Robert S. Linnell

Robert S. Linnell was born in Portland, Maine, on March 13, 1931. He graduated from Deering High School in 1949 and from Bowdoin College in 1953, where he served as president of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He earned his law degree from Boston University School of Law in 1956 and, following his 1957 admission to the Maine Bar, joined the Portland law firm of Linnell, Perkins, Thompson, Hinckley, and Thaxter.

In November 1961, Mr. Linnell moved to Las Vegas to serve as law clerk to the Honorable Roger C. Foley, Chief U.S. District Judge for the District of Nevada. Following his admission to the Nevada Bar, Attorney General Robert Kennedy appointed him an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Nevada in 1962, and he later served as interim U.S. attorney for Nevada.

Mr. Linnell went on to serve as an attorney in the criminal division for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, and in January 1970 he was appointed assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, where he later served as interim U.S. attorney - making him the only person in modern times to serve as U.S. attorney in more than one district. He retired in February 1994 and died on February 8, 2022, at the age of 90.