About Sol Wachtler
Sol Wachtler heard more than 11,000 cases and wrote 378 court opinions during his two decades of service on the New York State Court of Appeals. In his most famous ruling, in the New York Court of Appeals case People v. Liberta, Sol Wachtler wrote that the marital exception to rape was unconstitutional, which led to laws across the U.S. that made rape in marriage a crime.
Since his retirement from the bench, Sol Wachtler has authored a number of books and articles and has served as an advocate for the mentally ill. In 1997 he published a memoir, After the Madness, and in 2003 Sol Wachtler coauthored a legal thriller with civil litigator David Gould entitled Blood Brothers. A 2002 collection of essays that addresses legal issues relating to suspects and prisoners suffering from mental problems, called Serving Mentally Ill Offenders: Challenges and Opportunities for Mental Health Professionals, includes a chapter authored by Sol Wachtler. He has also written pieces for The New Yorker magazine as a critic-at-large. In May 2010, The New York Times featured an op-ed piece by Sol Wachtler that addressed the historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling that defined Miranda warnings.
Sol Wachtler instructs students as an Adjunct Professor of Constitutional Law at the Touro Law Center in Central Islip, New York. Apart from his years as a jurist, Sol Wachtler also served as an elected councilman for the town of North Hempstead and a member of the Nassau County Board of Supervisors in, New York, and founded a mediation and arbitration service he continues to lead, called CADRE (Comprehensive Alternative Dispute Resolution). In his leisure time, Sol Wachtler enjoys reading books by Thomas Hardy, Jeffery St. John, David McCullough, and his classmate during his time at Washington and Lee University, Tom Wolfe. Biographies of founding fathers Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson score high on his pleasure reading list, as well as texts that discuss constitutional issues and the Bill of Rights.
Since his retirement from the bench, Sol Wachtler has authored a number of books and articles and has served as an advocate for the mentally ill. In 1997 he published a memoir, After the Madness, and in 2003 Sol Wachtler coauthored a legal thriller with civil litigator David Gould entitled Blood Brothers. A 2002 collection of essays that addresses legal issues relating to suspects and prisoners suffering from mental problems, called Serving Mentally Ill Offenders: Challenges and Opportunities for Mental Health Professionals, includes a chapter authored by Sol Wachtler. He has also written pieces for The New Yorker magazine as a critic-at-large. In May 2010, The New York Times featured an op-ed piece by Sol Wachtler that addressed the historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling that defined Miranda warnings.
Sol Wachtler instructs students as an Adjunct Professor of Constitutional Law at the Touro Law Center in Central Islip, New York. Apart from his years as a jurist, Sol Wachtler also served as an elected councilman for the town of North Hempstead and a member of the Nassau County Board of Supervisors in, New York, and founded a mediation and arbitration service he continues to lead, called CADRE (Comprehensive Alternative Dispute Resolution). In his leisure time, Sol Wachtler enjoys reading books by Thomas Hardy, Jeffery St. John, David McCullough, and his classmate during his time at Washington and Lee University, Tom Wolfe. Biographies of founding fathers Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson score high on his pleasure reading list, as well as texts that discuss constitutional issues and the Bill of Rights.