SAN FRANCISCO / Walker becomes chief district judge

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, an independent-minded conservative who has presided over high-profile cases on prisoners, banks and newspapers during 15 years on the bench, becomes chief judge of the Northern District of California today.

Walker, 60, appointed by former President George H.W. Bush, succeeds Marilyn Hall Patel, who has completed her seven-year term and returns to full- time judging. The chief judge carries a reduced caseload while handling administrative duties and managing the budget for a district that has trial courts in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose and extends from Monterey County to the Oregon border.

Walker, a longtime business lawyer in San Francisco, was first nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan but encountered opposition over his membership in the all-male Olympic Club and his representation of the U.S. Olympic Committee in a suit that prevented a Bay Area group from calling its athletic competition the Gay Olympics.

He has been unorthodox as a judge, requiring law firms to bid for the status of lead counsel in securities class-action suits and publicly calling for legalization of drugs.

His rulings have overturned San Francisco's voter-approved limits on bank ATM fees, dismissed a slave-labor suit against Japanese companies by former World War II prisoners of war and allowed reporters to watch all stages of lethal injection executions. He dismissed a suit by anti-logging protesters whose eyes were swabbed with liquid pepper spray, a decision later overturned by an appeals court; and approved Hearst Corp.'s purchase of The Chronicle, despite Walker's reservations about the Justice Department's antitrust review.