“People call him a populist and a firebrand, but that’s not really his personality,” said John C. Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School who has co-taught a course on white-collar crime with Mr. Rakoff for the past 23 years. “He is a much calmer, quieter guy. He is not a grandstander. He is not trying to lead a movement.”
Judge Rakoff declined to be interviewed for this story, saying that it would be inappropriate, in light of the attention the Citi case received, to be preening before microphones.
(“I wish he would start giving interviews again,” one friend said, “so you all would stop calling me.”)
Legal observers and friends describe Judge Rakoff as bringing a prosecutor’s ferocity and a deep knowledge of securities law to the bench. He grew up in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia, an upper-middle-class enclave in the northern reaches of the city, attending the prestigious Central High School. He was a high school debater who ran for student body president, and lost, a high school friend recalls, to “a popular jock.” His father was a pioneering fertility doctor; his mother worked in the public school system. He went to Swarthmore and Harvard Law, and after clerking for a federal judge, did a long stint as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office securities fraud bureau.
“It was an extraordinary time,” said Rusty Wing, a partner at Lankler Siffert & Wohl who worked alongside Mr. Rakoff then. “You are very much a band of brothers, and you perceive yourself as wearing the white hat, doing the right thing, doing justice.”
After time at two white-shoe law firms, Mr. Rakoff was appointed to the judiciary by President Clinton in 1995. But despite his increasingly mythic status among his admirers, he has not moved up the judicial ladder from his district court judgeship.
And he is unlikely to in the future, due mainly, legal experts say, to a 2002 ruling that claimed that the death penalty was unconstitutional, calling it “the state sponsored murder of innocent human beings.”
Then, he publicly revealed that although he found the death penalty to be “sufficiently fallible,” he could sympathize with victims’ families—his own brother, Jan, had been brutally murdered 17 years prior in the Philippines, and the assailant was never properly brought to justice.
“He found the death penalty unconstitutional, and the Justice Department doesn’t accept that,” said Professor Coffee. “ Any softness on the death penalty would be a problem for the confirmation process.”
Adds another friend, “He was aware at the time he made the decision that it was a political disqualifier.”
Instead, Mr. Rakoff threw himself into the district court, where judges are far closer to the lived experience—rather than the realm of legal theory that appellate-level justices face—of those before them in their courtroom.
“The district court is a form of combat. I think he likes that,” said another one of the judge’s brothers, Todd Rakoff, himself a professor at Harvard Law.
Because he has developed a reputation for outspokenness, there is a fear among some court-watchers that his words will be blunted.
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““Part of this seems like an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, you know,
where you are just mad at the bankers,” said Adam C. Pritchard, a law
professor at the University of Michigan. “That just seems inappropriate
on the part of the judge if that is what is going on. If the goal is to
stick it to the bankers, that is not the judge’s job.”
Is this Pritchard for real? How did this incapable became a law professor with tenure? Can’t he READ the darn questions Judge Rakoff asked to the parties? How dare he ASSUME this is a “crusade” to “stick it to the banks”? Just because his friends the banksters will be (gaaasp!) inconvenienced? Weeell! Isn’t that too freaking bad?
Hey prof Pritchard! How does that feel to have to bend over to the banksters? Does it come naturally to you? Or is it a case of wanting to become a member of the Club?
Ouch…..to Comment below. I was just going to suggest an additional link for more details on this storyhttp://www.natlawreview.com/article/judge-citigroup-case-has-bucked-trend-rubber-stamping-sec-settlements
It sure seems like corruption and hypocrisy have become such standard operating procedure at the financial regulatory agencies, let alone Holder at Justice and the president himself, that nobody in the system could conceive of actually doing their duty and punishing criminals. It is like those old cartoons where the sheep dog and the coyote clock in at the same time, but instead of defending the flock, the sheep dog just levies fees on the coyote for eating sheep. Gimme a leg, Wiley, and we’ll run this past the shepherd.
Yeah, it is inappropriate for a judge to demand justice. On the contrary, it seems inappropriate for the SEC to let these financial companies off with literally a single slap on the wrists with a wet noodle, instead of doing their job and looking out for the people who put their money into these financial institutions. But then the staffers wouldn’t have that mid-6 figure income job waiting for them when they leave the SEC.
Finally a judge who is takinng side for the real Americans. May he get to a federal agency who isn’t protecting the way Amerians are but are protecting the bankers who are dystroying us.99%vs.1%.Please,your honor,please,get to the bottom of this,please!!!
One judge that can follow the logic or the ill-logic of pleading not pleading guillty to anything and begging for a fine that won’t even show up in their bottom line. A win-win for them a lose-lose for the U.S. Taxpayer!