José Alberto Cabranes (born December 22, 1940) is an American lawyer who serves as a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a former presiding judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ("FISCR"). Formerly a practicing lawyer, government official, and law teacher, he was the first Puerto Rican appointed to a federal judgeship in the continental United States (1979).
Early life and education Cabranes was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, on December 22, 1940, into a family of educators; both his mother and father were school teachers. Both parents were educated in Puerto Rico's public schools and at the then newly founded University of Puerto Rico in the first decades of the 20th century, part of the first generation of Puerto Ricans educated under the American flag after Spain's transfer of the island to the United States following the Spanish–American War (1898).
Cabranes moved to The Bronx, New York at the age of 5, when his father, one of Puerto Rico’s first professionally trained social workers, serving as Chief Probation Officer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, was recruited by the National Council of Jewish Women to serve as Director of Melrose House, a settlement house in the South Bronx that had historically served Jewish newcomers and increasingly devoted its efforts to aid Puerto Ricans who, as United States citizens, were part of a massive migration by air to New York. In the South Bronx Cabranes attended the Roman Catholic St. Anselm’s School; later, living in Flushing, Queens, he attended the New York public schools.
José Cabranes graduated from Flushing High School in 1957 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Columbia College in 1961. Between college and law school at Yale, he taught History of Puerto Rico and History of the United States at the Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola, in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. He earned his Juris Doctor from Yale in 1965 and was awarded a Kellett Research Fellowship from Columbia College and the Humanitarian Trust Studentship in Public International Law from the Faculty Board of Law of the University of Cambridge to study international law at Queens' College. In 1967, he earned his Master of Letters in International Law, and returned to New York City to practice law.http://www.columbia.edu/cu/secretary/bios/cabranes/index.html Columbia Trustee Biography
Legal and academic career
Cabranes was an associate in the New York City law firm of Casey, Lane & Mittendorf (now dissolved) from 1967 to 1971, and became avocationally active in public affairs and the civic life of the Puerto Rican community of New York. In the early 1970s he served as a trustee of the Hudson Guild settlement house, in the Chelsea area of Manhattan, and as a director of Citizens Union, a "good government" civic group first organized in the early 20th century. In 1971 he became chairman of the Board of Directors of ASPIRA of New York, an organization that helps inner-city Hispanic youth prepare for higher education,"Law Professor Is Named Board Chairman of Aspira," N.Y. Times, September 13, 1971Jerry Tallmer, "Daily Closeup: He Speaks the Language," N.Y. Post, September 27, 1971 and he was a founding member of the board of directors of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, of which he was later (1975–1980) Chairman."Yale Counsel in Right Place at Right Time: Cabranes a Contender in 2 U.S. Districts," N.Y. Law Journal, July 25, 1979Court biographyYale Weekly Bulletin and Calendar, Oct. 3–10, 1977.
In 1971, Cabranes left law practice to become associate professor of law at Rutgers University Law School, in Newark, where he taught administrative law, conflicts of law and international law. While at Rutgers Law School he continued to live in New York City, and in 1971 was appointed by Mayor John V. Lindsay as a member of the board of directors of a newly created public corporation, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation."City Aide Named to Succeed Lacot in Lincoln Hospital," N.Y. Times, November 18, 1971.
In 1973, Cabranes took a leave of absence from Rutgers Law School to accept appointment by the Governor of Puerto Rico, Rafael Hernández-Colón, as Special Counsel to the Governor and head of the Commonwealth's Washington office (later known as the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration).
In 1975, he moved to New Haven, when he was appointed by Yale's President, Kingman Brewster, Jr., as Yale's first general counsel. He served as Yale's general counsel also under Acting President Hanna Holborn Gray (later President of the University of Chicago) and President A. Bartlett Giamatti.
While general counsel of Yale University, from 1975 to 1980, Cabranes served in a number of part-time public positions, including as a Public Member of the United States Delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Belgrade, 1977–1978) and as Consultant to Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance (1977–1978)."Cabranes Named to Human Rights Post," San Juan Star, October 8, 1977. He was elected a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and published a legislative history of the 1917 law that collectively conferred American citizenship of the people of Puerto Rico, Citizenship and the American Empire (Yale University Press, 1978).
President Jimmy Carter appointed Cabranes as one of the lay members of the President's Commission on Mental Health, chaired by Rosalynn Carter (1977–1979),"Two at Yale Selected for President's Panel," New Haven Register, March 29, 1977. and President Carter was reported to have been ready to appoint him to an ambassadorial position."Hispanic-American Turns Down Envoy's Post Amid Controversy," N.Y. Times, June 13, 1977"Yale Official Turns Down Colombia Ambassadorship," Wash. Post, June 14, 1977. Cabranes's refusal to accept appointment as Ambassador to Colombia, after the Colombian government's initial hesitation to accept a Puerto Rican as the American envoy, led to a political firestorm and charges by national Hispanic leaders of the White House's mismanagement of an appointment they had supported.
