United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

Jurisdiction

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York encompasses the counties of New York, Bronx, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Orange, Dutchess, and Sullivan and draws jurors from those counties. The Court also shares concurrent jurisdiction over the waters of the counties of Kings, Nassau, Queens, Richmond, and Suffolk with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The Court hears cases in Manhattan, White Plains, and Poughkeepsie, New York.

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 United States Attorney is Matthew Podolsky.

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. Public Law 95-408 (enacted October 2, 1978) transferred Columbia, Greene, and Ulster counties from the Southern to the Northern district.

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-one 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, Richard J. Sullivan, and Alison Nathan. Blatchford and Sotomayor, after being elevated from the Southern District of New York to serve as Circuit Judges for the Second Circuit, 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 1912 sinking of the Titanic, the 1915 torpedo attack on the Lusitania and the 1904 fire aboard the General Slocum were heard in the S.D.N.Y.
• The 1949 perjury trial of Alger Hiss was heard in the S.D.N.Y Court.
• The 1951 espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg was 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 in 1933.
• Judge Murray Gurfein of the Court rejected government efforts to enjoin The New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
• 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 in 1926; John Mitchell was acquitted in 1974.
• Financial frauds have been prosecuted in the S.D.N.Y., among them the cases against Bernard Madoff, Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, and Sam Bankman-Fried.
• The 1990 trial of Imelda Marcos, who was the former First Lady of the Philippines, and who was indicted on charges of fraud, racketeering, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice.
• 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; Omar Abdel Rahman (known in the press as "The Blind Sheikh"); and those who conspired to carry out the Bojinka plot 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 (1999) established that exact reproductions of public domain paintings were not subject to copyright protection.
• Viacom Inc. v. YouTube Inc., a $1 billion lawsuit against Google and YouTube in 2012 on the grounds of alleged copyright infringement. The DMCA safe harbor law became the main argument in the case.
• Prosecution of Abduwali Muse, the so-called "Somali Pirate", was heard in the Court in 2010.
• The criminal cases against Bess Myerson, Leona Helmsley and Martha Stewart were heard in the S.D.N.Y. as well.
• The Deflategate controversy concerning the National Football League's Tom Brady was heard in the S.D.N.Y. in 2015.
• In 2017, 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.
• Patrick Ho, former Hong Kong Secretary for Home Affairs, bribery And money laundering offenses to Sam Kutesa, former Minister of Foreign Affairs in Uganda and Idriss Déby, former Chad President on behalf of CEFC China Energy.
• Criminal cases against rapper and record producer Sean Combs, and Ghislaine Maxwell, a sex trafficker and confidant of Jeffrey Epstein.
• The E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump trial, presided over by Senior Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, was held in April and May 2023 in which the jury reached a unanimous decision, after deliberating for less than three hours, that Donald Trump was liable for sexual abuse via forcible digital penetration and defamation. Carroll was awarded a total of $5 million in damages.
• Luigi Mangione, suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has a federal case that is being heard in the S.D.N.Y.

Current judges

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Chief judges

Succession of seats

References

References

1. (November 13, 2014). "Southern District of New York". United States Department of Justice.
2. (1962-05-01). "History of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York". Federal Bar Association of New York, New Jersey & Connecticut.
3. (December 2002). "The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York: A Retrospective (1990-2000)". The New York County Lawyers’ Association.
4. Zirin, James D.. (2014). "The Mother Court: Tales of Cases that Mattered in America's Greatest Trial Court". [[American Bar Association]].
5. Zirin, James D.. (2014). "The Mother Court: Tales of Cases that Mattered in America's Greatest Trial Court". [[American Bar Association]].
6. Weiser, Benjamin. (January 29, 2009). "A Steppingstone for Law's Best and Brightest".
7. 28 U.S.C. § 112(b),(c).
8. "Homepage". U.S District Court.
9. (May 13, 2015). "Southern District of New York | Meet the U.S. Attorney".
10. "Southern District of New York 225th Anniversary".
11. Asbury Dickens, ''A Synoptical Index to the Laws and Treaties of the United States of America'' (1852), p. 386.
12. [https://www.fjc.gov/history/courts/u.s.-district-courts-districts-new-york-legislative-history U.S. District Courts of New York, Legislative history], ''[[Federal Judicial Center]]''.
13. "92 STAT. 885".
14. Taylor, Susan. (2022-04-15). "110 Years Later: Titanic Lawsuits Follow Tragedy {{!}} In Custodia Legis".
15. (1918). "The "Lusitania." Opinion of Court, United States District Court, Southern District of New York". [[American Association for International Conciliation]].
16. (2016-08-15). "Slocum Disaster, June 15, 1904".
17. "United States v. Hiss, 107 F. Supp. 128 (S.D.N.Y. 1952)".
18. "United States v. Rosenberg, 109 F. Supp. 108 (S.D.N.Y. 1953)".
19. Birmingham, Kevin. (2013). "The Prestige of the Law: Revisiting Obscenity Law and Judge Woolsey's "Ulysses" Decision". James Joyce Quarterly.
20. Dunlap, David W.. (2016-06-30). "1971: Supreme Court Allows Publication of Pentagon Papers". The New York Times.
21. (December 2002). "The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York: A Retrospective (1990-2000)". The New York County Lawyers’ Association.
22. "United States v. Yousef, 927 F. Supp. 673 (S.D.N.Y. 1996)".
23. Hurtado, Patricia. (2011-02-02). "Maersk Pirate's Lawyers Seek 27-Year Prison Term". Bloomberg.com.
24. Forrest, Katherine B.. (August 23, 2017). "Matt Hosseinzadeh, Plaintiff, v. Ethan Klein and Hila Klein, Defendants". United States District Court, S.D. New York.
25. Hamilton, Colby. [https://www.law.com/2018/12/12/cohen-sentenced-to-36-months-in-prison-in-sdny-mueller-prosecutions/?slreturn=20181112163109 "Cohen's 'Blind Loyalty' Leads to 3-Year Prison Term"], ''New York Law Journal'' via Law.com, December 12, 2018. Retrieved December 12, 2018.
26. (December 12, 2018). "Ex-Trump lawyer Cohen jailed for 36 months".
27. (March 25, 2019). "Patrick Ho, Former Head Of Organization Backed By Chinese Energy Conglomerate, Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison For International Bribery And Money Laundering Offenses".
28. (2024-09-17). "Sean Combs Charged In Manhattan Federal Court With Sex Trafficking And Other Federal Offenses".
29. (2022-06-28). "Ghislaine Maxwell Sentenced To 20 Years In Prison For Conspiring With Jeffrey Epstein To Sexually Abuse Minors".
30. "Carroll v. Trump, 1:20-cv-07311".
31. (29 April 2025). "Prosecutors deny eavesdropping on Luigi Mangione's calls with lawyer".
32. (April 9, 1814). "An Act for the better organization of the courts of the United States within the State of New York".