United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York is a federal district court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses the counties of New York, Bronx, Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess, and Sullivan in the state of New York. Appeals from the Southern District of New York are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Because it covers Manhattan, the Southern District of New York has long been one of the most active and influential federal district courts in the United States. The district has had several prominent judges on its bench, including Learned Hand, Michael Mukasey, and Sonia Sotomayor, and many of the U.S. Attorneys for the district have been prominent American legal and political figures, such as Elihu Root, Henry L. Stimson, Robert Morgenthau, Rudy Giuliani, James Comey, and Preet Bharara.
Jurisdiction
The United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York represents the United States in civil and criminal litigation in the court. The current acting United States Attorney, since June 20, 2020 is Audrey Strauss. The court sits in the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse and Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse, both in Manhattan, and in the Charles L. Brieant Jr. Federal Building and Courthouse in White Plains.History
The United States District Court for the District of New York was one of the original 13 courts established by the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 73, on September 24, 1789. It first sat at the old Merchants Exchange on Broad Street in November 1789, the first federal court to do so. The Act of April 9, 1814, 3 Stat. 120, divided the District of New York into Northern and Southern Districts.The subdivision of the district was reportedly instigated by Matthias B. Tallmadge, out of antipathy for fellow district judge William P. Van Ness. These Districts were later further subdivided with the creation of the Eastern District on February 25, 1865 by 13 Stat. 438, and the Western District on May 12, 1900, by 31 Stat. 175.
For the first hundred years of its existence, the case load of the District was dominated first by admiralty cases, and then by a mix of admiralty and bankruptcy cases. The primary responsibility for hearing bankruptcy cases has since been transferred to the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, with the District Court only reviewing cases already decided by a bankruptcy judge.
Since its creation, the Southern District of New York has had over 150 judges, more than any other District. Twenty judges from the Southern District of New York have been elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit—Samuel Blatchford, Charles Merrill Hough, Learned Hand, Julius Marshuetz Mayer, Augustus Noble Hand, Martin Thomas Manton, Robert P. Patterson, Harold Medina, Irving Kaufman, Wilfred Feinberg, Walter R. Mansfield, Murray Gurfein, Lawrence W. Pierce, Pierre N. Leval, John M. Walker Jr., Sonia Sotomayor, Denny Chin, Barrington Daniels Parker Jr., Gerard E. Lynch, and Richard J. Sullivan. Two judges, Samuel Blatchford and Sonia Sotomayor, were elevated from the Southern District of New York to serve as Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit and were later elevated to the Supreme Court of the United States. The longest serving judge, David Norton Edelstein, served as an active judge for 43 years to the day, and in senior status for an additional six years.
Judges of the court have gone on to other high governmental positions. Robert P. Patterson served as Under Secretary of War under President Franklin Roosevelt and was Secretary of War under President Harry S. Truman. Louis Freeh served as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from September 1993 to June 2001. Michael Mukasey served as the 81st United States Attorney General under President George W. Bush.
Notable cases
- The injury and loss of life claims from the sinking of the Titanic, the torpedo attack on the Lusitania and the fire aboard the General Slocum were heard in the S.D.N.Y.
- The espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the perjury trial of Alger Hiss were heard in the S.D.N.Y.
- Judge John M. Woolsey of the S.D.N.Y. rejected government efforts to censor on obscenity grounds the distribution of James Joyce's Ulysses.
- Judge Murray Gurfein of the Court rejected government efforts to enjoin The New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers.
- Defamation suits were heard in the S.D.N.Y. against CBS and Time magazine by General William Westmoreland and Israeli General Ariel Sharon.
- Two former Attorneys General of the United States were indicted and tried in the S.D.N.Y. for crimes while in office – Harry Daugherty of the Teapot Dome era and John Mitchell of the Watergate era. Juries were unable to reach verdicts in the two trials against Daugherty; John Mitchell was acquitted.
- Financial frauds have been prosecuted in the S.D.N.Y., among them the cases against Bernard Madoff, Ivan Boesky, and Michael Milken.
- Bombings: the trials of those accused of the 1998 United States embassy bombings in East Africa; those alleged to have been responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and Omar Abdel Rahman, occurred in the District. More recently, the prosecution arising out of the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt were each heard in the S.D.N.Y.
- Bridgeman v. Corel established that exact reproductions of public domain paintings were not subject to copyright protection.
- Prosecution of Abduwali Muse, the so-called "Somali Pirate", was heard in the Court.
- The criminal cases against Bess Myerson, Leona Helmsley and Martha Stewart were heard in the S.D.N.Y., as was the U.S. case against Imelda Marcos.
- The Deflategate controversy concerning the National Football League's Tom Brady was heard in the S.D.N.Y.
- Hosseinzadeh v. Klein, concerning the practice of fair use in online video content, was heard in the S.D.N.Y.
- On December 12, 2018, Judge William H. Pauley III sentenced Michael Cohen – who had served as personal legal counsel to U.S. president Donald Trump for more than a decade – to "three years in prison and millions in forfeitures, restitution and fines", after pleading guilty to charges including campaign finance violations, tax evasion and committing perjury while under oath before Congress.
Current judges
Vacancies and pending nominations
| Seat | Seat last held by | Vacancy reason | Date of vacancy | Nominee | Date of nomination |
| 23 | William H. Pauley III | Senior status | March 1, 2018 | John P. Cronan | February 27, 2020 |
| 9 | Katherine B. Forrest | Resignation | September 11, 2018 | Iris Lan | May 4, 2020 |
| 16 | Richard J. Sullivan | Elevation | October 25, 2018 | Jennifer H. Rearden | May 4, 2020 |