumed senior status on May 20, 1983. His service was terminated on May 1, 1995, due to his death in Potomac, Maryland. Philosophy MacKinnon was also known as a conservative and once described as "so far right he makes Goldwater look like George McGovern," although this may have been hyperbole. According to Judge Harry T. Edwards, Judge MacKinnon was "a real character: he was someone who was not easily dissuaded from his positions, who always aimed to get his way, and, yet, who always enjoyed his colleagues and fostered collegiality on the court." Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, a fellow Minnesotan who appointed MacKinnon to the United States Sentencing Commission and the special court division that selected independent counsel, said, "He's a man who can't be frightened or pushed by anybody" when describing him. Thomas J. Campbell, who once worked as a clerk for Judge MacKinnon, has written: Judge MacKinnon inspired by words. He inspired by his life's deeds. But he inspired most of all by what came to him, naturally. That he'd always introduce himself as George, not Judge. That he would call his wife on his private phone line, so that the government would not have to pay whatever marginal cost one phone call might represent. That he would answer his own phone with such alacrity that clerk or secretary would have to scramble to pick it up on the first ring. That he presided at the marriage, in chambers, of a man he had once prosecuted, convicted, and sent away to prison as U.S. Attorney. That he was loved by Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and sought the approval of neither to find his own sense of worth. References External links George E. Mackinnon: An Inventory of His Papers at the Minnesota Historical Society Minnesota Legislators Past and Present 1906 births 1995 deaths 20th-century American judges 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American politicians American Episcopalians Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Republican Party members of the Minnesota House of Representatives Members of the United States Sentencing Commission Politicians from Saint Paul, Minnesota