| SDNY Judge Deborah Batts
Passes Away After Pathbreaking Career of
Service From NYC to Ghana
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- The
Source
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
Feb 3 – Path-breaking Judge
Deborah A. Batts has passed
away, Inner City Press has
learned. Judge Batts had been
hearing cases in her 24th
floor courtroom in the U.S.
District Court for the
Southern District of New York
right until the end, see
below.
Judge Batts was nominated by
President William J. Clinton
in 1994 and was sworn in as a
judge on June 23, 1994 by the
Honorable Lawrence W. Pierce
of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Second
Circuit. Judge Batts
received her undergraduate
degree from Radcliffe College
in 1969 and graduated from
Harvard Law School in 1972
where she served on the
editorial board of the Civil
Rights Civil Liberties Law
Review. Upon graduation, she
clerked for Judge Pierce, then
a United States District Court
Judge for the Southern
District of New York. In
1973, Judge Batts became an
associate at Cravath, Swaine
& Moore in the litigation
department. In 1979, she
became an Assistant United
States Attorney in the
Southern District of New York
in the Criminal Division. In
1984, Judge Batts joined the
faculty at Fordham University
School of Law; she became a
tenured Associate Professor of
Law in May, 1990. While at
Fordham, Professor Batts
taught Property, Legal
Research and Writing, Federal
Criminal Pre-Trial Procedure,
Domestic Relations and an
advanced Domestic Relations
Seminar on Non-Traditional
Families. Judge Batts resigned
her tenure when she went on
the bench in 1994, but
continues to teach at Fordham
as an Adjunct Professor.
From 1973 to the present,
Judge Batts has been a member
of various bar associations
including The Bar Association
of the City of New York, the
Metropolitan Black Bar
Association and the Lesbian
and Gay Law Association of
Greater New York (LeGal). In
addition, she has served on
various committees of these
associations as well as on the
Boards of several educational
institutions. Judge Batts was
awarded an honorary degree by
CUNY School of Law in 1998.
She is currently a member of
the CUNY School of Law Board
of Visitors. In 1990-91,
she served as Special
Associate Counsel of the
Department of Investigation of
the City of New York. From
1990 to 1994, Judge Batts was
a Commissioner on the Law
Revision Commission, State of
New York. In June, 2001,
Judge Batts was a Team Member
of the Crowley Program in
International Human Rights’
Mission to Ghana, West Africa
to observe the impact on the
status of women in the area of
inheritance of PNDCL 111,
passed in 1985. Rest in
Peace.
Inner City
Press was covering the SDNY
Magistrates Court on February
3 when it learned the sad
news, from several sources in
receipt of the news from the
Chief Judge, and then
confirmed it on another floor
before this publication.
Batts' passing follows that of
also groundbreaking Judge Robert
W. Sweet. His cases were
re-assigned, as will be Judge
Batts, including the second
Michael Avenatti case in SDNY.
A sample
December 2019 proceeding: when
Dejon Jackson appeared to
plead guilty to and be
sentenced on Violations of
Supervised Release, the first
time Judge Deborah A. Batts of
the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of New
York ordered that the VOSR
specification against him be
corrected.
On December 17, there were
still errors, including the
date of the incident
constituting a VOSR, attempted
possession of a weapon in the
third degree under New York
State Penal Law, Section
110/265.02(1).
Judge Batts admonished
Probation, but agreed to take
Dejon Jackson's guilty plea.
The guideline sentence was
eight to 14 months, and that
is what Assistant US Attorney
Kristy J. Greenberg pushed
for.
Jackson's
lawyers, Marne L. Lenox and
Peggy Cross-Goldenberg,
Federal Defenders' Director of
Training, urged four months,
citing classes he has taken
and completed in the last two
months in the Metropolitan
Correctional
Center.
AUSA Greenberg
responded with a litany of
violations in state custody
including an altered razor.
Judge Batts imposed a sentence
of six months, conditioned on
Jackson having no more
disciplinary issues so that he
can attend his sister's high
school graduation. Call it the
carrot and the stick. It was a
personalized sentencing, as
provided for under Section
3553a. The case is US v.
Jackson, 11-cr-265 (Batts).
Rest in peace.
***
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