Thomas Penfield Jackson, an outspoken federal judge who sent District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry to prison for smoking crack cocaine and declared Microsoft a monopoly that needed to be broken apart, died June 15 at his home in Compton, Md. He was 76. He had cancer, his wife, Pat Jackson, said.
Jackson ruled on many high-profile cases during his 22 years on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and became known for his blunt assessments of the lawyers, jurors and defendants who came before him.
The Microsoft trial was called the most important antitrust case before a U.S. court since the Standard Oil breakup of 1911. The landmark case stretched 18 months, from 1998 to 2000, when Jackson ultimately issued his ruling that Microsoft used monopolistic power to violate three antitrust provisions.
