Denny Chin
Encyclopedia
Denny Chin is a judge
on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
. He was a judge on the United States district court
for the Southern District of New York
before joining the federal appeals bench. President Clinton
nominated Chin to the district court on March 24, 1994, and Chin was confirmed August 9 of that same year. On October 6, 2009, President Barack Obama
nominated Chin to the federal appeals court
. He was confirmed on April 22, 2010 by the U.S. Senate, filling the vacancy created by Judge Robert D. Sack
who assumed senior status. Chin was the first Asian American
appointed as a U.S. District Judge outside of the Ninth Circuit
. He is the only Asian American judge in active service in the federal appellate court system.
and came to the U.S. in 1956. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School
in 1971. He received his A.B.
magna cum laude, from Princeton University
in 1975. In 1978, Chin graduated from Fordham University School of Law
, where he was the Managing Editor of the Fordham Law Review
. Chin currently teaches first year Legal Writing at Fordham.
Following a 1978-1980 clerkship with Judge Henry Werker in the Southern District, Chin worked for the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell
from 1980 to 1982. He was an Assistant U.S. Attorney
for the Southern District from 1982 to 1986. In 1986, Chin left the U.S. Attorney's Office and started a law firm, Campbell, Patrick & Chin, with two colleagues from the U.S. Attorney's Office. In 1990, he joined the law firm Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, P.C., where he specialized in labor and employment law and represented employees and unions.
nominated Chin to the Southern District bench on March 24, 1994, to a new seat created by 104 Stat. 5089. The United States Senate
confirmed Chin on August 9, 1994, and Chin received his commission the next day.
(PTC) to dismiss a lawsuit that the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment
) filed against it. At the time, the PTC had been campaigning for advertisers to withdraw sponsorship of WWE's flagship program SmackDown because it believed that the program caused the violent deaths of four children. Chin's ruling came on the grounds that WWF had a sound basis in suing the PTC over defamation, interference with business, and copyright infringement
. PTC and WWE settled out of court and, as part of the settlement agreement, the PTC paid WWF $3.5 million USD
and PTC president Bozell issued a public apology.
In Fox v. Franken
Chin denied Fox News Channel
(who alleged a trademark violation
) an injunction
against Al Franken
's Book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.
Chin also presided over the criminal prosecution of Larry Stewart, the handwriting expert who was accused of committing perjury during the trial of Martha Stewart
(no relation). Larry Stewart was acquitted by a jury.
Chin presided over the criminal trial of Pak Dong-seon in connection with Pak's alleged involvement in the scandal surrounding the United Nations
Oil-for-Food Program. Pak was convicted by a jury and sentenced by Chin to 5 years in prison.
Chin dismissed the suit Sam Sloan vs. Paul Truong
and Susan Polgar
in which Sloan accused Susan Polgar and Paul Truong of posting thousands of obscene "Fake Sam Sloan" remarks in his name over a two-year period in an effort to win election to the board of the United States Chess Federation
(Polgar and Truong were elected to the board and Sloan was defeated).
Most recently, Chin presided over the criminal trial of Oscar Wyatt
, the Texas
oil executive accused of making kick-backs to the Saddam Hussein
regime during the UN Oil-For-Food Program. In the middle of his trial, Wyatt changed his plea to guilty as part of a plea bargain with the government.
He was assigned the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
case on January 8, 2009, after the death of the previous supervising judge. On March 23, 2011, Chin rejected Google's plan to digitize every book published, saying the plan violated copyright laws, as stated by The New York Times http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/c/denny_chin/index.html
. Madoff admitted to committing securities fraud via a Ponzi scheme
starting in the early 1980s, which involved potentially as much as $65 billion. On March 12, 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal charges relating to the scheme. Following his pleading, Chin revoked Madoff's $10 million dollar bail and ordered him to report immediately to jail at the request of the federal prosecutors, citing that Madoff had both the resources and the incentive to flee before his formal sentencing. On June 29, 2009, Chin accepted the prosecutor's recommendation to sentence Madoff to a prison term of 150 years, thus effectively handing down a life sentence. Chin explained that imposing the maximum sentence on Madoff was appropriate because he had concluded that Madoff's crimes were "extraordinary evil" and wanted the sentence to have a stronger deterrent effect.
reported Chin's nomination to the full Senate on December 10, 2009 and he was confirmed by a 98–0 vote on April 22, 2010.
