Patrick Anthony Conmy

Patrick Anthony Conmy was an American lawyer, politician and federal judge who spent more than two decades in public life in Bismarck before serving on the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota. He died on 7 October 2026, aged 92.

He was born in Fargo, North Dakota, on 5 January 1934, the third son of J.F.X. and Marcella Conmy. He graduated from Shanley High School in 1951, from Harvard College in 1955 and from Georgetown University Law Center in 1959, taking late afternoon law classes while he worked for the United States Department of Labor in Washington.

Admitted to the bars of Virginia and North Dakota in 1959, he began a private law practice in Bismarck with his father and Joe Donahue, and practised there until 1985. He served on the Bismarck City Commission from 1968 to 1976, with responsibility for the police and fire portfolios, and was president of the State Bar Association of North Dakota from 1971 to 1972. He then served five terms in the North Dakota House of Representatives for District 47, twice chairing its Judiciary Committee.

On 16 October 1985 President Ronald Reagan nominated him to the federal bench in North Dakota. The Senate confirmed him on 16 December 1985, and he served as chief judge until 1992. He took senior status on his 66th birthday in 2000 and continued to hear cases for years afterwards, becoming an inactive senior judge in 2014. With typical humour he said the move from politics to the bench proved that crime does not pay nearly as well as politics.

Outside the courtroom he loved music and the stage. He emceed Miss North Dakota pageants, sang with the Bismarck Mandan Civic Chorus and church choirs, and acted in community theatre, once joking that he would have loved a career in musical theatre but talent was required. He married Josephine Keller in 1953, and they had six children.

His wife Josephine died before him. He was survived by his brother James, his six children, 15 grandchildren, 20 great grandchildren and four great great grandchildren, and was remembered by his family for 92 years of laughter, music, family and friends. Summers often found him on his riding mower at Lake Tschida, and for many winters he lived among friends in Lake Havasu, Arizona.