[1] Westenhaver was nominated by President Woodrow Wilson on March 12, 1917, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio vacated by Judge John Hessin Clarke.

He was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 14, 1917, and received his commission the same day.

[1] Westenhaver was the presiding judge in the sedition trial of Eugene V. Debs in 1918, and handed down the widely protested sentence of ten years imprisonment that was ultimately commuted by President Warren Harding.

[citation needed] In 1926, Westenhaver ruled in favor of the business interest of his former partner Newton Baker in Euclid v. Ohio, a decision that was overturned by the United States Supreme Court in a landmark ruling that established the constitutionality of zoning laws.

[citation needed] Westenhaver was married June 1888, at Martinsburg to Mary C.