Tafties - The Taft School

“His ego is always
in check…And
by his diligence,
he is winning
just praise as a
chief problemsolver
in the
administration, a
man who quietly
gets things done.”
18 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
as Lindsay’s deputy mayor for three years in the
late 1960s, his job to work the City Council
and state Legislature and solve the daily crises
that come with the nation’s largest metropolis.
Behind the scenes in the city’s teachers
strike in 1968 and the garbage strike the same
year, Sweet was Lindsay’s point man in ultimately
resolving the disputes. It was a role for
which he drew admiration and respect at the
time, even from the mayor’s critics.
“His ego is always in check,” the New York
Times wrote of Sweet in 1968. “And by his
diligence, he is winning just praise as a chief
problem-solver in the administration, a man
who quietly gets things done.”
Sweet was typically unabashed in recalling
his City Hall years. “It was a great job, a lot of
fun,” he said recently.
It was that same humility he carried to the
federal bench, where he has made his deepest
public mark.
After returning to private practice as a partner
with the esteemed firm of Skadden, Arps,
Slate, Meagher & Flom, he was appointed to
the federal judiciary by President Jimmy Carter
in 1978, a registered Republican appointed by a
Democratic president.
But it was also a time when “liberal” and
“Republican” weren’t necessarily exclusive. “Liberal
Republicans in those days were probably to the
left of most Democrats today,” he says.
And the liberal tag hung around his black
robe, as he repeatedly stood behind press and
speech freedoms and against sentencing laws he
viewed as overly severe.
One of the most notable cases was in 2005
on behalf of New York Times reporters Judith
Miller and Philip Shenon, who sought to
protect their telephone records from the U.S.
Justice Department as they wrote about government
anti-terrorism efforts in the aftermath of
the Sept. 11 attacks.
Sweet’s decision was 120 pages long, with
the judge writing that the “reporter’s privilege” is
a critical right—while also holding out the government’s
own obligations to protect the public.
“The reporters at issue relied upon the
promise of confidentiality to gather information
concerning issues of paramount national
importance,” Sweet wrote. “The government
has failed to demonstrate that the balance of
competing interests weighs in its favor.”
It was near the time that Miller was facing
a separate trial over the leak of CIA operative
Valerie Plame’s identity, a case that ultimately
put her in jail for 85 days. Sweet’s own decision
was overturned on appeal in 2006, but his mind
has not changed.
“I don’t think it is absolute, but a qualified
privilege (for the press),” he says. “But it should
be upheld in all instances unless you can show
an overwhelming national interest. There may
be a circumstance where that’s the case, but that
never came before me.”
Other cases involving rights for political
demonstrations invoked similar conflicts, all
ones he says are fascinating testaments to the
constitutional fabric of the nation. He may
be best known for his stand against minimum
sentencing guidelines that he ruled unconstitutional,
albeit again overturned on appeal.
“I didn’t get away with it, but I had to try,”
“You’re at a point where you really can see the tension points in society
and, of course, you sometimes have a greater or lesser ability to do
something about it. It’s the best job in the country….”
he says of that fight.
Now he’s handling cases out of the epic
dissolution of Bear Stearns, another about
mortgage securities that lie at the heart of the
current economic crisis, and even a few protest
cases still pending.
“You’re at a point where you really can see
the tension points in society and, of course, you
sometimes have a greater or lesser ability to do
something about it,” he says. “It’s the best job in
the country, as far as I’m concerned.”
Still, when asked what he has enjoyed the