Augustus Noble Hand (July 26, 1869 – October 28, 1954) was a
United States district judge
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...
of the
and later was a United States Circuit Judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate ju ...
. His most notable rulings restricted the reach of obscenity statutes in the areas of literature and
contraceptives. He was the older first cousin of famed judge
Learned Hand
Billings Learned Hand ( ; January 27, 1872 – August 18, 1961) was an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher. He served as a federal trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924 a ...
, who served on both courts with his cousin during most of Augustus Hand's tenure.
Education and career
![Hand House, Elizabethtown, New York](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Hand_House%2C_Elizabethtown%2C_New_York.jpg)
Born in
Elizabethtown,
New York, Hand received an
Artium Baccalaureus degree from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
in 1890, and earned a law degree from
Harvard Law School in 1894. He then established a private practice in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, which he maintained until 1914.
Federal judicial service
Hand was nominated by President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
on September 28, 1914, to a seat on the
vacated by Judge
George Chandler Holt
George Chandler Holt (December 31, 1843 – January 26, 1931) was a United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Education and career
Born in Mexico, New Yo ...
. He was confirmed by the
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
on September 30, 1914, and received his commission the same day. His service terminated on June 1, 1927, due to his elevation to the Second Circuit.
Hand received a
recess appointment
In the United States, a recess appointment is an appointment by the president of a federal official when the U.S. Senate is in recess. Under the U.S. Constitution's Appointments Clause, the President is empowered to nominate, and with the a ...
from President
Calvin Coolidge on May 19, 1927, to a seat on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate ju ...
vacated by Judge
Charles Merrill Hough. He was nominated to the same position by President Coolidge on December 6, 1927. He was confirmed by the Senate on January 18, 1928, and received his commission the same day. He assumed
senior status
Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...
on June 30, 1953. His service terminated on October 28, 1954, due to his death in
Middlebury,
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
.
Notable decisions
Contraceptives
One of Hand's best-known decisions was rendered in the case of ''
United States v. One Package
''United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries'', 86 F.2d 737 (2d Cir. 1936) (often just ''U.S. v. One Package''), was an ''in rem'' United States Court of Appeals case in the Second Circuit involving birth control.
Background
In 1873 C ...
'', 86 F.2d 737 (
2d Cir.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate jur ...
1934), in which he ruled that
contraceptives, when imported by a licensed
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
, were not immoral or obscene devices banned under the
Comstock Law
The Comstock laws were a set of federal acts passed by the United States Congress under the Grant administration along with related state laws.Dennett p.9 The "parent" act (Sect. 211) was passed on March 3, 1873, as the Act for the Suppression o ...
provisions incorporated into the Tariff Act of 1930. Hand wrote that "we are satisfied that this statute, as well as all the acts we have referred to, embraced only such articles as Congress would have denounced as immoral if it had understood all the conditions under which they were to be used. Its design, in our opinion, was not to prevent the importation, sale, or carriage by mail of things which might intelligently be employed by conscientious and competent physicians for the purpose of saving life or promoting the well being of their patients."
Censorship
![Manchester John Rylands Library James Joyce 16-10-2009 13-55-16](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Manchester_John_Rylands_Library_James_Joyce_16-10-2009_13-55-16.JPG)
The same year, Hand further limited the Tariff Act's restrictions in ''
United States v. One Book Called Ulysses'', 72 F.2d 705 (
2d Cir.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate jur ...
1934), which ruled that the novel ''
Ulysses'', by
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
, was not obscene and therefore could not be banned from import into the United States. The opinion was significant in its urging that any test of obscenity could not rely on mere isolated passages but instead had to consider the work as a whole, a test the
Supreme Court later endorsed.
[.] These principles, filtered through a long line of later cases, ultimately influenced the United States Supreme Court's case law on obscenity standards.
[ Hand's opinion also displayed a historical perspective of the harm of overzealous censorship:]Art certainly cannot advance under compulsion to traditional forms, and nothing in such a field is more stifling to progress than limitation of the right to experiment with a new technique. The foolish judgments of Lord Eldon
Earl of Eldon, in the County Palatine of Durham, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1821 for the lawyer and politician John Scott, 1st Baron Eldon, Lord Chancellor from 1801 to 1806 and again from 1807 to 1827. ...
about one hundred years ago, proscribing the works of Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
and Southey, and the finding by the jury under a charge by Lord Denman that the publication of Shelley's "Queen Mab" was an indictable offense are a warning to all who have to determine the limits of the field within which authors may exercise themselves. We think that Ulysses is a book of originality and sincerity of treatment and that it has not the effect of promoting lust. Accordingly it does not fall within the statute, even though it justly may offend many.[''United States v. One Book Entitled Ulysses by James Joyce'', 72 F.2d 705 ( 2nd Cir. 1934)]
Hand's cousin, Judge Learned Hand
Billings Learned Hand ( ; January 27, 1872 – August 18, 1961) was an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher. He served as a federal trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924 a ...
, joined in Augustus Hand's opinion; Chief Judge
A chief judge (also known as presiding judge, president judge or principal judge) is the highest-ranking or most senior member of a lower court or circuit court with more than one judge. According to the Federal judiciary of the United States, th ...
Martin Manton dissented.
Motion Picture Antitrust
In 1946, Hand was temporarily assigned to a three-judge panel of the New York Southern District Court for the U.S. government's antitrust case against the eight largest movie distributors. The court's ''per curiam'' decree in ''United States v. Paramount Pictures'', 70 F.Supp. 53 ( S.D.N.Y. 1946), significantly altered the motion picture industry in the United States, by forbidding the distributors from colluding with movie theaters in such anti-competitive licensing practices as price-fixing
Price fixing is an anticompetitive agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given ...
.
Cases
* '' Ochs v. Commissioner'' (1952)
References
Sources
*
*
* Marcia Nelson, ''The Remarkable Hands: An Affectionate Portrait'' (Federal Bar Foundation 1983)
* Marvin Schick, ''Learned Hand's Court'' (Johns Hopkins 1970)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hand, Augustus Noble
Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
United States court of appeals judges appointed by Calvin Coolidge
20th-century American judges
Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
United States district court judges appointed by Woodrow Wilson
Harvard Law School alumni
People from Elizabethtown, New York
1869 births
1954 deaths