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The Man Who Got New York Back
Toyokazu Kosugi / AP Photo
After 34 years as Manhattan’s District Attorney, the legendary Robert Morgenthau has announced his retirement. Dan Abrams explains what New York owes to the 89-year-old law enforcer, and why America will miss him.
He was never supposed to leave of his own volition.
Robert Morgenthau who many said was too old for the job twenty years ago, announced today he will finally step down after as Manhattan's District Attorney at age 89. And because he's been around for so long—34 years as Manhattan D.A.— he's become too easy to caricature. An advanced age and a gruff mien are what many New Yorkers probably think of when dwelling on their long-standing judicial guardian.
The naysayers looked at a city teeming with organized crime, riven by public violence, and unable to pay its own bills and wondered, "Is it worth it?"
But Morgenthau didn't just possess a once-in-a-generation prosecutorial mind and spirit. He's a man who, from the day he took office in 1975, helped turn New York from a cesspool of lawlessness into the (relatively) tame metropolis we inhabit today. The naysayers looked at a city teeming with organized crime, riven by public violence, and unable to pay its own bills and wondered, "Is it worth it?" Some might even have thought of New York like an exotic pet that could never quite be domesticated. But Morgenthau sunk his teeth in and refused to let go.
The man spared no scofflaw his wrath—not the gangs which reduced livable New York to a fragile archipelago, not the jet-set charlatans of BCCI, not the sex criminals his office flushed out into the open for the first time. In prosecuting vigilante hero Bernie Goetz, he displayed the definitional attribute of a citizen tribune: a willingness to buck the public will in the name of judicial principle. This was a guy who, when he could have basked in the limelight of "celebrity" cases, took the effort to investigate complex offshore banking havens on behalf of the New York taxpayer. He lived and breathed the law. In fact by New York legal standards he was our slightly smoky oxygen.
Recently, though, it looked like the man who brought righteous justice to the Dennis Kozlowskis of the world may have been losing his grip. And recent reports seemed to confirm it: Was he immobile? Going deaf? Or just old? These days, it's all too common to see another moth-eaten politician tottering at the lectern, staying in power because it's the only thing he or she knows how to do. Not so for Morgenthau.
As he steps down, lawyers, citizens, and political opportunists alike are asking themselves the obvious question. Without its pugnacious, war-battered protector, what happens now? The answer may lie with the acolytes who carry on his legacy. Former foot soldier Patrick Fitzgerald has become a legend for expunging vice from the highest offices of the land. Rudolph Giuliani leveraged the lessons he learned at Morgenthau's feet to become a top federal prosecutor and beyond. And countless prosecutors and district court judges learned a whole lot about the law while in his office, and maybe something of his spirit.
Morgenthau will be gone someday. Tears will be shed. Garments (many of them judicial robes) will be rent. And lawyers across New York County will wonder whether they should try to fill his throne or just hock it at the Chelsea flea market.
But it's time. Let him go, New York; the man deserves a rest. After all, he helped take our city back.
Dan Abrams is CEO of Abrams Research, an attorney, and chief legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.
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Gee Dan, two foolish op-ed pieces in one week. First, a silly one about the presumption of innocence in the Wall Street Journal, and now this pathetic press release giving Morgenthau credit for reducing crime in New York City.
Of course you never mention Koch, Guiliani or the police. And you never mention that Morgenthau is only the DA in one borough--there are 4 other boroughs with their own DAs. Brooklyn is much larger than Manhattan in population, and had more crime than Manhattan too.
Stick to your superficial, silly television commentary.
(Oh and of course the daily beast doesn't mention that Morgenthau's wife, Lucinda Franks, writes for this website. Does that help explain this puff piece?)
Get
You act as if a DA has control of the entire city. He certainly has done a good job - under the direction of other people. He hasn't been a one man wrecking crew for the entire city (Harvey Dent w/o the accident? and of course no Batman).
Give me a break.
Dan, you know your opinion doesn't mean anything when you get fired - and replaced with someone like Rachel Maddow!
Thanks, Dan. Never worried about his age: I've known many prosecutors half his age and a quarter of his wisdom and integrity. Being a prosecutor is dangerous. It goes to your head and tempts you into arrogance and excess. See Kennedy. Whatever one thinks of Blago (me, not much), Kennedy's conduct was a disgrace to the concept of a fair trial. And what's eating Rick164. Such a misery!
"Hock" his "throne" at a "flea market?"
Here is a clue for all you lawyers out there: don't reach for literary allusion.
In second year law school when they stripped you naked and folded you into that dog cage on the coldest night of the year to spray you with a fire hose to make you mean enough for your profession, they also drove any literature out of your soul.
Just keep to the facts, mam or sir: Leave the art to people who don't squalor in pedantic writs all day long.
What's eating me is this sloppy, ill-informed puff piece from Abrams (and the other poster here sees the same flaws--particularly giving credit to citywide crime reductions when Morgenthau oversaw about 1/4 of the city).
And who is the "Kennedy" you are talking about. If you mean the U.S. Attorney in Chicago heading the Blago case, it's Patrick Fitzgerald. Do all Irish names sound the same to you?
Morgenthau focused on white-collar prosecutions while neglecting the overwhelming majority of his office's work, which is far less glamorous petty crimes, largely related to drugs. As a result, the New York criminal justice system remains a broken disgrace.
Worse yet, later in his career (and perhaps as a result of being drunk on power and publicity), he began to overreach (see e.g. the acquittal of Tyco's general counsel) and invited primary challenges from more sober minded, public-policy oriented democrats.
His legacy is a criminal justice system that continues to mete out draconian sentences for petty drug crimes and give raw deals to youths of color. His replacement is overdue.
Dan's story left out the first half of Morgenthau's life. Appointed United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the most prestigeous U. S. Attorney's post, by President Kennedy FORTY EIGHT YEARS AGO, Morganthau was the Democratic Candidate for Governor of New York against Nelson Rockefeller in 1962. Talk about having a set of brass balls!
Hard to know who is a bigger tool--Morgenthau or Abrams.
Since I haven't heard of the gentleman until this Post, I would have appreciate hearing more particulars.
Well I live in New York, in Manhattan, and until Abram's puff piece I never heard ANYONE give Morgenthau credit for the decline in crime. Koch, Guiliani, police chiefs Ray Kelly and Bill Bratton are the usual names, plus the rank and file police.
As I and others note above, Morgenthau is DA for Manhattan only, which has only 20% of New York City population. Assuming a roughly similar percentage of crime, how on earth is Morgenthau "the man who brough NYC back"
Abrams is an idiot--even assuming he wrote this, which he probably did not.
Very poor puff piece by the author. Mr Morgenthau's greatest legal achievements were as the downstate united states Atty;as postulated by the other posters i doubt he had any effect on street crime in NYC.
The Morgenthau love-fest is completely disgusting. The geezer DA failed to notice the epic fraud that has brought New York nearly to the brink. Of course the Morgenthaus and the Sulzbergers go way back, and all that Wall Street money, so why would the Manhattan DA notice financial fraud?
Thank you.
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