Everything about Sol Wachtler totally explained
Sol Wachtler is a
New York State lawyer and former Chief Judge of the
New York Court of Appeals, which is the highest position in the State
judiciary.
Career
He earned his
B.A. and
LL.B. from
Washington and Lee University.
Wachtler began his government career in
1963, when he was elected a councilman of the town of
North Hempstead. He was elected to the
New York State Supreme Court in 1968 and elected to the
New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, in 1972. In 1985, he was appointed
Chief Judge of the State of New York and the Court of Appeals.
In
1992, he was arrested on an expressway while driving home, and later pleaded guilty to harassing his former
mistress Joy Silverman and her teenage daughter. Wachtler had written her harassing letters in the guise of a fictional alter ego, and mailed a
condom to her young daughter. The judge claimed mental incapacitation. He resigned his judgeship and subsequently resigned from the bar as a result of this incident. He also served time in mental health unit of a
federal prison. Wachtler currently works in the area of
alternate dispute resolution and is an adjunct professor of law at the
Touro Law School. He was reinstated to the New York state bar on
October 2,
2007.
Wachtler's severe
bipolar illness aside, the former New York Chief Judge's accomplishments on the bench are notable. Famous for the remark, "A marriage license shouldn't be viewed as a license for a husband to forcibly rape his wife with impunity," Wachtler was a key figure in making rape in the context of a marriage a criminal offense. (
People v. Liberta). His groundbreaking work on the court also led to the broadening of protections for the disabled and racial minorities.
Life after NY Court of Appeals
Since his prison time, Wachtler has written his own prison memoir,
After the Madness (ISBN 0-7592-4519-3), and a fiction book,
Blood Brothers (ISBN 1-59007-421-1).
He is currently the chief executive of Comprehensive Alternative Dispute Resolution Enterprise (CADRE), an alternative dispute resolution firm based in
Great Neck.
Wachtler is an adjunct professor at
Touro Law School.
"Ham sandwich" quote
Wachtler famously observed that
prosecutors have so much control over
grand juries that they could convince them to "indict a ham sandwich."
(External Link
) The phrase has become something of a cliché used in
legal dramas such as in the episode "."
Further Information
Get more info on 'Sol Wachtler'.
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