Born in An Rinn, County Waterford, Ireland, the son of William and Bridget Foley Roche, Roche received a Bachelor of Laws from Valparaiso University School of Law in 1908.
He entered private practice in San Francisco, California in 1908, and was an assistant district attorney of San Francisco from 1908 to 1910.
[1] On August 21, 1935, Roche was nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California vacated by Judge Frank Henry Kerrigan.
[1] Roche presided over the trial of Tokyo Rose.
[3][4] He also denied a writ of habeas corpus from lawyer James Purcell on behalf of Mitsuye Endo and 120,000 persons of Japanese descent challenging their wartime detention as unlawful.