Retired Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein dies at 99
Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein, a WWII veteran who served on the bench for more than five decades and worked on the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case died on Tuesday, his wife told the Daily News. He was 99.
Judge Weinstein was nominated to the bench by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967 and worked in Brooklyn’s downtown federal courthouses for 53 years. He was a firm believer in the rehabilitation of convicted criminals, and always strived to give the shortest possible sentences.
“I just about used up my reserves of energy and I felt that I could not really go on and have the assurance that I could give full attention and full energy to each one of these litigants. That being so, it seemed to me highly desirable to turn it over to the other judges on the court,” Weinstein told The News in his 14th-floor chambers, before he hung up the gavel.
Born in Wichita, Kan., in 1921, Weinstein came to Brooklyn when he was 5-years-old.
During the Depression, he acted in plays and posed as an artist’s model to feed his family.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Weinstein enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and sunk a Japanese cruiser, he told The News.
“I felt elated about it,” he said. “But in subsequent times, I’ve felt that the killing of 1,100 men was not warranted. I’ve instructed some Japanese lawyers and judges ... and I always have the feeling that those men were unnecessarily sacrificed at the war. I have no feeling of jubilation in killing Japanese men.”
Weinstein graduated Brooklyn College and went on to Columbia Law School.
He contributed research and briefs to aid his friend and mentor Thurgood Marshall in the Brown v. Board of Education case, but insisted to The News that his role was minimal.
Many of Weinstein’s rulings made headlines, like when he blasted the NYPD in 2009 for the “widespread falsification by arresting officers.”
The judge is survived by his wife, three sons and two grandchildren.
“There are so many things one could say. We’ll just miss him being him,” said Weinstein’s wife, Susan Berk.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...pae-story.html
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