Nina Gershon

Nina Gershon (born 1940, Chicago, Illinois) is a federal district judge in the Eastern District of New York. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1996 at the recommendation of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.^[1] She assumed senior status on October 16, 2008.

Prior to her appointment as a district judge, Judge Gershon served for twenty years as a United States Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of New York. Before that, she was Chief of the Consumer Protection Division for the New York City Law Department (1975–76); Chief of Federal Appeals for the Law Department (1972–75); Assistant Corporation Counsel for the Law Department (1968–69 and 1970–72); and a Staff Attorney for the Supreme Court of New York and the Mental Health Information Service (1966–68).

Education

Gershon holds a B.A. in English with honors from Cornell (1962) and an L.L.B. from Yale (1965). In 1965 and 1966, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the London School of Economics' Hampstead Clinic.

Notable cases

• In the 1970s, working as a lawyer for New York City, Gershon won a court ruling that rejected the building of Grand Central Tower on top of Grand Central Terminal, which would have ruined the historical site. The ruling was later upheld in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City.^[2]

• In 1999, Gershon ruled that New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani could not cut the Brooklyn Museum of Art's funding after it mounted an exhibit entitled "Sensation". Giuliani described the works in the exhibit as "sick" and "disgusting." ^[3]

• In 2000, Gershon ruled that New York's century-old kosher food laws violated the First Amendment.^[4]

• In the spring of 2006, Gershon presided over the trial of Shahawar Matin Siraj, a Pakistani immigrant who was accused of plotting to blow up New York's Herald Square subway station. After a four week trial, a jury found Siraj guilty of four crimes, including plotting to bomb a public transportation system.^[5] On January 8, 2007, Gershon sentenced Siraj to 30 years imprisonment for his role in the plot.^[6]

• On December 11, 2009, Judge Gershon issued a preliminary injunction against the United States Government preventing the implementation of a law barring the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) from receiving federal funds. Judge Gerson found that the law, passed as part of an Appropriation bill, was an unconstitutional Bill of attainder.^[7] The Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned this decision on August 13, 2010.^[8]

Links

• Nina Gershon at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

References

1. ^ 142 Cong. Rec. S 9312
2. ^ New York Times, October 4, 1999, "In Museum Case, Judge Has Eye for Law, if Not Art".
3. ^ Brooklyn Inst. of Arts & Scis v. City of New York & Rudolph W. Giuliani, 64 F. Supp. 2d 184, 205 (E.D.N.Y. 1999)
4. ^ Commack Self-Service Kosher Meats, Inc. v. Rubin, 106 F. Supp. 2d 445 (E.D.N.Y. 2000)
5. ^ New York Times, May 25, 2006.
6. ^ "Man jailed over NY bombing plot". BBC News. January 8, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6243241.stm. 
7. ^ ccrjustice.org
8. ^ "Federal appeals court in NY rules against ACORN". Associated Press. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5goHmEoyYhLPQ7xhPuFBAM-gBjbUAD9HIOI900. Retrieved 2010-08-13.