Courtly love

The Mother Court: Tales of Cases that Mattered in America’s Greatest Trial Court. By James Zirin. American Bar Association; 325 pages; $29.95 and £17.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

ENOUGH books have been written about America’s Supreme Court to fill a library. At first glance, the title of James Zirin’s new work suggests another entrant to this crowded field. In fact, “The Mother Court” focuses on the Southern District court of New York state (SDNY), the oldest tribunal in the United States, which first convened in November 1789, a few weeks ahead of the Supreme Court.

A trial court at the bottom of the federal judicial hierarchy, the SDNY has responsibility for New York City’s boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, as well as its northern suburbs. Mr Zirin worked as a prosecutor in the district during the late 1960s, and has represented clients there ever since. The book’s subtitle calls the SDNY “America’s greatest trial court”, and its implicit thesis is that this grand institution has failed to receive its due outside the legal profession.

Part history and part memoir, “The Mother Court” consists mostly of a review of the SDNY’s signature cases in the 20th century. Its judges convicted Alger Hiss and ordered the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for spying for the Soviets; allowed copies of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” to be imported despite its sexually explicit content; demonstrated the scope of the American Mafia by trying the dons arrested at a national mob conference; and ruled that Time did not libel Ariel Sharon—later Israel’s prime minister—when it accused him of war crimes without proof of direct responsibility for a massacre of Palestinian refugees. Mr Zirin interweaves legal analysis with engaging portraits of the court’s surprisingly colourful characters. Faced with a Muslim defendant who claimed Allah as his counsel, Thomas Murphy, a particularly witty judge, retorted, “Who represents you locally?” Another defendant asked how he might avoid jail. “RUN!” was Murphy’s response.

Mr Zirin is at his strongest when expressing views on contemporary controversies. He wants the architects of the September 11th attacks, which destroyed his office, tried in the SDNY rather than by military commissions at Guantánamo Bay. He convincingly claims that after decades when judges enjoyed too much discretion in criminal sentencing, the pendulum has now swung too far in favour of rigid guidelines. And he offers a useful contrarian warning that pressure on parties in civil lawsuits to settle is turning the SDNY into “too much of a claims administrator”.

Unfortunately, the book’s extensive series of trials and anecdotes neither offers a narrative drive to propel the reader forward nor adds up to a broader conclusion. Even its stated premise, that the SDNY is the crown jewel of America’s lower federal courts, is asserted rather than demonstrated: the author fails to compare its historical importance or quality of jurisprudence with those of any other district, and dedicates half a chapter to lampooning its least distinguished judges. The considerable powers of persuasion Mr Zirin regularly deploys in court are disappointingly absent from this ode to his favourite place of business.