Jay Andrew Rabinowitz /ref> (February 25, 1927 – June 16, 2001) was an American lawyer, jurist, and chief justice of the
Alaska Supreme Court
The Alaska Supreme Court is the state supreme court for the U.S. state of Alaska. Its decisions are binding on all other Alaska state courts, and the only court its decisions may be appealed to is the Supreme Court of the United States. The Alas ...
for four non-consecutive terms, remaining active as a justice from February 1965 until his
mandatory retirement
Mandatory retirement also known as forced retirement, enforced retirement or compulsory retirement, is the set age at which people who hold certain jobs or offices are required by industry custom or by law to leave their employment, or retire.
As ...
in February 1997.
During his time on the Alaska Supreme Court, Rabinowitz wrote more than 1,200 court opinions, 200 of them
dissenting
Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...
. Rabinowitz wrote landmark opinions in cases involving privacy,
reproductive freedom
Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health that vary amongst countries around the world. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows:
Reproductive rights rest on ...
,
search and seizure
Search and seizure is a procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems by which police or other authorities and their agents, who, suspecting that a crime has been committed, commence a search of a person's property and confisca ...
,
self-incrimination
In criminal law, self-incrimination is the act of exposing oneself generally, by making a statement, "to an accusation or charge of crime; to involve oneself or another ersonin a criminal prosecution or the danger thereof". (Self-incrimination ...
,
free speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recog ...
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
to a
Jew
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""T ...
ish-American family. His paternal grandfather had emigrated from Riga, Latvia to
Woodbine, New Jersey
Woodbine is a borough in Cape May County, New Jersey, United States. It is part of the Ocean City Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 2,128, a drop of 344 from the 2010 Census count ...
at age fourteen, leaving his own family behind. Jay Rabinowitz grew up 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 where his father, Milton, a 1922 graduate of the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...
, worked as a bookkeeper for a wholesale
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...
distributor during the Great Depression.
Near the end of World War II, Rabinowitz served in the U.S. Army Air Forces. During his service overseas, Rabinowitz happened to meet his great-uncle Chaim, whom he'd never before met, in a
displaced persons camp
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced peop ...
in Germany. Chaim was the family's only relative in Europe who had survived the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
.
After returning home, Rabinowitz attended Syracuse University, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1949.
He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1952 and was
admitted to the bar
An admission to practice law is acquired when a lawyer receives a license to practice law. In jurisdictions with two types of lawyer, as with barristers and solicitors, barristers must gain admission to the bar whereas for solicitors there are dist ...
in New York State the same year. After practicing law 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 ...
for five years, Rabinowitz moved to
Fairbanks, Alaska
Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the p ...
Alaska Bar Association
The Alaska Bar Association is a mandatory bar association responsible for the Alaska Supreme Court and for the admission and discipline process of attorneys for the state of Alaska.
Governance
The association is governed by a Board of Governo ...
and clerked for the
United States District Court
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 co ...
in Fairbanks. He was appointed superior court judge in Fairbanks in 1960.
Alaska Supreme Court
Following his appointment by
Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Bill Egan
William Allen Egan (October 8, 1914 – May 6, 1984) was an American Democratic politician. He served as the first governor of the State of Alaska from January 3, 1959 to 1966 and 1970 to 1974, as well as a shadow U.S. Senator from Alaska Terri ...
, Rabinowitz was sworn in as an
Alaska Supreme Court
The Alaska Supreme Court is the state supreme court for the U.S. state of Alaska. Its decisions are binding on all other Alaska state courts, and the only court its decisions may be appealed to is the Supreme Court of the United States. The Alas ...
justice on March 4, 1965. Rabinowitz remained on the state Supreme Court until February 28, 1997, having reached the mandated retirement age of 70 for judges in Alaska, Article 4 of the Alaska ConstitutionAlaska Law Review: Chief Justice Warren W. Matthews, 15 Alaska L. Rev. 201 (December 1998) /ref> during which time he served four non-consecutive three-year terms as chief justice. (The Alaska Constitution prohibits consecutive terms as chief supreme court justice.)
During his time on the bench, Rabinowitz wrote more than 1,200 court opinions, 200 of them dissenting. He was a strong and articulate voice for safeguarding the civil liberties of Alaskans. He wrote landmark opinions in cases involving privacy, reproductive freedom, search and seizure, self-incrimination, free speech,Feldman, J. and Orlansky, S., "Justice Rabinowitz And Personal Freedom: Evolving A Constitutional Framework," 15 Duke-Alaska Law Review 1 (June 1998). and marijuana use. He was particularly sensitive to the ways in which the law affected the legal rights of Alaska Natives and authored several noteworthy judicial opinions that respected Native traditions in areas of family rights and adoption, education, and law enforcement.
Rabinowitz's law clerks included Robert Coates and
Andrew Kleinfeld
Andrew Jay Kleinfeld (born June 12, 1945) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a senior U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit since 2010. He served as an active judge on the Ninth Circuit from 1991 to 2010. ...
, who became a judge of the
Ninth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts:
* District ...
.15 Alaska L. Rev. 197 Andrew Kleinfeld
Beginning in 1971, Rabinowitz also served on the
National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws
The Uniform Law Commission (ULC), also called the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, is a non-profit, American unincorporated association. Established in 1892, the ULC aims to provide U.S. states (plus the District of C ...
, where he headed three drafting committees and served on numerous others.
Personal life
Rabinowitz was a competitive athlete, and pursued both
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
and
skiing
Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee ( ...
throughout his life, taking up long-distance running in middle age. He and his wife, Anne, had four children, including former Olympian
Judy Rabinowitz
Judy Rabinowitz (born April 9, 1958, in Fairbanks, Alaska) is an American cross-country skier who competed from 1982 to 1984. She finished seventh in the 4 × 5 km relay at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.
Rabinowitz's best World Cup c ...
Barrie Cassileth
Barrie Joyce Rabinowitz Cassileth (née Rabinowitz; April 22, 1938 – February 26, 2022) was an American medical sociologist and researcher of complementary medicine and a critic of alternative medicine. She published extensively on alternativ ...
.
Death and legacy
Rabinowitz died on June 16, 2001 at the age of 74 from complications of
leukemia
Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...
in a
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
hospital.3.9 Drinking with Buildings /ref> In remembrance of him,
Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
half-staff
Half-mast or half-staff (American English) refers to a flag flying below the summit of a ship mast, a pole on land, or a pole on a building. In many countries this is seen as a symbol of respect, mourning, distress, or, in some cases, a salu ...
for five days. Said Knowles,
"Jay Rabinowitz devoted his life to the law.... He began his career when Alaska was a young state. His steady, thoughtful manner resulted in a body of law that will have a lasting impact on Alaska as we know it. I personally sought his guidance and input on a number of critical issues facing our state. I will miss his sense of humor and his integrity. Jay's legacy will not be forgotten."
The
Rabinowitz Courthouse
Rabinowitz Courthouse is an Alaska Court of Appeals state courthouse in Fairbanks, Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the W ...
in downtown Fairbanks, Alaska, and the Alaska Bar Association's Jay Rabinowitz Public Serive Award are named after him.International Jewish Cemetery Project - Alaska