Deborah Anne Batts (April 13, 1947 – February 3, 2020) was a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

of the

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New ...

. During Gay Pride Week in June 1994, Batts was sworn in as a

for

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, becoming the nation's first openly

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

federal judge. She took

senior status Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...

on her 65th birthday, April 13, 2012.

Biography

Batts was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, to James Alexander Batts, director of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Harlem Hospital Center, and Ruth S. Batts, nurse, homemaker, and board member of the Philadelphia Home and School Council in the 1960s.

Marriage and family

Batts' siblings included sisters Mercedes Ellington and Denise Batts, and twin, Diane Batts Morrow. She was married to Ira A. McCown, with whom she had two children, Alexandra S. McCown and James Ellison McCown. In 2011, Batts married Gwen Zornberg.

Education and career

Batts received an

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

degree in Government from Radcliffe College in 1969, and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1972. She subsequently clerked for Judge Lawrence Pierce of the

United States district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district co ...

on which she served as a judge until her death. She was an Assistant United States Attorney from 1979 to 1984. In 1984, she became the first African American faculty member and an associate professor of law at

Fordham University School of Law Fordham University School of Law is the law school of Fordham University. The school is located in Manhattan in New York City, and is one of eight ABA-approved law schools in that city. In 2013, 91% of the law school's first-time test t ...

,. She was a special associate counsel to the Department of Investigation for

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

from 1990 to 1991. Outside of work, Batts dedicated her time to the RISE program, aiming to lower recidivism amongst at-risk offenders and continued to teach at the Fordham University School of Law.

Federal judicial service

On January 27, 1994, following the recommendation of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

nominated Batts to a seat on the Southern District left open in 1989 when Judge Richard Owen took

. Batts was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

on May 6, 1994, and received her commission on May 9, 1994. She took

on April 13, 2012. She continued to serve concurrently as an adjunct professor at Fordham University. She served until her death on February 3, 2020, from complications during knee surgery. On October 3, 2007, Bourne Co. Music Publishers filed a lawsuit accusing '' Family Guy'' of infringing its copyright on the song " When You Wish Upon a Star", through a parody song titled "I Need a Jew" appearing in the episode " When You Wish Upon a Weinstein". Bourne Co., which holds the copyright, alleged the parody pairs a "thinly veiled" copy of their music with antisemitic lyrics. Named in the suit were ''Family Guy'' creator Seth MacFarlane, 20th Century Fox Film Corp., Fox Broadcasting Co., Cartoon Network, and

Walter Murphy Walter Anthony Murphy Jr. (born December 19, 1952) is an American composer, keyboardist, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for the instrumental " A Fifth of Beethoven", a disco adaptation of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony which top ...

; the suit sought to stop the program's distribution and asked for unspecified damages. Bourne argued that "I Need a Jew" uses the copyrighted melody of "When You Wish Upon a Star" without commenting on that song, and that it was therefore not a

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

-protected parody per the ruling in ''

Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. ''Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.'', 510 U.S. 569 (1994), was a United States Supreme Court copyright law case that established that a commercial parody can qualify as fair use. This case established that the fact that money is made by a work do ...

'' On March 16, 2009, Batts held that ''Family Guy'' did not infringe on Bourne's copyright when it transformed the song for comical use in an episode. In 2007, Batts was a prominent figure in the litigation over the case of the

Central Park Five Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

, rejecting the dismissal of their lawsuit.

References

Sources