WASHINGTON -- Dead for more than 16 years, U.S. District Judge Henry Woods can't rebut allegations of impropriety leveled at him in a recent memoir by former Whitewater independent counsel Ken Starr.
But friends and colleagues of the University of Arkansas School of Law alumnus are challenging the unflattering portrait painted by Starr, the former solicitor general, court of appeals judge and Baylor University president.
Senior U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson, who served on the bench with Woods, said the attack on his former colleague is "totally unfounded."
"I think that book is a catalog of nonsense. It's an effusion of vainglory and hypocrisy," the Clinton appointee said.
In the 1990s, Starr investigated the Clintons' Whitewater Development Corp. real estate dealings with associates Jim and Susan McDougal in Arkansas. Later the investigation widened to include then-Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker's business dealings in the 1980s, and eventually revealed Bill Clinton's affair with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
The investigation resulted in Tucker's conviction and resignation. Thirteen other people were convicted or entered guilty pleas related to the Arkansas investigation.
In Contempt: A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation, Starr -- a longtime Republican -- accuses Woods -- a lifelong Democrat -- of allowing partisanship to trump justice.
Appointed to the federal bench by President Jimmy Carter, Woods was forced by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at St. Louis to step aside after he dismissed an early indictment against Tucker and two others.
Woods ruled in September 1995 that the independent counsel was pursuing charges that were outside his purview.
Starr, noting Woods' friendship with Bill Clinton and other Democrats, appealed and asked a higher court to transfer the case to another judge.
Three Republican-appointed judges reinstated the indictment against Tucker in March 1996 and removed Woods "to preserve the appearance of impartiality."
The three-judge panel said it was switching district court judges "not because we believe Judge Woods would not handle the case in a fair and impartial manner (we have every confidence that he would), but only because we believe this step is necessary in order to preserve the appearance as well as the reality of impartial justice."
Writing more than two decades later, Starr was less generous, alleging that Woods' "unprofessional behavior" had caused "significant delays" in the Whitewater prosecutions.
"In my experience, bad judges are rare in the federal system. Unfortunately, Judge Henry Woods, who had been an overnight guest of the Clintons at the White House, was one of them. A Carter appointee, he did not leave his politics at the courthouse door."
U.S. Magistrate Judge Beth Deere, who served as Woods' law clerk during the Whitewater case, said her old boss served honorably.
"He did what he thought was right. He made the decisions that he thought were correct and he really didn't spend much time worrying about what critics would say," she said. "He did not suffer fools gladly and his candor sometimes chafed, I'm sure. Unlike some people with quick minds, there was nothing slick or underhanded or duplicitous about Henry Woods in any way. He just didn't have that in him."
Friends and foes agree that Woods, born in 1918, was a proud Democrat.
In 1948, Woods managed Sid McMath's successful campaign for governor and helped Dale Bumpers win the Governor's Mansion in 1970.
He served for a time as president of the Arkansas Bar Association, and he aided the integrationists during the Little Rock Central High School crisis of 1957.
In a tribute published by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review in 2003, 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard S. Arnold referred to Woods' partisan roots.
"Judge Woods did not merely love politics; he reveled in it, ate and drank it, and talked about it constantly," Arnold recalled.
But once Woods joined the bench "he became a great judge, renowned for humanity as well as learning," Arnold wrote.
Woods died in 2002 at age 83. In 2004, Pulaski County lawyers, judges and law professors launched the Judge Henry Woods American Inn of Court, a group that seeks to promote "civility, collegiality, professionalism, ethics and advocacy skills within the legal profession."
Edward Oglesby, the group's president, said Woods was a man of integrity.
"Not only was Judge Woods of impeccable intelligence and, in my opinion, reputation, he was genuinely a kindhearted man," Oglesby said. "He had a very warm loving heart, was a great family man and he truly loved our fair state. He really loved Arkansas."
Oglesby also sees positive qualities in Starr, calling him "a fine man" with "impeccable integrity."
Wilson, on the other hand, sees little to admire about the former independent counsel.
"You'd think after his shameful performance at Baylor, he would try to stay under the radar, but good judgment never has been in his repertoire," he said.
Starr was removed as president of the Waco, Texas, Baptist university in May 2016 after an investigation criticized the school's handling of sexual assault allegations involving its football players.
Wilson portrayed the Whitewater investigation as a waste of $65 million to $70 million in taxpayer dollars.
Asked if his views of Starr are clouded by his own friendship with Bill Clinton, Wilson said, "There's no question about it. I'm a friend of Clinton's and proud of it, but I would say what I'm saying now even if I weren't a friend of the Clintons. I think Starr has been a disaster."
Reached by email Sunday, Starr again portrayed the Whitewater investigation as a success.
"In response, I'll simply stand by what I said in the book, including the fact that 14 criminal convictions resulted from the Arkansas phase of our investigation and that Judge Woods was removed (by a unanimous panel of the Eighth Circuit) from presiding over the... case."
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