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Annual ACLU banquet honors Justice Kogan; Strossen keynotes
On Saturday, November 13, the ACLU Foundation of Florida will honor former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald Kogan with the 1999 Nelson Poynter Award.
The Annual Award Banquet will take place at the Sheraton Ft. Lauderdale Airport Hotel, address. An open bar reception will begin at 7 p.m. Banquet festivities begin at 8 p.m.
This year's banquet also features ACLU President Nadine Strossen as keynote speaker. Strossen is one of the most prominent voices for civil liberties in the country, and the Annual Banquet is a good opportunity to hear and meet our dynamic National ACLU President.
The banquet will also honor longtime ACLU activist and former Palm Beach Chapter Chair leader Sam Clark with the 1999 ACLU of Florida Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognizes the tireless devotion of individuals within the ACLU family who have made major contributions towards the organization's work.
The Nelson Poynter Award is given annually to people who display dedication and commitment to the cause of civil liberties in Florida. Past recipients include former Governor LeRoy Collins, former state senator Jack Gordon, Chesterfield Smith, state representative Lois Frankel, Florida Supreme Court Justice (now federal judge) Rosemary Barkett, and former Miami-Dade County School Board member Janet McAliley.
The award is named for Nelson Poynter, the former crusading editor and publisher of the St. Petersburg Times. To him, the Bill of Rights was meant for daily use - it was not an abstract document. Never afraid to stand up for popular causes, he fought racial segregation, staunchly defended the right of a free press and led the fight for Florida's Sunshine Law.
For more information, to reserve tickets for the Nelson Poynter Award Banquet or to place an ad in the dinner program, please call Development Director CJ Fragola at (305) 576-2337. Ticket prices are $150. Supporter tickets are $500 and include two tickets; Sponsor tickets are $1,500 and include a table of ten.
Justice Gerald Kogan
We are pleased to honor former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald Kogan with this year's Nelson Poynter Award, the highest award bestowed by the ACLU of Florida.
Always the courageous judge, Justice Kogan used his years on the bench to defend a wide range of individual rights. In 1997, as Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, Kogan dissented from the majority decision in Krischer v. McIver, the Florida test case on physician assistance in death brought by the ACLU on behalf of terminally ill patient Charles Hall and his physician Dr. Cecil McIver. Tragically, the court held that Hall had no right to self-determination in the manner of his own death. A five member majority ruled that intensely personal, private matters of individual autonomy should be left in the hands of the Legislature. "When his pain becomes unbearable," Chief Justice Kogan wrote in a stirring dissent, "which one of us on this Court will be at his bedside telling him to be brave and bear it?"
Justice Kogan was born in New York City on May 23, 1933. He graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School and attended the University of Miami where he received the bachelor's degree in business administration and his law degree. Upon graduation from law school, Justice Kogan entered the United States Army and served on active duty as a special agent in the Counterintelligence Corps. Upon his discharge, he entered private law practice in Miami. In 1960 he was appointed a Dade County assistant State Attorney and rose to the rank of chief prosecutor of the Homicide and Capital Crimes Division. In 1967 he left the State Attorney's Office to resume the private practice of law.
In 1980, Kogan was appointed a circuit judge in Florida's Eleventh Judicial Circuit. He served in that capacity until his appointment to the Florida Supreme Court in January 1987.
Justice Kogan served as chair of the Florida Supreme Court's Gender Bias Study Commission. As Chief Justice, he also served as a member of the 1997-1998 Florida Constitutional Revision Commission.
Justice Kogan authored a series of articles in 1998 courageously questioning Florida's death penalty. Kogan wrote that society must some day put aside the emotions surrounding the death penalty and reexamine whether state-sanctioned executions make sense. He also questioned the impact that capital cases have on the court system. Death penalty cases make up only about 3 percent of the case load of the state supreme court, but justices spend from a quarter to half their time on capital cases.
Kogan retired from the Florida Supreme Court in December 1998. He now serves as President of the Alliance for Ethical Government, an organization of business persons, educators and civic leaders dedicated to promoting ethical conduct in government.
Justice Kogan's passionate dissent in the physician assistance in death case eloquently describes the role of courts in a democracy. His words also summarize his work as a judge: "At a fundamental level, the role of the justices and judges of Florida is to guarantee and enforce the protection afforded by these basic rights. This is at once a judge's greatest calling and heaviest burden. It is an obligation we shoulder by our oath of office, binding ourselves to enforce individual liberty even in the face of public or official opposition. To shield the liberties of the individual from encroachment is uniquely the task of courts. In that sense, we are obligated to give sanctuary against the overreaches of government.... It is our greatest duty to the people of Florida."
Gerald Kogan and his wife Irene were married in 1955 and have three children (Robert, Debra, and Karen) and five grandchildren (Jeremy, Nolan, Adam, Jacob, and Samuel).
National ACLU President Nadine Strossen
We are delighted that Nadine Strossen will keynote the 1999 ACLU of Florida Foundation Nelson Poynter Award Banquet. As President of the National ACLU, she has been an outstanding leader.
Nadine, Professor of Law at New York Law School, has written, lectured and practiced extensively in the areas of constitutional law, civil liberties and international human rights. She was elected President of the ACLU in 1991, the first woman to head the nation's largest and oldest civil liberties organization.
The National Law Journal has twice named Nadine as one of "The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America." In 1996, Working Woman Magazine listed her among the "350 Women Who Changed the World 19761996." And in November 1998, Vanity Fair Magazine included Nadine in a feature on "America's 200 Most Influential Women." She has also received the "Women of Distinction" award from the Women's League for Conservative Judaism and the Media Institute's Freedom of Speech Award.
Since becoming ACLU President, Nadine makes hundreds of public presentations per year, many on college campuses and in foreign countries. She comments frequently on legal issues in the national media, and she writes monthly columns for the Webzine, Intellectual Capital.
Nadine's writings (approximately 200 published works) have been published in many scholarly and general interest publications. Her book, Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights (Scribner 1995), was named a "notable book" of 1995 by the New York Times.
Nadine graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College (1972) and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School (1975), where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Before becoming a law professor, she practiced law in Minneapolis (her hometown) and New York City.
ACLU Activist Sam Clark
Few people in the history of the ACLU of Florida have shown the resolve, dedication and passion for civil liberties than longtime ACLU activist Sam Clark. For many years, Sam was the chair and guiding force behind the ACLU's Palm Beach Chapter. He has also been very active in the state organization, and much of the success we enjoy today is due in no small measure to the efforts of Sam and the other ACLU pioneers of his generation.
A chemistry professor by trade, Sam was the founding chair of the chemistry department at Florida Atlantic University. He began his work with the ACLU at the University of Mississippi in the late 1950's and became active in the ACLU of Florida after his move to this state in the late 1960's.
Sam has embraced a number of social causes, from his strong support of equal opportunity for women, to his active involvement in two major whistle blower cases against the Florida Board of Regents.
"It is impossible to imagine what the Palm Beach Chapter and the state ACLU would be like without Sam's years of devotion. He is an inspiration and an example of how one individual can greatly impact the lives of many," is how Palm Beach Chapter Legal Panel Chair Jim Green characterizes Sam's importance to the ACLU of Florida.
Sam and his wife Ann, married in 1946, have two children, Robert and Martha, and one granddaughter, Alexandra.
