---
aliases:
  - Donald West VanArtsdalen
  - Donald W. VanArtsdalen
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
tags:
  - Person
  - Judge
  - FederalJudiciary
  - BucksCounty
  - RCHorsch
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."
born: 1919-10-21
died: 2019-05-21
location: "Doylestown, Pennsylvania"
relations:
  - type: employed_by
    with: "[[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania]]"
    role: "district judge"
    start: 1970-10-15
    end: 2019-05-21
    fn: 1
  - type: appointed
    with: "[[Richard Nixon]]"
    reverse: true
    start: 1970-09-10
    fn: 1
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[Bucks County District Attorney's Office]]"
    role: "district attorney"
    start: 1954
    end: 1958
    fn: 1
created: 2026-09-23
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, Pennsylvania|Bucks County]] from 1954 to 1958 and a judge of the [[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]], 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.]][^1][^2]

### Career

VanArtsdalen was born in [[Doylestown, Pennsylvania|Doylestown]]. He served in the Canadian Army from 1940 to 1942 and in the [[United States 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]] 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, Pennsylvania|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]] 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]

### Footnotes

[^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