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals...
. He was a judge on the United States district court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
for the Southern District of New York
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York is a federal district court. Appeals from the Southern District of New York are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case...
before joining the federal appeals bench. President Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
nominated Chin to the district court on March 24, 1994, and Chin was confirmed August 9 of that same year. On October 6, 2009, President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
nominated Chin to the federal appeals court
United States courts of appeals
The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system...
. He was confirmed on April 22, 2010 by the U.S. Senate, filling the vacancy created by Judge Robert D. Sack
Robert D. Sack
Robert David Sack is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.-Personal:Sack was raised in Brooklyn, New York. His father was Eugene Sack, who served as rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim for 35 years. In 1989 he married his second wife, the lawyer Anne K...
who assumed senior status. Chin was the first Asian American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
appointed as a U.S. District Judge outside of the Ninth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...
. He is the only Asian American judge in active service in the federal appellate court system.
Early life, education, and career
Chin was born in 1954 in Kowloon, Hong KongKowloon
Kowloon is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. It is bordered by the Lei Yue Mun strait in the east, Mei Foo Sun Chuen and Stonecutter's Island in the west, Tate's Cairn and Lion Rock in the north, and Victoria Harbour in the south. It had a population of...
and came to the U.S. in 1956. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...
in 1971. He received his A.B.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
magna cum laude, from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
in 1975. In 1978, Chin graduated from Fordham University School of Law
Fordham University School of Law
Fordham University School of Law is a part of Fordham University in the United States. The School is located in the Borough of Manhattan in New York City, and is one of eight ABA-approved law schools in that city.-Overview:According to the U.S. News & World Report, 1,516 J.D. students attend...
, where he was the Managing Editor of the Fordham Law Review
Fordham Law Review
The Fordham Law Review is a student-run law journal associated with the Fordham University School of Law that covers a wide range of legal scholarship.- Overview :...
. Chin currently teaches first year Legal Writing at Fordham.
Following a 1978-1980 clerkship with Judge Henry Werker in the Southern District, Chin worked for the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Davis Polk & Wardwell
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is an international law firm. The firm employs more than 800 attorneys worldwide and is headquartered in New York City. The firm represents many of the world's largest companies and leading financial institutions, and is best known for its corporate and litigation...
from 1980 to 1982. He was an Assistant U.S. Attorney
United States Attorney
United States Attorneys represent the United States federal government in United States district court and United States court of appeals. There are 93 U.S. Attorneys stationed throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands...
for the Southern District from 1982 to 1986. In 1986, Chin left the U.S. Attorney's Office and started a law firm, Campbell, Patrick & Chin, with two colleagues from the U.S. Attorney's Office. In 1990, he joined the law firm Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, P.C., where he specialized in labor and employment law and represented employees and unions.
As district judge
President Bill ClintonBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
nominated Chin to the Southern District bench on March 24, 1994, to a new seat created by 104 Stat. 5089. The United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
confirmed Chin on August 9, 1994, and Chin received his commission the next day.
Notable cases
In 2001, Chin rejected a motion by the Parents Television CouncilParents Television Council
The Parents Television Council is a U.S. based advocacy group founded by conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III in 1995 using the National Legion of Decency as a model...
(PTC) to dismiss a lawsuit that the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...
) filed against it. At the time, the PTC had been campaigning for advertisers to withdraw sponsorship of WWE's flagship program SmackDown because it believed that the program caused the violent deaths of four children. Chin's ruling came on the grounds that WWF had a sound basis in suing the PTC over defamation, interference with business, and copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
. PTC and WWE settled out of court and, as part of the settlement agreement, the PTC paid WWF $3.5 million USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
and PTC president Bozell issued a public apology.
In Fox v. Franken
Fox v. Franken
Fox News Network, LLC, v. Penguin Group , Inc., and Alan S. Franken was a civil lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on August 7, 2003...
Chin denied Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
(who alleged a trademark violation
Trademark infringement
Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attaching to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees...
) an injunction
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
against Al Franken
Al Franken
Alan Stuart "Al" Franken is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party....
's Book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.
