Irving Kaufman

Irving Kaufman

Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
In office 1973–1980
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
In office 1961–1987
Nominated by	John F. Kennedy
Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
In office October 21, 1949 – September 22, 1961
Nominated by	Harry S. Truman
Personal details
Born	June 24, 1910 (1910-06-24) Brooklyn, New York
Died	February 1, 1992 (1992-03) (aged 81)
Profession	Jurist
Religion	Judaism

Irving Robert Kaufman (June 24, 1910 – February 1, 1992) was a federal judge in the United States. He is best remembered for imposing the controversial death sentences on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Biography

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Kaufman graduated from Fordham Law School at the age of 21 and worked for two decades as a lawyer in New York City, mostly in private practice but also as an Assistant United States Attorney. From 1949 to 1961, Kaufman served as a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, to which he was appointed by President Harry S Truman. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy promoted Kaufman to an appellate position on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He served as an active Second Circuit judge from 1961 to 1987, including a term as Chief Judge from 1973 to 1980. Kaufman assumed senior status in 1987 but continued to hear some cases until his death four years later. On October 7, 1987, he was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.^[1] He died on February 1, 1992 at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan of pancreatic cancer. He was 81 years old.^[2]

Kaufman is best remembered as the judge who presided over the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg 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. These claims have not been verified.

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 Kaufaman meted out, were late reversed and invalidated by the Court of Appeals.

Kaufman presided over the deportation hearing of John Lennon and rejected the government's attempt to deport him from the United States to England based upon his having pleaded guilty in England to possession of hashish. After a widely publicized hearing, 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."

Judge 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.

Judge 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 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."