Stiehl complies with plaintiff's requests for production; Judge has been on inactive status since January

U.S. District Judge William Stiehl has complied with discovery requests as defendant in a St. Clair County personal injury lawsuit.

He was sued last year by Amos C. Mosby, Jr. of Belleville who claims Stiehl ran a stop sign and caused a collision in a residential area of Belleville on Aug. 13, 2011.

Stiehl has denied the allegations and has asked that the case be dismissed.

Circuit Judge Robert Le Chien, who presides over the case, had ordered Stiehl in May to answer plaintiff's interrogatories and requests for production.

Stiehl's attorney David Berwin of St. Louis indicated that answers had been provided to Mosby's attorney Amy Collignon Gunn of the Simon Law Firm in St. Louis on June 20.

A status conference is set Sept. 18 at 9:30 a.m.

In the meantime, Stiehl has been on inactive status at the Southern District of Illinois since the end of January due to health reasons, according to Chief District Judge David Herndon. Federal judges are appointed for life, and the decision to retire rests entirely with the judge.

Herndon said that at some point if Stiehl's doctor gave approval he could seek to be re-certified and return to his former status as senior judge, a form of semi-retirement. Judges on senior status are allowed to take a reduced caseload, but receive full salary.

Stiehl was born in 1925. He was nominated to the bench by President Reagan on May 14, 1986, and confirmed by the Senate on June 13, 1986. He served as chief judge from 1992-1993. He assumed senior status on Nov. 30, 1996.

Stiehl served in the U.S. Navy as lieutenant during World War II, from 1943 to 1946 and again from 1950 to 1952. He received an LL.B. from Saint Louis University School of Law in 1949.

He was in private practice in Belleville from 1952 to 1986. He was an assistant state's attorney from 1956 to 1960. He was a special assistant attorney general of state of Illinois from 1970 to 1973.