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92_SR0286
LRB9211185RHrhA
1 SENATE RESOLUTION
2 WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate wish to
3 express their sincere condolences to the family and friends
4 of Judge Philip W. Tone, who passed away on November 28,
5 2001; and
6 WHEREAS, Judge Tone was the son of a lawyer and judge and
7 seemed set on a law career even as he grew up in Park Ridge;
8 and
9 WHEREAS, Judge Tone was a graduate of Maine East High
10 School and served as valedictorian of the Class of 1940; and
11 WHEREAS, As World War II commenced, Judge Tone rushed
12 through coursework at the University of Iowa in the early
13 1940s and joined an Army officer training program, where he
14 served as a tank commander and later earned the rank of first
15 lieutenant; he received his bachelor's degree in 1943, a year
16 early, and squeezed in a semester of law school before being
17 sent to Europe, where he served as a tank officer in France
18 and Germany; and
19 WHEREAS, Judge Tone married the former Gretchen
20 Altfillisch while on leave in 1945; he then returned to law
21 school in Iowa and earned his degree in 1948; after a brief
22 fellowship at Yale University, he obtained a yearlong
23 clerkship with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Wiley Rutledge,
24 succeeding then-clerk John Paul Stevens in the post; and
25 WHEREAS, It was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stevens who
26 lured Judge Tone from a Washington law firm back to Chicago
27 in 1951 to a position at what would become Jenner & Block;
28 Judge Tone was assigned to difficult cases and blue-ribbon
29 panels, among them was the highly publicized mail-fraud trial
30 of a former aide to the late Mayor Richard J. Daley in the
31 early 1970s; he was a partner at the Jenner & Block when he
-2- LRB9211185RHrhA
1 left in 1972 to become a U.S. Court of Appeals judge in the
2 Northern District of Illinois; he was appointed to the
3 appellate bench in 1974; and
4 WHEREAS, After his brief tenure as a federal district
5 judge, Judge Tone returned to Jenner & Block in 1980 and
6 almost immediately served as outside counsel for a Senate
7 investigation between Libyan officials and Billy Carter,
8 brother of then-President Jimmy Carter; Judge Tone remained
9 at Jenner & Block until his retirement in 1997; and
10 WHEREAS, In addition, Judge Tone served as special
11 counsel to the National Committee on the Causes and
12 Prevention of Violence from 1968 to 1969, as chairman of the
13 Illinois Supreme Court Rules Commission from 1968 to 1971,
14 and as counsel to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee to investigate
15 individuals representing interests of foreign governments in
16 1980; and
17 WHEREAS, Jude Tone is survived by his wife of 56 years,
18 Gretchen; his children, Michael (Marie), Jeffrey (Mary
19 Hester-Tone), and Susan (Gregory) Pierce; and his
20 grandchildren, Nat, Ethan, Alex, Hope, Lesley, Gregory, Hank,
21 and Tim; and
22 WHEREAS, Judge Philip Tone will be best remembered by his
23 colleagues, friends, and acquaintances as a lawyer's lawyer
24 and a grand, genteel figure whose command of the law was as
25 instructive as it was formidable; therefore, be it
26 RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-SECOND GENERAL
27 ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn, along with
28 all who knew him, the death of Judge Philip W. Tone of Park
29 Ridge; and be it further
30 RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
31 presented to the family of Judge Philip W. Tone with our
-3- LRB9211185RHrhA
1 sincere condolences.