‘Trailblazing’ gay Judge Batts dies

Manhattan Federal Judge Deborah Batts, the first openly gay judge of the federal judiciary, has died. She was 72.

Batts (inset) was about to preside over the embezzlement trial of lawyer Michael Avenatti, who is accused of swindling $300,000 from his best-known client, porn star Stormy Daniels, while he was representing her in her legal fight against President Trump.

The judge’s death will likely delay the start of the trial, which was scheduled for April 21.

Chief Manhattan Federal Judge Colleen McMahon said Batts was a pioneer for many reasons.

“A trailblazer in every respect: an openly gay African-American woman who became a United States district judge after a distinguished career as a federal prosecutor and law professor,” McMahon said in a statement.

“She will be remembered by her colleagues for her devotion to the work of the court, for her mentorship of a cadre of young lawyers of all backgrounds, and for her infectious smile and extraordinary collegiality,” she added.

McMahon singled out Batts for her work on RISE, a program in which offenders can earn reductions in supervised release time in exchange for participating in a rehabilitative program.

“Judge Batts’ devotion to these individuals and to their rehabilitation earned their loyalty and trust; it will be difficult to replace her,” McMahon said in the statement.

Batts had a long and varied career in the law. She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1972, having served on the editorial board of the university’s civil rights law review. Recommended to then-President Bill Clinton by Sen. Daniel Moynihan, Batts was sworn on to the federal bench in 1994.

Before that, she was a federal prosecutor and a law professor at Fordham University in the Bronx. She also worked at the New York City Department of Investigation as associate counsel.

“Being a lesbian is definitely part of my life,” Batts told the Washington Blade after her historic court confirmation.

“It is also one of many parts of my life. I am also a very devoted mother, I’m an attorney, a former prosecutor and I’m an AfricanAmerican.”

In a videotaped feature from 2011, Batts said it took the election of Clinton in 1992 to move her appointment forward.

“The Bush Department of Justice, while they thought I was very nice, their view of what they thought a federal judge should be was not the same as my view of what a federal judge should be,” she said.

She said her time as a student activist at Radcliffe College was particularly formative to her views. “That’s why I wound up in law school at the time,” she said in the interview.

Batts presided over a series of major cases, including the trial of Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who was charged with stabbing a jail guard in 2001. Salim was on trial for his role in the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

In 2006, she presided over a lawsuit filed against former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, alleging she misled New Yorkers about the safety of the air at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

In 2001, Harvard’s gay, lesbian and bisexual alumni law school association commissioned an oil portrait of Batts and presented it to the law school.

“Judge Batts is a true credit to Harvard and to the gay, lesbian, bisexual community,” said Scott Wiener, chairman of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Alumni/ae Committee at the time. “Hanging her portrait at Harvard Law School is a unique opportunity to demonstrate Harvard’s diversity.”