---
alias:
- Donald West VanArtsdalen
- Donald W. VanArtsdalen
born: 1919-10-21
category: Law Enforcement & Legal
created: 2026-09-23
died: 2019-05-21
location: Doylestown, Pennsylvania
relations:
- end: 2019-05-21
  fn: 1
  role: district judge
  start: 1970-10-15
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania]]'
- fn: 1
  reverse: true
  start: 1970-09-10
  type: appointed
  with: '[[Richard Nixon]]'
- end: 1958
  fn: 1
  role: district attorney
  start: 1954
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Bucks County District Attorney''s Office]]'
summary: Bucks County prosecutor and federal judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
  from 1970 who added a year and a day to R.C. Horsch's 1985 sentence for bail-jumping.
tags:
- Person
- Judge
- FederalJudiciary
- BucksCounty
- RCHorsch
updated: 2026-09-23
---

Donald West VanArtsdalen (October 21, 1919, to May 21, 2019), whose name was printed as Van Artsdalen in the Philadelphia press, was the district attorney of Bucks County from 1954 to 1958 and a judge of the [United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania](/organizations/united-states-district-court-for-the-eastern-district-of-pennsylvania/) from 1970 until his death at 99. In April 1985 he sentenced [R.C. Horsch](/people/rc-horsch/), then Raymond Charles Hoersch, to a year and a day for bail-jumping, consecutive to the three-year methamphetamine sentence imposed by Judge [Joseph L. McGlynn Jr.](/people/joseph-l-mcglynn-jr/)[^1][^2]

### Career

VanArtsdalen was born in Doylestown. He served in the Canadian Army from 1940 to 1942 and in the [United States Army](/organizations/us-army/) as a sergeant from 1942 to 1945, then took an LL.B. at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1948 and practiced law in Doylestown until 1970, serving meanwhile as Bucks County district attorney. [Richard Nixon](/people/richard-nixon/) nominated him on September 10, 1970, to a new seat created by statute; he was confirmed on October 8 and commissioned on October 15, 1970. He took senior status on October 21, 1985, and died in Doylestown on May 21, 2019.[^1] His wife, Marie Catherine VanArtsdalen, died in December 2016 after 63 years of marriage.[^3]

### The Hoersch Sentence

Hoersch, who had grown up in Bucks County and whose parents lived in Chalfont, had jumped bail on a 1977 federal methamphetamine charge and spent the following seven years as a fugitive, most of them in [New Zealand](/places/new-zealand/) under a stolen name. Sentencing him for the bail offense, VanArtsdalen said that fugitives must be punished "no matter how exemplary a life they may have lived" while at large.[^2]

[^1]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "VanArtsdalen, Donald West." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/vanartsdalen-donald-west
[^2]: Smith, Jim. "Fugitive's Luck Runs Out With 4-Year Jail Sentence," *Philadelphia Daily News,* April 27, 1985, p. 8. https://www.newspapers.com/image/185948055/
[^3]: "Marie A. VanArtsdalen," obituary, Reed and Steinbach Funeral Home, 2016. https://www.reedandsteinbach.com/obituaries/marie-a-vanartsdalen