27 Facts About Samuel Leibowitz

Samuel Simon Leibowitz was a Romanian-born American criminal defense attorney.

Samuel Leibowitz was best known for representing the Scottsboro Boys, and later became a justice of the New York State Supreme Court.

Samuel Simon Leibowitz was born in Iasi, Kingdom of Romania, in 1893.

Samuel Leibowitz was the first child of Romanian Jewish immigrants, Isaac and Bina Lebeau, and arrived in New York City on March 14,1897.

Samuel Leibowitz's father had a small shop in East New York.

Samuel Leibowitz graduated from Jamaica High School and received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University.

Samuel Leibowitz then graduated from Cornell Law School in 1915.

Samuel Leibowitz married Belle Munves on December 25,1919 and fathered three children.

The choice of Samuel Leibowitz convinced many that the Communists were serious about achieving justice for the Alabama defendant and not interested only in making political hay.

Samuel Leibowitz did so against the urgings of his wife and many friends, who told him that he had no chance defending African-American defendants accused of raping white women in the Alabama of the 1930s.

Local hatred of Samuel Leibowitz grew uglier, as death threats were made against him after his tough cross-examination of the alleged victim Victoria Price.

Samuel Leibowitz was stunned by the jury's guilty verdict in Patterson's 1933 trial.

Virtually every motion or objection that Samuel Leibowitz made before Callahan was denied or overruled, and virtually every motion or objection made by the prosecution was granted or sustained.

Samuel Leibowitz's anger showed, and Leibowitz found himself mocked, scolded, and reprimanded by the judge.

When Samuel Leibowitz alleged that the names of blacks appearing on jury rolls were fraudulently added after Patterson's trial began, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes asked Samuel Leibowitz if he could prove that allegation.

Samuel Leibowitz, having anticipated that question, had caused the jury roll books to be brought to Washington.

Samuel Leibowitz asked a page to hand the jury rolls and a magnifying glass up to the chief justice.

Samuel Leibowitz met on death row several times with Bruno Hauptmann, the German immigrant convicted of kidnapping Charles Lindbergh's baby, in the hopes of convincing him to reveal details of the crime.

In early 1937, after a series of secret meetings with Thomas Knight, Samuel Leibowitz reluctantly agreed to a compromise, which would result in the release of four of the Scottsboro Boys and allow prosecutions to again go forward against the others.

Early in trial, Samuel Leibowitz negotiated a plea bargain under which Irwin avoided the death penalty but would remain in custody for the rest of his life.

In 1940, Samuel Leibowitz was elected to serve a 14-year term as a judge of the Kings County Court, which was the principal trial court for criminal matters in Brooklyn.

Samuel Leibowitz presided over the criminal trial of the Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher for assaulting a fan at Ebbets Field in 1945.

When Samuel Leibowitz reached the age of 70, he was subject to mandatory retirement unless a board of his fellow judges certified him as fit for continued service.

Samuel Leibowitz was eventually reappointed and served until 1969, when he reached the final mandatory retirement age of 76.

Shortly before his death, Samuel Leibowitz was taken to task by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn for comments he made in 1959 about the Soviet penal system.

Samuel Leibowitz was played by Timothy Hutton in Heavens Fall, a 2006 film based on the Scottsboro Boys incident of 1931.

Samuel Leibowitz's name is dropped in the play The Man Who Came to Dinner.