JUDGE WHO BLOCK TRUMP'S REFUGEE ORDER - ANN M DONNELLY

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The federal judge who blocked part of President Trump’s executive order on immigration on Saturday night worked for years in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, where she was one of the lead prosecutors on the high-profile Tyco International fraud trial.
Colleagues remembered the judge, Ann M. Donnelly, as an astute lawyer unfazed by the spotlight.
She found herself in its glare unexpectedly on Saturday night, when she heard an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the executive order barring refugees. She granted a temporary stay, ordering that refugees and others detained at airports across the United States not be sent back to their home countries.

Enforcing Mr. Trump’s order by sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm,” Judge Donnelly ruled.
The order, just before 9 p.m., capped an intense day of protests across the country by opponents of the order, which suspended the entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely and blocked entry for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries.
“Today, Judge Donnelly stated in unequivocal terms that this administration — one with no apparent historical and constitutional rudder — will not go unchecked or unbalanced,” said Eric M. Arnone, a criminal defense lawyer in Manhattan who worked with her in the prosecutor’s office in the mid-2000s.
Judge Donnelly was nominated to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York by President Barack Obama and was confirmed by the Senate in a 95-2 vote in 2015.
She had a “sterling reputation” when she worked in the Manhattan prosecutor’s office from 1984 to 2009, said another former colleague, Linda A. Fairstein, who retired as chief of the special victims unit.
“I worked with a lot of great lawyers in public service,” Ms. Fairstein said in an interview. “There is a fairness about her to the core that is just extraordinary.”
In 1989, Judge Donnelly was assigned to the Major Offense Career Criminal Program, a specialized bureau that focused on repeat offenders and violent felons, according to the office of Senator Chuck Schumer, who recommended her for the federal court. She served in a number of management positions, including as chief of the Family Violence and Child Abuse Bureau and as senior trial counsel.
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Judge Ann M. Donnelly
Andrew M. Lankler, a partner at Baker Botts LLP, who served in the office from 1990 to 1996, said, “She’s an extremely intelligent, deliberative and conscientious person uniquely unswayed by anything other than justice.”
Daniel J. Horwitz, a partner at McLaughlin & Stern LLP, who worked in the district attorney’s office from 1991 to 2000, described her in a message as “tenacious, exceedingly bright but eminently fair with an even temperament.”
He added, “She’s exactly the type of judge you want to appear in front of.”
Ms. Fairstein noted that Judge Donnelly was steadfast in the face of high-profile cases that gained widespread attention. She was a lead in the prosecution of L. Dennis Kozlowski, the Tyco chief executive who was convicted in 2005 for looting nearly $100 million from the company, for which he served six and a half years in prison.
“She will not be perturbed by the storm around her,” she said, adding that Judge Donnelly has “a firm moral compass.”
Mr. Arnone said in an email that “she had nothing but a great reputation for being a fair and diligent prosecutor.”
She previously served as a judge on the New York State Court of Claims and in the Supreme Courts in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Cyrus R. Vance Jr., now the Manhattan district attorney, who worked as an assistant in the office with Ms. Donnelly, cited the breadth of her experience.
“Anne has tried every kind of case as a judge and a prosecutor, is a truly experienced and tough trial lawyer, and still remains one of the most genuinely good and nice people I know,” Mr. Vance said in a text message early Sunday. “The federal bench is lucky to have her and I miss her as a state court judge in Manhattan.”
Judge Donnelly, who was born in Royal Oak, Mich., received her law degree from the Ohio State University College of Law in 1984.

Post from: Nytimes.com