As of noon Monday, Nov. 19, the Federal Courthouse will bear the name of the Honorable George P. Kazen, the esteemed jurist who served for decades as a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Texas and as Chief Judge of the Southern District of Texas from 1996 to 2003.
U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar (TX-28), who authored legislation to rename the courthouse in Judge Kazen’s honor, will participate in Monday’s 11 a.m. ceremony at the courthouse, thereafter to be known as the George P. Kazen Federal Building and United States Courthouse.
Congress unanimously approved the renaming legislation and in July signed it into law.
Judge Kazen, a 1955 graduate of St. Joseph’s Academy, earned his undergraduate and law degrees at the University of Texas-Austin.
His legal career began in 1961 as a briefing attorney for the Texas Supreme Court. He joined the U.S. Air Force in 1962 as a captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps. He was appointed to the federal judiciary in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, and four years after taking the bench, he was selected to serve as president of the Fifth Circuit District Judges Association.
In 1986, Judge Kazen was named to represent the Fifth Circuit before the United States Sentencing Commission in Washington, D.C.
In 1990, he began his long tenure on the Fifth Circuit District Judges Pattern Jury Charges Committee, which he later co-chaired.
He sat by designation as an appellate judge in dozens of cases and served on the Fifth Circuit Judicial Council. Judge Kazen was appointed by Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 1990 to the Judicial Conference Committee on Criminal Law, which he would later chair.
He served as Chief Judge of the Southern District of Texas from 1996 to 2003, and was appointed by Chief Justice Rehnquist to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a national tribunal that rules on the federal government’s applications for foreign intelligence investigations. He served in this key national-security role for seven years. He formally took senior status in 2009.
Judge Kazen was married to Barbara Ann Sanders Kazen for over 48 years until her death in 2011. Mrs. Kazen, a legend in the realm of human kindness, was the executive director of Bethany House, a shelter that feeds the homeless and provides temporary shelter.
Their four children are George (Mary), John (Hayley), Elizabeth Ann, and Gregory.
Others who will be present at the renaming ceremony are judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, judges from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Mayor Pete Saenz, and Dan Matthews, Public Buildings Service Commissioner, General Services Administration.
