- Samuel H. Kaufman
Samuel Hamilton Kaufman (
October 26 ,1893 -May 5 ,1960 ) was a federaljudge inNew York City .Kaufman graduated from the
New York University School of Law and practiced privately as alawyer in New York from 1918 to 1948. He also served as a special assistant to theAttorney General in 1935-36, as a special counsel at theFederal Communications Commission in 1937-38, and as an attorney for a congressional committee investigating the bombing ofPearl Harbor in 1946.In 1948, President
Harry S. Truman appointed Kaufman as a judge of theUnited States District Court for the Southern District of New York . Kaufman served until 1955, when he became medically disabled and tooksenior status . He died in 1960.Kaufman was best known as the judge who presided over the first trial of
Alger Hiss for perjury before a federal grand jury. That trial ended in ahung jury . The case was reassigned and the second trial, which resulted in a conviction, was presided over by JudgeHenry W. Goddard .Samuel Kaufman was not related to Judge
Irving R. Kaufman , who was appointed to the Southern District of New York at about the same time and later served on theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit .Prominent New York attorney
Milton S. Gould recounted several tales of his work for Kaufman's firm in articles for the New York law Journal, which were reprinted in Gould's memoir "The Witness Who Spoke to God and Other Tales from the Courthouse" (Viking Press 1979).
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