Federal judicial service
In 1979, Cabranes was in the unusual position of being seriously considered for a federal district judgeship in two different states, New York and Connecticut."For President Clinton, old-school ties take precedence over senators' wishes in a search for a judge," N.Y. Times, May 28, 1993. Both Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut were reported to have offered to recommend his appointment to President Carter.
Eventually opting for Connecticut, Cabranes accepted the offer of sponsorship of Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff. President Jimmy Carter nominated Cabranes on November 6, 1979, to the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. Cabranes was unanimously confirmed on December 10, 1979, thus becoming the first Puerto Rican to serve as a federal judge in the continental United States. He received his commission on December 10, 1979. His service as a district court judge was terminated on August 12, 1994, when he was elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
While serving on the District Court, Cabranes was elected by the Judicial Conference of the United States to the Board of the Federal Judicial Center, the educational arm of the federal judiciary whose chairman is the Chief Justice of the United States.Report of Federal Judicial Center (1984). In 1988, Chief Justice Rehnquist named Cabranes as one of five federal judges on the Federal Courts Study Committee, a fifteen-member commission created by Act of Congress to study the administration of the federal courts.Report of the Federal Courts Study Committee (April 2, 1990).
In 1994, it was Senator Moynihan who made possible Cabranes's elevation to the United States Court of Appeals."Federal Judge To Be Elevated to Appeals Slot," N.Y. Times, May 25, 1994 Moynihan recommended Cabranes for a New York seat on that Court and on May 24, 1994, President Bill Clinton nominated him to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, based in New York. His nomination was confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate on August 9, 1994. Cabranes thus became the second Puerto Rican named to a U.S. Court of Appeals, after Juan R. Torruella who had been appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1984 to the First Circuit. Cabranes also became the first Hispanic judge to serve on the Second Circuit. He received his commission on August 10, 1994.
Contemporary news accounts reported that in 1993 Cabranes was considered by President Clinton for appointment to the seat on the Supreme Court of the United States that ultimately went to Ruth Bader Ginsburg."Clinton Nears Choice for High Court Nominee," N.Y. Times, May 20, 1993. Had he been appointed, Cabranes would have been the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. These reports are confirmed in the memoir of former Clinton administration adviser George Stephanopoulos, All Too Human: A Political Education.George Stephanopoulos, All Too Human: A Political Education 189 (2000). Newspaper accounts in 1994 likewise reported that Cabranes was considered for the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Harry Blackmun, which ultimately was filled by Stephen Breyer.
On August 9, 2013, Cabranes was designated by the Chief Justice of the United States to a seven-year term as one of the three judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.
Throughout his judicial career, Cabranes's principal avocational activity has been university trusteeship, including the boards of the two American universities of which he is an alumnus. He served as a trustee of Colgate University, in Hamilton, New York, from 1981 to 1989, and as a successor trustee of Yale (Fellow of the Yale Corporation), from 1987-1999. He was the first Roman Catholic to serve on the Yale Corporation. From 2000 to 2012, he was a trustee of Columbia University.Dan Oren, Joining the Club 434 (2d. ed. 2000)Columbia University website.
Cabranes is considered to be a moderate conservative, despite being appointed by a Democrat. Some people suggested that Bush nominate him to the Supreme Court.
After Joel Flaum and Stephen Breyer assumed senior status, Cabranes became the longest-serving active federal judge and the last judge continuously in active service from the presidency of Jimmy Carter. In October 2021, he announced his intention to assume senior status upon confirmation of a successor. He assumed senior status on March 9, 2023.
Notable rulings
The following decisions, among others, appear in the 2010 edition of the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary.Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, Vol. II (Aspen 2010).
United States v. Gatlin, 216 F.3d 207 (2d Cir. 2000): Cabranes, writing for the panel in a matter of first appellate impression, held that the district court was without congressionally authorized jurisdiction to try a civilian charged with committing a crime against an individual on a United States military installation abroad. Cabranes concluded that such crimes fell within a "jurisdictional gap" that was created 40 years ago when the Supreme Court ruled that civilians may not be tried in courts martial, and directed that a copy of the opinion be forwarded to members of Congress for their consideration. Following the panel's decision, Congress enacted a statute remedying the jurisdictional gap.