{{Short description|American retired federal judge}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Nancy Gertner | image = Nancy Gertner in 2012.jpg | office = Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts | term_start = May 22, 2011 | term_end = September 1, 2011 | office1 = Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts | appointer1 = Bill Clinton | term_start1 = February 14, 1994 | term_end1 = May 22, 2011 | predecessor1 = A. David Mazzone | successor1 = Timothy S. Hillman | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1946|5|22}} | birth_place = New York City, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | education = Barnard College (BA)<br>Yale University (MA, JD) | caption = Gertner in 2012 }} '''Nancy Gertner''' (born May 22, 1946) is an American lawyer and jurist who was a United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts from 1994 until retiring in 2011.<ref name="harvard">Harvard Law School: [http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2011/02/4_practice.html "http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2011/02/4_practice.html"], accessed May 4, 2011</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/gertner-nancy|title=Gertner, Nancy – Federal Judicial Center|publisher=}}</ref> She is now a professor of practice at Harvard Law School.<ref name="harvard" />
==Early life and education== Gertner was born in New York City, the granddaughter of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Hungary. Her father, Moishe Gertner, owned a linoleum business; her mother Sadie Gertner was a housewife. Her family lived in a tenement until she was seven years old, when they moved to Flushing, New York.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gertner|first=Nancy|title=In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bR6Ffm_uAvAC&q=%22Nancy+Gertner%22+%22flushing+high+school%22&pg=PT14|year=2011|publisher=Beacon Press|isbn=978-0-8070-1143-0|page=13}}</ref> At Flushing High School she was a cheerleader, a member of the staff of her high school's literary magazine, runner-up for homecoming queen, and valedictorian of her class.<ref name="Benoit Denizet-Lewis">{{cite web |url=http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2006/05/courting-controversy/ |title=Courting Controversy |author=Benoit Denizet-Lewis |date= December 2001|work=Boston Magazine |publisher=Metrocorp, Inc |accessdate=September 9, 2010}}</ref> Gertner received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Barnard College in 1967 and a Master of Arts and a Juris Doctor from Yale University and Yale Law School, respectively, in 1971. While attending Yale, Gertner became friends with Hillary Rodham and met Bill Clinton.
==Career== Gertner began her legal career in 1971 as a law clerk for Judge Luther Swygert of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Between 1972 and 1994, she practiced law in and around the Greater Boston area with Harvey Silverglate and Thomas Shapiro at Silverglate, Shapiro & Gertner, during which she also taught at Boston University School of Law and was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. During this period, Gertner was notable for being a supporter of liberalism and feminist ideals, wearing bright red clothes in court, carrying her legal briefs in shopping bags and keeping files on lawyers and judges she felt to be sexist.<ref name="Benoit Denizet-Lewis"/>
==Federal judicial service== On October 27, 1993, on the recommendations of Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, Gertner was nominated to the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts by President Bill Clinton to a seat vacated by A. David Mazzone. Gertner was confirmed by the Senate on February 10, 1994, and received her commission on February 14, 1994. Gertner assumed senior status on May 22, 2011, and retired on September 1, 2011.
==Later career== After retiring from the bench, Gertner was appointed a Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School.<ref name="harvard" /> She was named a member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States by President Joe Biden on April 9, 2021.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-04-09|title=President Biden to Sign Executive Order Creating the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States|url=https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/09/president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-creating-the-presidential-commission-on-the-supreme-court-of-the-united-states/|access-date=2021-04-27|website=The White House|language=en-US}}</ref>
==Notable cases== Gertner ruled in ''U.S. v. Hines'', 55 F.Supp. 2d 62 (D.Mass. 1999), a case regarding the admissibility of expert testimony, that (i) a handwriting expert could testify to similarities between handwriting samples but not state an opinion about whether the same person wrote both notes, and (ii) expert witness testimony regarding the reliability of eyewitness testimony, including problems of cross-racial identification, was admissible. The case interpreted new admissibility standards for expert testimony set forth by the Supreme Court in ''Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals'', 509 U.S. 579 (1993) and ''Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael'', 526 U.S. 137 (1999).
On July 26, 2007, she ordered the federal government to pay a record $101.7 million for withholding evidence that could have exculpated four men wrongfully convicted of murder.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/07/judge_to_issue.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080821190725/http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/07/judge_to_issue.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 21, 2008|title=''Boston Globe''|publisher=}}</ref> The men had been falsely accused by mob hitman Joseph "The Animal" Barboza, with the help of corrupt FBI agent H. Paul Rico. The government appealed the award, which was upheld in 2009 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ajc.com/404/XQ0r5JpZQy8oY6ivdh3R8L/|title=AJC Homepage|publisher=}}</ref>
Judge Gertner presided over ''Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum'', a civil trial in which the Recording Industry Association of America accused Joel Tenenbaum, a Massachusetts college student, of illegally downloading and sharing files, thus violating U.S. copyright law. In July 2009, a jury awarded $675,000 to the music companies, but Judge Gertner later reduced the award to $67,500,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hfe56cQJqoqqPuj2iQagbjj1ptdwD9GRQMEG2 |title=Boston judge cuts penalty in song-sharing case |agency=Associated Press |date=July 9, 2010 |accessdate=September 8, 2010}}{{dead link|date=June 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> stating that arbitrarily high statutory damages violate due process and are thus unconstitutional. After both parties appealed, the First Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the original damage award of $675,000 and remanded the case to the District Court, ruling that the judge should have avoided the constitutional issue by first considering remittitur. The Supreme Court refused to hear Tenenbaum's appeal arguing against the remand. A new District Court judge then found no cause for remittitur, and held that the statutory damage award was constitutional. Tenenbaum again appealed to the First Circuit, which in June 2013 upheld the award.
