GOLDSTEIN, ABRAHAM SAMUEL

GOLDSTEIN, ABRAHAM SAMUEL (1925– ), U.S. lawyer and educator. Goldstein, who was born in New York City, received his LL.B. from Yale University in 1949 and was admitted to the Washington, d.c., bar. After two years as a law clerk to U.S. Circuit Court Judge David *Bazelon (1949–51), he practiced privately with a Washington law firm from 1951 to 1956. In the latter year, he was appointed a member of the Yale Law School faculty. Goldstein, an expert in U.S. criminal law and procedure, became a professor in 1961. He served as dean of Yale Law School from 1970 to 1975. From 1975 he served as Sterling Professor at Yale, teaching criminal law and criminal procedure. He served as a consultant to the President's Commission on Law Enforcement (1966–67), was a member of the Connecticut State Board of Parole (1967–69), and a member of the Governor's Planning Commission on Criminal Administration (1967–71).

Active in Jewish affairs, Goldstein was a member of the board of directors of the New Haven Jewish Community Council. In 1978 he was appointed provost of Yale University, the second highest post in the university. He was the first Jew to attain this position, which is that of chief educational and administrative officer after the president. He was a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1975 and at Tel Aviv University in 1986. He was senior vice president of the American Jewish Congress (1978–84) and served on its governing council from 1976 to 1994. He was also a member of the Executive Committee of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (1985–89). From 1990 he served on the board of directors of Hillel at Yale.

Goldstein wrote The Insanity Defense (1967), Crime, Law, and Society: Readings (with J. Goldstein, 1971), Criminal Procedure: Cases and Materials on the Administration of Criminal Law (with L. Orland, 1974), and The Passive Judiciary: Prosecutorial Discretion and the Guilty Plea (1981).

[Ruth Beloff (2^nd ed.)]