Michael Musmanno

Michael Musmanno
From a 1960 court photograph
Born
Michael Angelo Musmanno

(1897-04-07)April 7, 1897
Stowe Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, US
DiedOctober 12, 1968(1968-10-12) (aged 71)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US
Resting placeArlington National Cemetery
EducationGeorge Washington University (BA, MA)
Georgetown University (LLB)
Occupation(s)jurist, politician, naval officer and author
Political partyRepublican (before 1932)
Democratic (after 1932)

Michael Angelo Musmanno (April 7, 1897 – October 12, 1968) was an American jurist, politician, and naval officer. Coming from an immigrant family, he started to work as a coal loader at the age of 14. After serving in the United States Army in World War I, he obtained a law degree from Georgetown University. For nearly two decades from the early 1930s, he served as a judge in courts of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Entering the U.S. Navy during World War II, he served in the military justice system.

Following the war, in 1946, Musmanno served as military governor of an occupied district in Italy. Beginning in 1947, he served as a presiding judge for the Einsatzgruppen trial in U.S. military court at Nuremberg. In 1948, he conducted interviews with several people who had worked closely with Adolf Hitler. In 1950, he published a book based on his research, in which he argued that Hitler had indeed committed suicide in Berlin in 1945.

In 1951, Musmanno was elected as a justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, where he served until his death in 1968. He set a record for the number of dissenting opinions filed. In addition to his long judicial career and postwar contributions in Europe, he wrote sixteen books and many articles related to his court cases and professional career. In his writing he expressed sympathy for working men and deep interest in the Italians in the United States, himself having Italian ancestry.

Viewed as a "maverick on the court",[1] Musmanno was known for defending Sacco and Vanzetti, as well as for being anti-Communist, and for supporting civil rights.[2] In 1966, in response to new evidence of the Norse colonization of North America (c. 1000), he published a book in which he argued that Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover the Americas. He died on Columbus Day 1968. At the time of his death, he was regarded as "one of Pennsylvania's most respected and colorful figures".[3]

  1. ^ Justice Musmanno, Reading Eagle, October 16, 1968
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference potter2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Musmanno is Buried at Arlington, Gettysburg Times, October 18, 1968