The NY Times has the article here.
He helped write the legal briefs in Brown v. Board of Ed.
He was appointed to the bench by President Lyndon Johnson.
He is known as an iconoclast, who rarely wears his robes in court, and comes down off the bench to sit across from the defendant during sentencing.
He is an outspoken critic of the sentencing guidelines, and the mass incarceration philosophy of the last thirty years.
He has written about the philosophical problems with criminalizing and sentencing individuals for possession of pornographic material that appeals to their individual prurient interests and obsessions over which they have little control.
The NY Times article on that is here:
“I don’t approve of child pornography, obviously,” [Judge Weinstein] said in an interview this week. But, he also said, he does not believe that those who view the images, as opposed to producing or selling them, present a threat to children.
“We’re destroying lives unnecessarily,” he said. “At the most, they should be receiving treatment and supervision
He handled the Vietnam era Agent Orange class action lawsuit. He is the co-author of one of the signature treaties on evidence: Weinstein Korn and Miller on Evidence.
He is one of the wisest men we have ever met, and he is singularly the greatest trial judge of this last 100 years.
Judge Jack B. Weinstein, the best of the best.
What did Judge Weinstein think about people who paid to obtain child pornography?
ReplyDeleteJudge Weinstein was a class act and already a legend when I met him while going to NYU Law School 40 years ago.
ReplyDeleteSorry rumpy nobody knows him
ReplyDeletegreat judge who should have retired 28 years ago at age 70 like the rest of the federal qwork force
ReplyDeleteTrump will probably replace him with Spencer Eig of Elian Gonzalez fame.
ReplyDeleteSome thoughts while watching a plea colloquy with interpreter this morning:
ReplyDeleteImagine you had a boatload of money and wanted to do some social science. This particular defendant I watched signaled his age as 65+ and education as below 8th grade.
1. What percentage of what the judge is mumbling do you think actually gets interpreted by the court-certified interpreter? I think 80% would be generous. So start off there -- a spanish speaker is only told 80% of what the judge says.
2. What percentage of that do you think meets the standard of basic comprehension -- such that if the defendant were asked to summarize, in his own words, what was explained 60 minutes later, he could do so successfully? I'd wager less than 10%.
To make the experiment somewhat fun, I would ask a judge to stand before a room full of strangers, create as much anxiety as possible for the judge, and then subject them to an eight minute lecture on higher level math, rushed and mumbled by rote by a mathematician, punctuated by a series of questions, like "Do you understand?" Try somehow to add the condition that the judge understand something as precious as her freedom hinges on agreeing to what is said and not inconveniencing the lecturer too much.
How much of the information do you think the judge would retain, comprehend, be able to summarize?
Long story short, colloquies are a joke. The most cursory testing of their success at communicating information would show that defendants retain nothing, understand next to nothing. They may as well be: DO YOU PLEAD GUILTY? YOU KNOW YOURE GOING TO JAIL / GETTING PROBATION? OKAY, GET OUT OF HERE.
I don't know why we, as supposedly intelligent people who care about the law, all pretend they are legitimate. Every violation of the terms of the plea ought to be challenged with the defense that the accused could in no way be expected to comprehend.
Next up: the idea that reading 18 pages of jury instructions to a bored, semi-literate, semi-educated, entirely-frustrated audience of jurors actually "instructs" them in anything
The Eleventh Circuit just affirmed the injunction which allows convicted felons to vote even if they are unable to pay fines and costs. Jones v. Governor of Florida, case No. 19-14551 (11th Cir. filed 02.19.20) per curiam. Marcus. Anderson and visiting D.C. judge
ReplyDeleteI am sorry i never had a chance to practice before Judge Weinstein. However, his protege, John Gleeson never wore a robe except in jury trials, did not tolerate fools and was very respectful of defendants and lawyers who appeared before him. He has since gone on to private practice and was the best federal judge I have seen. Far better then any we have had in this district.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry i never had a chance to practice before Judge Weinstein. However, his protege, John Gleeson never wore a robe except in jury trials, did not tolerate fools and was very respectful of defendants and lawyers who appeared before him. He has since gone on to private practice and was the best federal judge I have seen. Far better then any we have had in this district.
ReplyDeleteSo...dumb people shouldn't be able to plead guilty? I agree on the comprehension front, but what is your point?
ReplyDeleteArthur McGinnis was one of the best trial Judges I ever was before
ReplyDeleteSir Wilfred
5:26 that if defendants are to be held liable for the consequences of their plea, they should benefit from a system designed to make it understandable. I dont know the answer but here are some ideas:
ReplyDelete1. Set a weekly calendar just for taking pleas
2. Radically revise the colloquy language with the goal of producing a text that is comprehensible when read aloud to a normal adult
3. Use written language that the defendant has to read and sign
4. Use other teaching aides, whether they are charts or symbols or videos
5. Make the colloquy much more interactive, requiring the defendant to demonstrate understanding
It sounds like a pain in the ass I know. But after all we do pretend to take this seriously and anyone giving a cursory glance to how we take pleas now could tell you that its an illusion. None of what we are saying happens (a voluntary, intelligent, and knowing agreement) actually happens