---
alias:
- John Berne Hannum
born: 1915-03-19
category: Law Enforcement & Legal
created: 2026-09-23
died: 2007-04-23
location: Unionville, Pennsylvania
relations:
- end: 2007-04-23
  fn: 1
  role: district judge
  start: 1969-05-06
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania]]'
- fn: 1
  reverse: true
  start: 1969-03-24
  type: appointed
  with: '[[Richard Nixon]]'
- end: 1969
  fn: 1
  role: judge
  start: 1968
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Superior Court of Pennsylvania]]'
- end: 1964
  fn: 3
  role: chairman
  start: 1962
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Chester County Republican Committee]]'
- fn: 3
  role: litigator
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Pepper Hamilton]]'
summary: Chester County Republican and federal judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
  from 1969 who ruled against the army deserter Raymond C. Hoersch Jr. in 1974.
tags:
- Person
- Judge
- FederalJudiciary
- ChesterCounty
- RCHorsch
updated: 2026-09-23
---

John Berne Hannum (March 19, 1915, to April 23, 2007) was 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 1969 until his death. In October 1974 he decided *Hoersch v. Froehlke*, rejecting the claim of Raymond C. Hoersch Jr., later [R.C. Horsch](/people/rc-horsch/), that his involuntary call to active duty in 1970 had been invalid.[^1][^2]

### Career

Hannum was born in Chester and grew up in Elwyn, Pennsylvania. He attended the Lawrenceville School and Princeton University, where he was a boxing champion at 155 pounds, took his bachelor's degree at Franklin and Marshall College, and graduated from the Dickinson School of Law in 1941. He enlisted in the [United States Navy](/organizations/us-navy/) the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor and commanded two submarine chasers in the Atlantic. After the war he returned to his father's firm in Chester and then became a litigator at Pepper Hamilton in Philadelphia. He chaired the Chester County Republican Committee from 1962 to 1964.[^1][^3]

He sat on the [Superior Court of Pennsylvania](/organizations/superior-court-of-pennsylvania/), by appointment, before [Richard Nixon](/people/richard-nixon/) nominated him to the federal bench on March 24, 1969, to the seat vacated by Francis L. Van Dusen; he was confirmed on May 5 and commissioned on May 6, 1969, and took senior status on May 29, 1984. The Federal Judicial Center dates his Superior Court service to 1968 and 1969; his *Inquirer* obituary gives his appointment as 1967.[^1][^3] As a federal judge he issued a restraining order blocking a strike at Conrail, reinstated a Philadelphia firefighter dismissed in 1973 for refusing to cut his Afro, sentenced doctors for Medicare fraud and pharmacists for illegal sales of narcotics, and in 1988 gave probation to a drug dealer turned government informant on condition that he "avoid fornication and fathering any more illegitimate children." He and his wife, Nancy Penn Smith Hannum, placed a conservation easement on their 1,208-acre farm at Unionville in 1991. He served for 21 years on the Unionville-Chadds Ford school board and on the boards of Lincoln University, Chester County Hospital, and the Dickinson School of Law. He died of heart failure at his home in Unionville at 92.[^3]

### Hoersch v. Froehlke

Hoersch had enlisted in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in 1965 and was ordered to active duty in 1970 after absences from unit training; he did not report and was declared absent without leave from Fort Dix. In December 1972, giving his parents' address in Chalfont, he sued the Secretary of the Army, Robert F. Froehlke, for a declaration that the order was invalid; among the facts recorded was his request to wear his hair long "as required for his employment as a motion picture producer." He was represented by James J. Orlow, and the government by the United States Attorney, Robert E. J. Curran, through Assistant United States Attorney Michael B. Hepps. Hannum ruled against him on October 11, 1974.[^2]

[^1]: Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, "Hannum, John Berne." https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/hannum-john-berne
[^2]: Hoersch v. Froehlke, 382 F. Supp. 1235 (E.D. Pa. 1974), Civ. A. No. 72-1759, decided October 11, 1974. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2596970/hoersch-v-froehlke/
[^3]: Downey, Sally A. "John B. Hannum, 92, judge," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* April 25, 2007. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/obituaries/20070425_John_B__Hannum__92__judge.html