Ирвинг Кауфман: Американ судьясы және Джон Леннон ісі

American judge
the singer

Irving Robert Kaufman (June 24, 1910 – February 1, 1992) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York City, Kaufman received a Bachelor of Laws from Fordham University School of Law in 1931. He was Jewish, but earned the nickname "Pope Kaufman" for his achievement in the required Christian doctrine classes at Fordham, a Catholic school.

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.

Kaufman received a recess appointment from President Harry S. Truman on October 21, 1949, to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, 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 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. Kaufman said that he had gone to synagogue to pray before issuing his death sentence; this enraged Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter, who later wrote to judge Learned Hand, "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.

Kaufman was nominated by President John F. Kennedy on September 14, 1961, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 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 on July 1, 1987. His service was terminated on February 1, 1992, due to his death. 1975: Kaufman presided over the three judge appeals court panel reviewing the deportation of John Lennon and rejected the government's attempt to deport him from the United States to the United Kingdom 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 tortured in other countries. The case has had a wide ranging impact on human rights and the role of corporations and their foreign operations.

Kaufman died age 81 on February 1, 1992, at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan of pancreatic cancer.

On October 7, 1987, Kaufman was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.

A substantial collection of Kaufman's personal and judicial papers is archived at the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C., 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."