Who

An institution in the New York legal community, Leonard Sand has been a U.S. Southern District Court judge since 1978.

Backstory

Born in the Bronx to a family involved in the textile business, Leonard Burke Sand attended NYU and Harvard Law, graduating in 1951. Following two years in the Navy Reserves, Sand clerked for Judge Irving R. Kaufman (who presided over the infamous Julius and Ethel Rosenberg case), later signing on as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District. Following a stint as Assistant Solicitor General under President Eisenhower during the late 50s (during which he argued 13 cases before the Supreme Court), Sand headed off into private practice. He returned to public service two decades later when he was appointed to the Southern District Court by Jimmy Carter in 1978.

Of note

Sand leans to the left, and many of his decisions reflect his liberal bent. One of the controversies he tackled early in his judicial career was the 1980 federal suit against Yonkers, which claimed that the city had deliberately segregated minority students in its schools. Sand's 657-page ruling in 1985 ordered Yonkers to build low-income public housing, although the city only agreed to comply in 2007, some 27 years after the case began. Many of Sand's major rulings over the years have involved First Amendment issues: He held that banning panhandling in the subways was unconstitutional (his decision was overturned) and he ruled that in the interests of free speech, Time Warner did not have the right to scramble porn or phone sex ads on its local cable shows. (A delighted Robin Byrd said Sand's decision proved "there is still democracy" in New York.) Other major cases over the years have included terrorism trials (such as for the 1998 American embassy bombings in Africa) and high-profile white collar cases (such as the trial of Adelphia execs John Rigas and Timothy Rigas).

Personal

Sand is married to Ann Sulzberger, a member of the New York Times-owning Sulzberger clan. (She's Arthur Sulzberger Sr.'s first cousin.) They have three grown children—David, Peggy, and Robert—and live in Pound Ridge.