As a defense attorney, she defended Brandeis University student activist and fugitive Susan Saxe in her trial for the murder of Boston Police Department officer Walter Schroeder.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/19/archives/susan-saxe-on-trial-for-killing-in-1970-accused-of-robbery-in.html</ref> Gertner describes the Saxe trial as her first big case.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuwbO5eeb14 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211215/IuwbO5eeb14 |archive-date=2021-12-15 |url-status=live|title=Nancy Gertner talks about her first big case as a lawyer|last=Beacon Press|date=20 May 2011|publisher=|via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Alan Dershowitz and others have asserted that Robert Mueller was responsible for the improper imprisonment of four men when he was a federal prosecutor in Boston during the 1980s. In an opinion piece entitled "Smearing Robert Mueller", Gertner, who presided over the matter, wrote "[t]he record simply doesn't support these assertions".<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/opinion/robert-mueller-smearing-complicit.html Opinion | Smearing Robert Mueller] Apr 18, 2018 NYTimes.com</ref>
==Personal life== {{prose|section|date=January 2020}} Gertner is to date the only Massachusetts judge to post to a personal blog. Though this has resulted in some criticism, Gertner maintains that judges are often too silent on issues they should publicly address.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/05/27/off_the_bench_judge_blogs_her_mind/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080621215434/http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/05/27/off_the_bench_judge_blogs_her_mind/ | url-status=dead | archive-date=June 21, 2008 | work=The Boston Globe | first=Jonathan | last=Saltzman | title=Off the bench, judge blogs her mind | date=May 27, 2008}}</ref>
Gertner published her memoirs, ''In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate'', in 2011. The book focuses on the period during which she worked as a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer before joining the Federal bench in 1994.<ref name="Nancy Cowger Slonim">{{cite web |url=http://www.abanet.org/abanet/media/release/news_release.cfm?releaseid=295 |title=Judge Nancy Gertner, Boston, Receives 2008 Thurgood Marshall Award |author=Nancy Cowger Slonim |date=March 31, 2008 |publisher=American Bar Association |accessdate=September 9, 2010 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101203124537/http://www.abanet.org/abanet/media/release/news_release.cfm?releaseid=295 |archivedate=December 3, 2010 }}</ref>
Gertner is married to John Reinstein, former Legal Director for the Massachusetts ACLU.<ref name="reinstein-transtion">{{cite web|title=Matthew R. Segal named Legal Director of ACLU Foundation of Massachusetts|url=http://aclum.org/news_2.21.12|accessdate=August 21, 2013|date=February 21, 2012|publisher=ACLU of Massachusetts|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150508100431/http://aclum.org/news_2.21.12|archivedate=May 8, 2015}}</ref>
In October 2015, Gertner became the subject of media attention in the Boston area when an escaped cockatoo did considerable damage to her Brookline residence, a historic Victorian home which also happened to be the birthplace of Robert F. Kennedy. After eluding capture for several months, the bird was caught on October 22.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/15/dino/3z7T9nSZdVid4kZnC6KtfI/story.html | work=The Boston Globe | title=Cockatoo at large in Brookline, and residents aren't happy | date=October 16, 2015}}</ref>
==Awards== *2008 Thurgood Marshall Award of the American Bar Association, recognizing Gertner's contributions to advancing human rights and civil liberties.<ref name="Nancy Cowger Slonim"/> *2014 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award of the American Bar Association, recognizing Gertner's advocacy, mentoring and achievements in the legal field.<ref name="Margaret Brent Award">{{cite web |title=Previous Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award Recipients |url=http://www.americanbar.org/groups/women/initiatives_awards/margaret_brent_awards/pasthonorees.html |accessdate=October 4, 2014 |date=2014 |publisher=American Bar Association}}</ref>
==See also== * List of Jewish American jurists
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Sources== * Nancy Gertner, ''In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate'' (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011) *{{FJC Bio|nid=1381131}}
==External links== *{{C-SPAN|86203}}
{{s-start}} {{s-legal}} {{s-bef|before=A. David Mazzone}} {{s-ttl|title={{nowrap|Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts}}|years=1994–2011}} {{s-aft|after=Timothy S. Hillman}} {{s-end}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gertner, Nancy}} Category:1946 births Category:20th-century American judges Category:20th-century American women judges Category:21st-century American judges Category:21st-century American women judges Category:American civil rights lawyers Category:20th-century American women lawyers Category:21st-century American lawyers Category:Barnard College alumni Category:Flushing High School alumni Category:Harvard Law School faculty Category:International Center for Research on Women Category:Judges of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts Category:Lawyers from New York City Category:Living people Category:Lawyers from Queens, New York Category:People from Flushing, Queens Category:United States district court judges appointed by Bill Clinton Category:American women legal scholars Category:20th-century American legal scholars Category:Yale Law School alumni Category:American women human rights activists Category:21st-century American legal scholars Category:20th-century American lawyers Category:21st-century American women lawyers