Robert W. Sweet
Encyclopedia
Robert Workman Sweet is an American jurist
and currently a senior United States federal judge
serving on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
.
and obtained a Bachelor of Laws
degree from Yale Law School
in 1948. From 1953 to 1955, he was an Assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. He served as the deputy mayor
of New York City
from 1966 to 1969, and then spent several years as a lawyer
in private practice with the large New York law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
.
and confirmed in 1978. He semi-retired into senior status
in 1991. One of Sweet's law clerk
s was Eliot Spitzer
, who later became Governor of New York
.
restaurant chain, claiming the food sold by McDonald's caused their obesity
. Judge Sweet dismissed the case in 2003 and said "it is not the place of the law to protect them against their own excesses". However, the plaintiffs appealed to United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
, and in 2005 the circuit court vacated the district court's dismissal and ruled that Sweet had issued the dismissal incorrectly.
can maintain the confidentiality of its sources, refusing to dismiss Times' suit against Department of Justice
in the Judith Miller
controversy. However, later the Second Circuit again reversed his decision and allowed Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
to access phone records of New York Times journalists.
, saying the drug war is "expensive, ineffective and harmful" and that only "gang
s and cartels
benefit from current drug laws". In an interview with PBS
, he said that the mandatory minimum sentence for drug offenses violates due process
and separation of powers
. With co-author Edward A. Harris he contributed a chapter to Jefferson Fish
's book How to Legalize Drugs.
Judge Sweet is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
and serves on its advisory board.
, Judge Sweet ruled that Myriad Genetics
' patent
on BRCA1
and BRCA2
, genes linked to breast cancer, were invalid for the reason that, in Sweet's opinion, genes do not constitute patentable subject matter. His decision was 156 pages long.
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
and currently a senior United States federal judge
Federal judge
Federal judges are judges appointed by a federal level of government as opposed to the state / provincial / local level.-Brazil:In Brazil, federal judges of first instance are chosen exclusively by public contest...
serving on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York is a federal district court. Appeals from the Southern District of New York are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case...
.
Early life and career
Sweet attended Yale UniversityYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and obtained a Bachelor of Laws
Bachelor of Laws
The Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law originating in England and offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree...
degree from Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
in 1948. From 1953 to 1955, he was an Assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. He served as the deputy mayor
Deputy Mayor
Deputy mayor is an elective or appointive office of the second-ranking official in many local governments. Many elected deputy mayors are members of the city council who are given the title and serve as acting mayor in the mayor's absence...
of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
from 1966 to 1969, and then spent several years as a lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
in private practice with the large New York law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates , founded in 1948, is a prominent law firm based in New York City. With over 2,000 attorneys, it is one of the largest and highest-grossing law firms in the world. Forbes magazine calls Skadden "Wall Street's most powerful law firm"...
.
District judge
Sweet was appointed to the federal court for the Southern District of New York by President Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
and confirmed in 1978. He semi-retired into senior status
Senior status
Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for United States federal judges, and judges in some state court systems. After federal judges have reached a certain combination of age and years of service on the federal courts, they are allowed to assume senior status...
in 1991. One of Sweet's law clerk
Law clerk
A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person who provides assistance to a judge in researching issues before the court and in writing opinions. Law clerks are not court clerks or courtroom deputies, who are administrative staff for the court. Most law clerks are recent law school graduates who...
s was Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Laurence Spitzer is an American lawyer, former Democratic Party politician, and political commentator. He was the co-host of In the Arena, a talk-show and punditry forum broadcast on CNN until CNN cancelled his show in July of 2011...
, who later became Governor of New York
Governor of New York
The Governor of the State of New York is the chief executive of the State of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military and naval forces. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy title of His/Her...
.
Consumers' lawsuit against McDonald's
One of the controversial cases he decided was Pelman v McDonald's Corp., a case involving a group of teenagers who sued McDonald'sMcDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
restaurant chain, claiming the food sold by McDonald's caused their obesity
Obesity
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...
. Judge Sweet dismissed the case in 2003 and said "it is not the place of the law to protect them against their own excesses". However, the plaintiffs appealed to United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals...
, and in 2005 the circuit court vacated the district court's dismissal and ruled that Sweet had issued the dismissal incorrectly.
New York Times and Judith Miller controversy
In 2005, in New York Times v. Gonzales, Judge Sweet decided that The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
can maintain the confidentiality of its sources, refusing to dismiss Times' suit against Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
in the Judith Miller
Judith Miller (journalist)
Judith Miller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, formerly of the New York Times Washington bureau. Her coverage of Iraq's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction program both before and after the 2003 invasion generated much controversy...
controversy. However, later the Second Circuit again reversed his decision and allowed Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
Patrick Fitzgerald
Patrick J. Fitzgerald is the current United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and a member of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel...
to access phone records of New York Times journalists.
Opposition to War on Drugs
Judge Sweet has expressed strong opposition to the United States War on DrugsWar on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
, saying the drug war is "expensive, ineffective and harmful" and that only "gang
Gang
A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...
s and cartels
Drug cartel
Drug cartels are criminal organizations developed with the primary purpose of promoting and controlling drug trafficking operations. They range from loosely managed agreements among various drug traffickers to formalized commercial enterprises. The term was applied when the largest trafficking...
benefit from current drug laws". In an interview with PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, he said that the mandatory minimum sentence for drug offenses violates due process
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
and separation of powers
Separation of powers
The separation of powers, often imprecisely used interchangeably with the trias politica principle, is a model for the governance of a state. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the unmodified Constitution of the Roman Republic...
. With co-author Edward A. Harris he contributed a chapter to Jefferson Fish
Jefferson Fish
Jefferson M. Fish is a professor emeritus of psychology at St. John's University in New York City, where he previously served as Chair of the Department of Psychology and as Director of the PhD Program in Clinical Psychology....
's book How to Legalize Drugs.
Judge Sweet is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is a non-profit, international, educational organization comprising former and current police officers, government agents and other law enforcement agents who oppose the current War on Drugs. LEAP was founded on March 16, 2002...
and serves on its advisory board.
Gene patents
On March 29, 2010, in Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al.Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al.
Association for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is a lawsuit challenging the legality of gene patents in the United States, specifically challenging patents over breast cancer genes BRCA1/2 held by Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah. The ACLU and Public Patent...
, Judge Sweet ruled that Myriad Genetics
Myriad Genetics
Myriad Genetics, Inc. is a molecular diagnostic company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Myriad employs a number of proprietary technologies that permit doctors and patients to understand the genetic basis of human disease and the role that genes play in the onset, progression and treatment of disease...
' patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
on BRCA1
BRCA1
BRCA1 is a human caretaker gene that produces a protein called breast cancer type 1 susceptibility protein, responsible for repairing DNA. The first evidence for the existence of the gene was provided by the King laboratory at UC Berkeley in 1990...
and BRCA2
BRCA2
BRCA2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the BRCA2 gene.BRCA2 orthologs have been identified in most mammals for which complete genome data are available....
, genes linked to breast cancer, were invalid for the reason that, in Sweet's opinion, genes do not constitute patentable subject matter. His decision was 156 pages long.