Alison Nathan

On March 31, 2011, President Obama nominated Nathan to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to replace Judge Sidney H. Stein, who took senior status in 2010.[1][7] Obama made the appointment upon the recommendation of U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer.[8] The U.S. Senate confirmed Nathan in a 48–44 vote on October 13, 2011.[9] She received her judicial commission four days later.[3] Nathan is recorded as the second openly gay jurist on the federal bench, after Deborah Batts.[4]

Since her appointment in 2013, Nathan has been an advocate for changes to the clerkship system under what has been known as the Law Clerk Hiring Plan.[10]

While on the federal bench, Nathan has been Adjunct Professor of Clinical Law at the New York University School of Law.[6]

In 2014, following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in American Broadcasting Cos., Inc. v. Aereo, Inc., Nathan entered a preliminary injunction that blocked Aereo from streaming live TV to devices.[11][12]

In April 2020, Nathan criticized a Federal Bureau of Prisons practice of putting early released inmates into special COVID-19 quarantines which defied inmates' court-approved early release and the law; Nathan said that such policies were "illogical" and "Kafkaesque".[13]

In 2020 and 2021, Nathan presided over the bail hearings for Ghislaine Maxwell, who was indicted on federal charges of conspiring and participating with Jeffrey Epstein in the sexual abuse of minors.[14][15] Nathan ordered Maxwell detained pending trial, denying Maxwell's four bail applications on the ground that she presented a substantial flight risk of flight.[15][16] Nathan's rulings were all upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.[17]

In 2020, Nathan issued an unusual decision strongly criticizing the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and its leadership, for their handling of the high-profile case of Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, a businessman. Sadr had been convicted of evading U.S. sanctions against Iran, but the charges were dismissed after prosecutors admitted that the government had, among other things, failed to make required Brady disclosures of evidence to the defendant and had made misrepresentations to the court. (The prosecutor's office said that prosecutors had not "acted in bad faith or intentionally withheld exculpatory information"). Nathan wrote, "The manifold problems that have arisen throughout this prosecution — and that may well have gone undetected in countless others — cry out for a coordinated, systemic response from the highest levels of leadership within the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York."[18]

In 2021, Nathan presided over a bench trial over the ownership of the Guennol Stargazer, a rare idol dating between 4800 and 4100 BCE that likely originated in what is now Turkey's Manisa Province. In the case, the Turkish government sued the auction house Christie's and the idol's owner, Michael Steinhardt, claiming that the planned sale of the ancient marble artifact violated a 1906 Ottoman decree. Nathan rejected Turkey's claim, finding that there was insufficient evidence to show the artifact (which had been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for decades) had been excavated after 1906 and that Turkey's claim was barred by laches in any case, since it had waited too long to pursue its claim.[19][20]

In 2021, Senator Schumer recommended Nathan to President Joe Biden for a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.[8][21] On November 17, 2021, Biden announced his intent to nominate Nathan to fill the vacancy; her nomination was sent to the Senate the following day. Biden nominated Nathan to the seat being vacated by Judge Rosemary S. Pooler, who will take senior status upon confirmation of her successor.[22][23] Her nomination is pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee.[23]