Monthly Archives for April 2010

Federal law experts challenge the proposed life sentence for Sholom Rubashkin

From Life Sentence Is Debated for Meat Plant Ex-Chief, New York Times, 4/28/10:

In a final chapter to the long aftermath of a 2008 immigration raid at a kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa, a federal court in Cedar Rapids heard arguments on Wednesday over the sentencing of Sholom Rubashkin, the former chief executive.

Mr. Rubashkin was in charge of the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, when immigration agents landed in helicopters to detain nearly 400 illegal immigrant workers. In November, Mr. Rubashkin was convicted of 86 counts of federal bank fraud in connection with loans to the company.

Prosecutors, citing Mr. Rubashkin’s “blatant lawlessness, utter lack of remorse, his egregious and repeated attempts to obstruct justice,” have asked Judge Linda R. Reade to impose a life sentence.

The proposed sentence startled legal experts around the country. In a letter written to Judge Reade on Monday, six former attorneys general, one former solicitor general and more than a dozen former United States attorneys criticized “the government’s extreme sentencing position” and the “potentially severe injustice” that could result.

The former Justice Department officials questioned the interpretation by Stephanie M. Rose, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, of the federal criminal sentencing guidelines that would apply to Mr. Rubashkin’s white-collar crime.

“We cannot fathom how truly sound and sensible sentencing rules could call for a life sentence — or anything close to it — for Mr. Rubashkin, a 51-year-old, first-time, nonviolent offender,” they wrote. The letter is signed by Janet Reno, William Barr, Richard Thornburgh, Edwin Meese III, Ramsey Clark and Nicholas Katzenbach, all of whom served as attorney general.

Another letter, submitted by former federal judge Paul Cassell and former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, compares the proposed federal sentence with the federal guideline sentencing for other crimes, and states that the proposed sentence is disproportionate to the offenses committed. A life sentence would reflect crimes as serious as first degree murder and would be more severe than sentences for second degree murder, rape, kidnapping, and arming foreign terrorist organizations. The full letter can be read here.

The website Justiceforsholom.org has prepared an online letter to Judge Reade that legal professionals can sign to support the Cassell and Tolman letter. The letter in support can be accessed here.

The Importance of Custom, Usage and Course of Conduct in Jewish Monetary Law

This week’s Parsha email from the Bais HaVaad Institute of Talmudic Law includes a brief discussion of the concept that Jewish Law recognizes the accepted business of the time a place and place in which a transaction occurs.

In Choshen Mishpat 201:1-2, the concept of situmta is explained. A situmta was a kind of mark placed on a barrel of wine by a customer indicating his irrevocable agreement to the purchase of the barrel. That was the prevalent custom in the wine industry back then, similar to the way saying “mazel and bracha” finalizes a sale in the New York diamond trade. While making a situmta should have no real halachic significance because it is not one of the methods of acquiring an object recognized by the Torah, in reality, it has a great deal of significance. In fact, a customer who makes a situmta actually becomes the halachic owner of the barrel!

The concept of situmta is probably the best example that can be brought to illustrate the importance that Jewish monetary law places on the prevailing understandings and customs of the marketplace. A situmta creates halachic ownership solely because that is how people think of it. The Torah understands that any marketplace transaction is fundamentally shaped by the underlying assumptions and operating principles of the people who are making the transaction. Therefore, if the custom is to consider a situmta to be legally binding, then it is as if the Torah says, ‘So be it.’

Panel discussion on corruption and public integrity from halachic and secular perspectives

The Center for Ethics at Yeshiva University Invites you to Scandal, Money, and Corruption: What to Do When Leaders Go Bad? — A panel discussion featuring: Rabbi Yosef Blau (RIETS) Prof. Noam Zohar (Dept. of Philosophy, Bar Il-An University) Melanie Sloan, Esq. (Exec. Dir., Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington). This panel will examine corruption as a failure of public integrity, and will include both Halakhic and secular perspectives. Speakers will discuss issues of misconduct by community and religious leaders as well as those in politics and government.

Contact Information
Primary Contact
John Fousek
212-960-0825
fousek@yu.edu

Date & Location
Date: May 05, 2010
Time: 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM
Location: Yagoda Commons
215 Lexington Ave (at 33rd Street)
Beren Campus
New York, NY 10016

Court allows non-Jewish widow to transfer body of Jewish husband to non-Jewish cemetery

A Supreme Court judge in Queens County permitted the non-Jewish spouse of a deceased Jewish man to exhume his body from a Jewish cemetery for reburial in what the judge termed a “non-denominational” cemetery, St. Elizabeth. The decedent was buried in the family plot next to his father. His mother and sister opposed the exhumation, claiming he wanted to be buried in accordance with Jewish Law.

The decedent’s spouse acknowledged that she had signed an authorization for the interment of her husband “whom I know to be a member of the Jewish faith” in the plot owned by Calvin Herskowitz, her husband’s father. However, she testified that at that time she was emotionally distraught and grieving over the sudden, unexpected death of her husband, and did not know that the plot could not accommodate her remains so that she could be buried with her husband.

To determine the decedent’s level of commitment to Judaism, the judge heard testimony from friends and relatives. Among other interesting parts of the decision in Eirand-Herskowitz vs. Mt. Carmel Cemetery Association, the judge stated that: “Although it is not the function of this court to sit in judgment of anyone’s choice in the manner in which he/she chooses to practice or observe his/her faith, the court finds that these occasional, isolated acts of religious observance do not unequivocally constitute and support the fact that Jamie actively practiced his Jewish faith.” The judge also found that: “as the proposed final resting place for his remains, St. Elizabeth Cemetery is nondenominational, there is no evidence to show that his burial there will offend his Jewish faith.”

As far as I know, Jewish law permits the exhumation of remains only under very narrow circumstances. Removing the remains to a non-Jewish cemetery (even one that is non-denominational) is certainly not one of these circumstances. Did the relative’s attorneys make a fatal mistake by failing to have an expert in Jewish law (i.e. a Rabbi) testify that the exhumation most certainly would offend the decedent’s Jewish faith?

Comments welcome.

Update 4/8/11 — the decision was affirmed on appeal.  Our follow-up post can be read here.  SE