Chin also presided over the criminal prosecution of Larry Stewart, the handwriting expert who was accused of committing perjury during the trial of Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart is an American business magnate, author, magazine publisher, and television personality. As founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she has gained success through a variety of business ventures, encompassing publishing, broadcasting, and merchandising...
(no relation). Larry Stewart was acquitted by a jury.
Chin presided over the criminal trial of Pak Dong-seon in connection with Pak's alleged involvement in the scandal surrounding the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Oil-for-Food Program. Pak was convicted by a jury and sentenced by Chin to 5 years in prison.
Chin dismissed the suit Sam Sloan vs. Paul Truong
Paul Truong
Paul Truong is an American chess player, trainer, promoter, and organizer.-Biography:Truong was born Hoainhan Truong in Saigon, South Vietnam....
and Susan Polgar
Susan Polgar
Susan Polgar is a Hungarian-American chess Grandmaster...
in which Sloan accused Susan Polgar and Paul Truong of posting thousands of obscene "Fake Sam Sloan" remarks in his name over a two-year period in an effort to win election to the board of the United States Chess Federation
United States Chess Federation
The United States Chess Federation is a non-profit organization, the governing chess organization within the United States, and one of the federations of the FIDE. The USCF was founded in 1939 from the merger of two regional chess organizations, and grew gradually until 1972, when membership...
(Polgar and Truong were elected to the board and Sloan was defeated).
Most recently, Chin presided over the criminal trial of Oscar Wyatt
Oscar Wyatt
Oscar Sherman Wyatt, Jr. is an American businessman. He was the founder of Coastal Corporation. In 2007 he pled guilty in a U.S. federal court to illegally sending payments to Iraq under the Oil for Food program.-Early history:...
, the Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
oil executive accused of making kick-backs to the Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
regime during the UN Oil-For-Food Program. In the middle of his trial, Wyatt changed his plea to guilty as part of a plea bargain with the government.
He was assigned the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
The Google Book Search Settlement Agreement is an agreement between the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and Google in settlement of Authors Guild et al. v. Google, a class action lawsuit alleging Copyright infringement. On October 28, 2008, Google announced an agreement to pay...
case on January 8, 2009, after the death of the previous supervising judge. On March 23, 2011, Chin rejected Google's plan to digitize every book published, saying the plan violated copyright laws, as stated by The New York Times http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/c/denny_chin/index.html
U.S. v. Madoff
In 2009 Chin presided over U.S. v. MadoffBernard Madoff
Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff is a former American businessman, stockbroker, investment advisor, and financier. He is the former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, and the admitted operator of a Ponzi scheme that is considered to be the largest financial fraud in U.S...
. Madoff admitted to committing securities fraud via a Ponzi scheme
Ponzi scheme
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation...
starting in the early 1980s, which involved potentially as much as $65 billion. On March 12, 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal charges relating to the scheme. Following his pleading, Chin revoked Madoff's $10 million dollar bail and ordered him to report immediately to jail at the request of the federal prosecutors, citing that Madoff had both the resources and the incentive to flee before his formal sentencing. On June 29, 2009, Chin accepted the prosecutor's recommendation to sentence Madoff to a prison term of 150 years, thus effectively handing down a life sentence. Chin explained that imposing the maximum sentence on Madoff was appropriate because he had concluded that Madoff's crimes were "extraordinary evil" and wanted the sentence to have a stronger deterrent effect.
As circuit judge
On October 6, 2009, President Obama nominated Chin to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The United States Senate Committee on the JudiciaryUnited States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary is a standing committee of the United States Senate, of the United States Congress. The Judiciary Committee, with 18 members, is charged with conducting hearings prior to the Senate votes on confirmation of federal judges nominated by the...
reported Chin's nomination to the full Senate on December 10, 2009 and he was confirmed by a 98–0 vote on April 22, 2010.
External links
- Hon. Denny Chin, Southern District of New York Court site
- "Chin Shares Experiences as Federal District Court Judge, April 7, 2003, Law Grounds News, University of Virginia School of LawUniversity of Virginia School of LawThe University of Virginia School of Law was founded in Charlottesville in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson as one of the original subjects taught at his "academical village," the University of Virginia. The law school maintains an enrollment of approximately 1,100 students in its initial degree program...
.