Michael Swygert-Smith (known as Mike Smith in his Tax Division days) passed away on 9/22/22. The obituaries are in the Washington Post here, and The Winchester Star, here.
The obits say Mike worked in the “Tax Appellate Division of the Department of Justice under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy” and that he left “After a number of years arguing tax cases before the Fifth Circuit in the Southeast , and working as an aide on RFK's political campaigns.” The Fifth Circuit then did include some Southeast states (later split off into the Eleventh Circuit), but I have to assume that Mike’s appellate docket included other areas of the Fifth Circuit (e.g., Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi) and indeed other Circuits. (That was my experience in DOJ Tax Appellate, coming along not too long after Mike.)
Sorry for the “Southeast” error in my husband’s obituary. Yes, his docket cases were in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. With one of his favorite judges, John Brown, often on the panel. Unable to list the states so went for a general area of the US to let the non-lawyers know an approximate geographical area. Fifth Circuit would mean nothing to them. Regina Swygert-Smith
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