Charles Kaufman (judge)
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Charles Kaufman (1920-2004), was a judge for the Third Circuit Court of Michigan, with jurisdiction over Southeast Michigan and its largest city, Detroit, MI. He is most widely criticized for the light sentence imposed on Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz for the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American who was beaten to death with a baseball bat after a fight that carried racial overtones.
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[edit] Early Biography
Born in 1920,[1] Kaufman served as a navigator for the Army Air Force during World War II. He became a POW (prisoner of war) in Japanese prison camp when his plane was shot down after 27 missions. [2] [3]
After the war, Kaufman graduated from Wayne State University Law School in 1948, and joined his father's firm before winning the election for Common Pleas Court Judge in 1959, and Wayne County Third Circuit Court of Michigan in 1964 where he served for 30 years. [3] He also was a candidate for the First District of the Michigan Court of Appeals in 1968 and 1982,[1] and a Michigan State Supreme Court candidate in 1976.[1]
[edit] Third Circuit Court
During his tenure as Third Circuit Court Judge was known for leniency towards first time offenders. In 1977, when a 17-year old African American male, Greg Mathis, was arrested on a concealed-weapons charge, Judge Kaufman handed a sentence of probation, provided that Mathis enrolled and passed a G.E.D. course in six months. [4] Mathis turned away from gang behavior, and in 1994, he went on to become the youngest judge elected to the 36th District Court in Detroit, eventually becoming a popular television personality as Judge Mathis.[4]
Judge Kaufman's most infamous decision, however, was the sentence of three years probation and $3,780 in fines and court costs given to former Chrysler plant superintendent Ronald Ebens and his stepson Michael Nitz on March 16, 1983 for the murder of Vincent Chin. [5] Asian American advocacy groups were outraged not only because Ebens had viciously beaten Chin in the head with a baseball bat, but also because the act was seen as the penultimate hate crime of a laid-off American autoworker taking out his frustration about the Japanese automobile industry on an innocent person, even though Ebens was still employed by Chrysler at the time of the attack.[6]
Citing the judge's POW record as one of several reasons to invalidate the lenient sentence in favor of a more stringent punishment, advocacy groups unsuccessfully tried to vacate the original sentence. Kaufman cited the defendants' clean prior criminal records and that there was no minimum sentence for a manslaughter plea as he responded, "These weren't the kind of men you send to jail... You don't make the punishment fit the crime; you make the punishment fit the criminal." [5] Kaufman's sentence was upheld as valid and final, due to the Fifth Amendment protection against double jeopardy, and the advocacy groups shifted their efforts toward a Federal prosecution for the violation of Vincent Chin's civil rights. This would also prove ultimately unsuccessful after an appeal and retrial of Ebens' original 1984 Federal conviction resulted in acquittal,[5] and Judge Kaufman would be singled out for blame in creating what most people would call a miscarriage of justice, but is more precisely, an error of impunity, with Nitz, and especially Ebens, receiving a punishment that was less than socially optimal.
Judge Kaufman later retired from the Third Circuit Court, and died in 2004. [2]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c The Political Graveyard: Index to Politicians: Kaufman
- ^ a b Asian American Empowerment - Asian Americans Nationwide Remember Vincent Chin
- ^ a b http://waynelawyer.wayne.edu/09/2004/issue5/feature-three/ Memoriam of Charles Kaufman
- ^ a b Greg Mathis: Biography and Much More from Answers.com
- ^ a b c Helen Zia (2000). Asian American Dreams. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0-374-14774-4.
- ^ Ronald Ebens vs. Chrysler Corporation, 88-810078 CZ (Mich 3rd Cir 1988).
