Few lawyers know who Martin Manton was. Even fewer, if any, law students learn about Manton while in school. That may change with the Hon. Gary Stein’s recent biography of Manton, Justice for Sale: Graft, Greed, and a Crooked Federal Judge in 1930s Gotham. (See Justice for Sale: Graft, Greed, and a Crooked Federal Judge in 1930s Gotham: Stein, Gary: 9781493072569: Amazon.com: Books)
Judge Stein tells the history of Judge Manton’s rapid rise – President Woodrow Wilson appointed Manton, then 36-years old, to the federal district court in 1916, then elevated him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit two years later. As a judge, Manton continued to be involved in a number of businesses, including real estate ventures on which he had given mortgages. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Manton desperately needed money and turned to selling his office, repeatedly soliciting payments from lawyers and litigants arguing cases before him. Judge Stein calculates that Manton received improper payments of about $823,000 – about $17 million today. Ultimately, in 1939, Manton was publicly exposed. This led to his resignation, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment.
As Judge Stein discusses with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, the story of Manton’s corrupt conduct on the bench is an extraordinary tale. Manton was friends with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, served on the Second Circuit with, among others, the Hon. Learned Hand, and nearly was appointed to the United States Supreme Court in the 1920s. This may seem like ancient history, but Judge Stein’s book reminds us that judges – even federal judges – are human, subject to the same flaws and foibles as the rest of us. That is a timely lesson that is still instructive today.
Brought to you by the Touro Law Review.
Our guest today is Magistrate Judge Gary Stein.
Magistrate Judge Gary Stein
Gary Stein is a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of New York. Judge Stein has more than 35 years of civil and criminal litigation experience in New York. Before going on the bench, he was a litigation partner at Schulte Roth & Zabel. He also was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, and served as Chief Appellate Attorney of that Office. Judge Stein is a graduate of New York University and New York University School of Law, where he was Senior Articles Editor of the N.Y.U. Law Review. He clerked for Chief Justice Robert N. Wilentz of the New Jersey Supreme Court and began his career as a litigator at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
You must be logged in to post a comment.