Michael Ponsor

Biography

Michael Adrian Ponsor (born 1946 in Chicago) is a senior judge on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He serves in the court's western region, in the city of Springfield.

Judge Ponsor graduated from Harvard College in 1969, and received a Rhodes Scholarship, studying at Pembroke College, Oxford, from which he obtained an M.A. in 1971. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1975.

He was appointed to the position in 1994 by then-President Bill Clinton. He assumed senior status on August 15, 2011.

The Hanging Judge

The debut novel of author Michael Ponsor, The Hanging Judge opens with a drive-by shooting in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The shooting quickly mushrooms into a federal death-penalty case. Told from several contrasting viewpoints (including the policeman who makes the arrest, the District Attorney, the defense counsel appointed for the case, and the alleged shooter), the novel centers in the life of the judge himself, who is balancing the challenges of presiding fairly over the case with challenges in his personal life. The Hanging Judge offers an unusual perspective on how a death-penalty case unfolds: the perspective of the judge who has to pronounce the verdict.