Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was an American-Canadian middleweight boxer who was wrongfully convicted of murder and later released following a petition of habeas corpus after spending almost 20 years in prison.
Katherine Womeldorf Paterson is a Chinese-born American writer best known for children's novels. For four different books published 1975-1980, she won two Newbery Medals and two National Book Awards. She is one of three people to win the two major international awards; for "lasting contribution to children's literature" she won the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 1998 and for her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2006, the biggest monetary prize in children's literature. Also for her body of work she was awarded the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature in 2007 and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the American Library Association in 2013. She was the second U.S. National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, serving 2010 and 2011.
Marcia Rachel Clark is an American prosecutor, author, television correspondent and television producer. She is notable as the lead prosecutor in the O. J. Simpson murder case.
The Lieutenant Governor of New York is a constitutional office in the executive branch of the Government of the State of New York. It is the second highest-ranking official in state government. The lieutenant governor is elected on a ticket with the governor for a four-year term. Official duties dictated to the lieutenant governor under the present New York Constitution are to serve as president of the state senate, serve as acting governor in the absence of the governor from the state or the disability of the governor, or to become governor in the event of the governor's death, resignation or removal from office via impeachment. Additional statutory duties of the lieutenant governor are to serve on the New York Court for the Trial of Impeachments, the State Defense Council, and on the board of trustees of the College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
Judith Ann Kaye was an American lawyer, jurist and the longtime Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, serving in that position from March 23, 1993 until December 31, 2008. She was the first woman to serve as chief judge, the highest judicial office in New York State, and the longest-serving chief judge in New York history.
Floyd Harold Flake is the senior pastor of the 23,000 member Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral in Jamaica, Queens, New York, and former president of Wilberforce University. He is a former member of the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1987 to 1997.
David Alexander Paterson is an American politician who served as the 55th Governor of New York, succeeding Eliot Spitzer and serving out the final three years of Spitzer's term from March 2008 to the end of 2010. He is the first African American to hold that position and the second legally blind Governor of any state after Bob C. Riley, who was Acting Governor of Arkansas for 11 days in January 1975.
Kathleen Maura Rice is a former prosecutor and the United States Representative for New York's 4th congressional district. She is a Democrat.
Denise O'Donnell is an attorney and Democratic politician from Buffalo, New York. She has served as director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), as New York State Commissioner of Criminal Justice Services, and Assistant Secretary to the Governor for Criminal Justice in the Cabinet of Gov. David Paterson. She previously held the roles in the Cabinet of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
Reena Andrea Raggi is a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and maintains her chambers in Brooklyn, New York. She was formerly a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Margaret M. Chiara is most notable for serving as United States Attorney for the Western District of Michigan. A Republican, she served from 2001 until she was dismissed in the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy on March 16, 2007. She had been Michigan's first female U.S. attorney
Nancy Ann Grace is an American legal commentator and television journalist. She was the host of Nancy Grace from 2005 to 2016, which was a nightly celebrity news and current affairs show on HLN, and she was the host of Court TV's Closing Arguments (1996–2007) as well. She also co-wrote the book Objection!: How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System. Grace was also the arbiter of Swift Justice with Nancy Grace in the syndicated courtroom reality show's first season.
Ralph J. Marra Jr. is an American lawyer who served as the Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. He held this position from the resignation of Chris Christie in December 2008 until the appointment of Paul J. Fishman in October 2009. In January 2010, after Christie became Governor of New Jersey, Marra was appointed to a top legal position in the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority.
Preetinder Singh Bharara is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. As a U.S. Attorney, Bharara earned a reputation of a "crusader" prosecutor. According to The New York Times, during his tenure he was one of "the nation's most aggressive and outspoken prosecutors of public corruption and Wall Street crime." Under Bharara, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York prosecuted nearly 100 Wall Street executives for insider trading and other offenses. He reached historic settlements and fines with the four largest banks in the United States, and closed multibillion-dollar hedge funds for activities including insider trading.
While laws regarding the imposition of capital punishment in the State of New York are still on the books, it is no longer enforced as it is been declared unconstitutional in the state and this ruling has not been overturned. The last execution took place in 1963, when Eddie Mays was electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison. The state was the first to adopt the electric chair as a method of execution, which replaced hanging.
Slobodan Milošević was a Yugoslav and the President of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. He also led the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990. He rose to power as Serbian President after he and his supporters claimed the need to reform the 1974 Constitution of Yugoslavia due to both the marginalization of Serbia and its political incapacity to deter Albanian separatist unrest in the Serbian province of Kosovo.
Paula T. Dow served as the 58th Attorney General of New Jersey, appointed by incoming Governor Chris Christie. Her nomination to a full term was confirmed by the New Jersey Senate in February 2010. She is the first African-American woman to be attorney general in state history.
The Erdut killings were a series of murders of 37 Hungarian and Croat civilians in the village of Erdut, Croatia committed by Croatian Serb forces and Serb Volunteer Guard paramilitaries between November 1991 and June 1992, during the Croatian War of Independence. Twenty-two Hungarians and 15 Croats were killed. The first killings occurred on 10 November 1991, when twelve civilians died. Eight more were killed over the following several days. Five more civilians were killed on 10 December, and another seven on 16 December. Four others were killed on 21 February 1992 and the final one was killed on 3 June. The bodies of these victims were either buried in mass graves or thrown into nearby wells.
Loretta Elizabeth Lynch is an American lawyer who served as the 83rd Attorney General of the United States from 2015 to 2017. She was appointed by President Barack Obama to succeed Eric Holder and previously served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York under both President Bill Clinton (1999–2001) and Barack Obama (2010–2015). As a U.S. Attorney, Lynch oversaw federal prosecutions in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island.
Patty Shwartz is a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
