When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question,” he surely could not have anticipated all of the pending legal cases against former President Donald Trump. Nevertheless, here we are nearly two centuries later, with four criminal prosecutions and one civil case pending and another civil case likely to be filed soon against Trump.  

Thane Rosenbaum, Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, joins us on the Touro Law Review Podcast to help make sense of the legal cases against Trump.  After describing the cases, Rosenbaum explains to Associate Dean Rodger Citron what he finds problematic about each one.  The conversation focuses on the four criminal cases:  the New York “hush money” case; the federal classified documents case in Florida; the federal January 6 case pending in Washington, D.C.; and the Georgia election interference case.  

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Our guest today is Professor Thane Rosenbaum.

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Lawyer and author Martin J. Siegel discusses his biography of the Hon. Irving R. Kaufman on this week’s Touro Law Review podcast.  Kaufman is most well-known today for having presided over the Cold War espionage case of United States v. Rosenberg, in which Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple, were charged with conspiring to share atomic secrets with the Soviet Union, found guilty by the jury, and sentenced to death by Judge Kaufman in 1951.  Two years later, after numerous appeals, the United States executed the Rosenbergs.   

Siegel’s biography shows that there was more to Kaufman’s life than the infamous Rosenberg trial. Kaufman, the son of Jewish immigrants, was able and ambitious.  His appointment to the federal bench in 1949, at the age of 39, was an extraordinary accomplishment. No less interesting is that after President Kennedy appointed him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961, Kaufman became one of the more liberal judges on that court.  Nonetheless, even today, the Rosenberg case casts a long shadow over Kaufman’s judicial legacy.       

As Siegel discusses with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, the author benefited from the cooperation of Kaufman’s family while writing the book, enabling him to shed light on the judge’s personal life.  The podcast concludes with Siegel sharing his thoughts on the relevance of biography in understanding how judges decide cases and, accordingly, how the law develops through judicial decision-making.

   

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Our guest today is Professor Martin J. Siegel.

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This week on the Touro Law Review Podcast, we are joined by the Honorable Sol Wachtler, former Chief of the New York State Court of Appeals. This podcast is moderated by Professor Lauren Wachtler. Judge Wachtler has had an exceptional career. Serving for many years in government, and as a justice of the New York State Supreme Court, and  later elected to the New York Court of Appeals where he served first as an associate judge and then as its Chief over the course of 14 years.

The discussion begins with a conversation about the complicated and confusing nature of the New York court system after which Judge Wachtler dives into the jurisdiction of the New York Court of Appeals, its present mandate that it may only review issues of law on appeal.  Judge Wachtler discusses many present and past cases of interest which have become before the NY State Court of Appeals, including “The Subway Vigilante” case of Bernard Goetz. 

   

Brought to you by the Touro Law Review.   

Our guest today is the Honorable Sol Wachtler.

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