Irving Robert Kaufman (June 24, 1910 – February 1, 1992) was a
United States circuit judge
In the United States, federal judges are judges who serve on courts established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. They include the chief justice and the associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit judges of the U.S. ...
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 ...
and a United States District Judge of the
.
Background
Born to a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
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 ...
,
New York, Kaufman received a
Bachelor of Laws
Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Ch ...
from
Fordham University School of Law
Fordham University School of Law is the law school of Fordham University. The school is located in Manhattan in New York City, and is one of eight ABA-approved law schools in that city. In 2013, 91% of the law school's first-time test t ...
in 1931. He was
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, but earned the nickname "Pope Kaufman" for his achievement in the required Christian doctrine classes at Fordham, a Catholic school.
Career
Kaufman entered private practice of law in New York City from 1932 to 1935. He was a Special
Assistant United States Attorney of the Southern District of New York from 1935 to 1939. He returned to private practice in New York City from 1940 to 1949. He was an Assistant United States Attorney from 1939 to 1940. He was Special Assistant to the
Attorney General of the United States from 1947 to 1948.
Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
![Julius and Ethel Rosenberg NYWTS](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg_NYWTS.jpg)
Kaufman 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
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
on October 21, 1949, to the
, to a new seat created by 63 Stat. 493. He was nominated to the same seat by President Truman on January 5, 1950. 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 April 4, 1950, and received his commission on April 7, 1950. His service was terminated on September 22, 1961, due to elevation to the Second Circuit.
Notable cases included:
* 1951: Kaufman is best remembered as the judge who presided over the espionage trial of
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple were convicted of providing top-secret i ...
and imposed their controversial death sentences.
Roy Cohn, one of the
prosecutors in the case, claimed in his autobiography that his influence led to Kaufman's being appointed to the case, and that Kaufman had imposed the death penalty on Cohn's personal advice. This claim has not been verified, although it has been shown that after Kaufman learned that the FBI and Justice Department opposed death penalties in the case, he asked the prosecution to withhold its recommendation before issuing his death sentence. In his summing up Judge Irving Kaufman was considered by many to have been highly subjective: "Judge Kaufman tied the crimes the Rosenbergs were being accused of to their ideas and the fact that they were sympathetic to the Soviet Union. He stated that they had given the atomic bomb to the Russians, which had triggered Communist aggression in Korea resulting in over 50,000 American casualties. He added that, because of their treason, the Soviet Union was threatening America with an atomic attack and this made it necessary for the United States to spend enormous amounts of money to build underground bomb shelters." Kaufman said that he had gone to
synagogue to pray before issuing his death sentence; this enraged
Supreme Court justice
Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Austrian-American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, during which period he was a noted advocate of judic ...
, who later wrote to 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 ...
, "I despise a judge who feels God told him to impose a death sentence," and also told Hand that he was "mean enough" to stay on the court long enough to prevent Kaufman from having a chance to take Frankfurter's place in the so-called "
Jewish seat" on the Court.
* 1959: Kaufman presided over the jury trial in the federal government's conspiracy case against twenty-one of the
Apalachin meeting delegates. The guilty verdicts of twenty of the men, and the stiff sentences Kaufman meted out, were later reversed and invalidated by the Court of Appeals.
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Kaufman was nominated by President
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
on September 14, 1961, to 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 ...
, to a new seat created by 75 Stat. 80. He was confirmed by the Senate on September 21, 1961, and received his commission on September 22, 1961. He served as Chief Judge from 1973 to 1980. 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 July 1, 1987. His service was terminated on February 1, 1992, due to his death.
Notable cases included:
* 1964: Kaufman wrote the Second Circuit's opinion in ''
Irving Berlin et al. v. E.C. Publications, Inc.'', a case that helped establish the legal precedent for the right to
parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...
.
* 1966: Kaufman wrote an opinion in the case of ''United States v. Freeman'' 357 F.2d 606 (2d Cir. 1966). The judgment over-turned the rigid
M'Naghten standard for insanity defense and adopted the modern insanity defense described in Section 4.01 of
Model Penal Code
The Model Penal Code (MPC) is a model act designed to stimulate and assist U.S. state legislatures to update and standardize the penal law of the United States.MPC (Foreword). The MPC was a project of the American Law Institute (ALI), and was pu ...
developed by the
American Law Institute. The judgment embraced advances in psychiatry and emphatically rejected the M'Naghten test by stating that, "the outrage of a
frightened Queen has for far too long caused us to forego the expert guidance that modern psychiatry is able to provide."
* 1974: Kaufman was the chief judge in the decision (''
Coniglio v. Highwood Services, 1974'') that prevents
Professional Football
In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...
fans from gaining redress against the NFL's policy requiring them to purchase seats for
exhibition games
An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, a scrimmage, a demonstration, a preseason game, a warmup match, or a preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the player's or ...
at regular-season prices in order to qualify for season tickets.
* 1975: Kaufman presided over the three-judge appeals court panel reviewing the deportation of
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
and rejected the government's attempt to deport him from the United States to the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
based upon his having pleaded guilty in England to possession of
hashish. After a widely publicized argument, Kaufman found that Lennon had been singled out for deportation for political reasons, allowed him to remain in the United States on what some observers characterized as a technicality, and criticized what he called the "labyrinthine provisions of the Immigration and Naturalization Act."
* 1980: Kaufman also wrote an opinion in the case of ''
Filártiga v. Peña-Irala,'' 630 F.2d 876 (2d Cir. 1980). The case opened U.S. courts to foreigners who were
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...
d in other countries. The case has had a wide-ranging impact on human rights and the role of corporations and their foreign operations.
Death
Kaufman died age 81 on February 1, 1992 at
Mount Sinai Medical Center
Mount Sinai Hospital, formerly at times known as Mount Sinai Medical Center, is a 319-bed major urban hospital in Chicago, Illinois, with its main campus located adjacent to Douglass Park at 15th Street and California Avenue on the city's West Sid ...
in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
of
pancreatic cancer.
Awards
On October 7, 1987, Kaufman was presented with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...
by President
Ronald Reagan.
Legacy
A substantial collection of Kaufman's personal and judicial papers is archived at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, but is not yet fully open for research.
Kaufman had been known to lament what he regarded as the distortion of judicial opinion and finding, as it passed through the filter of the media: "The judge is forced for the most part to reach his audience through the medium of the press whose reporting of judicial decisions is all too often inaccurate and superficial."
See also
*
List of Jewish American jurists
This is a list of notable Jewish American jurists. For other famous Jewish Americans, see Lists of American Jews.
Supreme Court of the United States
Federal judges Appellate judges
* Robert E. Bacharach, Judge of the United States Court of ...
References
External links
*
University of Missouri-Kansas City law school biography*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaufman, Irving
1910 births
1992 deaths
Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
United States district court judges appointed by Harry S. Truman
20th-century American judges
Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
United States court of appeals judges appointed by John F. Kennedy
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Fordham University School of Law alumni
Jewish American attorneys
20th-century American lawyers
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Assistant United States Attorneys
Lawyers from New York City
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Deaths from pancreatic cancer\\