Name Charles Nott, Parents Charles C. Nott | Education Harvard Law School | |
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Born October 10, 1869 ( 1869-10-10 ) Williamstown, Massachusetts Relatives Eliphalet Nott, great grandfather Died May 10, 1957, Mount Sinai St. Luke's and Mount Sinai Roosevelt, New York City, New York, United States | ||
Charles Cooper Nott, Jr. (October 10, 1869 – May 10, 1957) was an attorney and jurist. He served as judge of the New York General Sessions Court from 1913 to 1939. In 1919 anarchists were planting a bomb on his doorstep when it prematurely exploded killing both of the bombers. In 1922 he presided over the obscenity case of James Branch Cabell and Robert Medill McBride for the novel, Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice. In 1939 he presided over the second trial of James Joseph Hines where Hines was found guilty on corruption and conspiracy charges.
Biography
He was born on October 10, 1869 in Williamstown, Massachusetts to Charles Cooper Nott, Sr. and Alice Effingham Hopkins. Charles Nott graduated from Williams College in 1890 then received his law degree from Harvard Law School. After graduation until November 1913 he was an assistant district attorney for New York City for district attorney William Travers Jerome.
From November 1913 to 1939 he was a judge for the New York General Sessions Court. There was an attempted assassination in 1919 when anarchists planted a bomb at his doorstep. The bomb prematurely exploded, killing both of the bombers. The opinion of the police was that Federal Judge John Clark Knox, who presided over cases during the First Red Scare, may have been the intended target, and the bombers had confused their names.
In 1922 he presided over the obscenity case of James Branch Cabell and Robert Medill McBride for the novel, Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice. Nott wrote in his decision that "...the most that can be said against the book is that certain passages therein may be considered suggestive in a veiled and subtle way of immorality, but such suggestions are delicately conveyed [and that because of Cabell's writing style] ... it is doubtful if the book could be read or understood at all by more than a very limited number of readers."
He married Julia Jerome Hildt (1871–1912) on November 12, 1896 and they had three children: Frances Jerome Nott (1900-?), Joel Benedict Nott (1903–1931), and Lawrence Hopkins Nott (1906–1986) who married Janet Lawton. After his first wife's death, he remarried in 1916 to Mary Porter Mitchell. His son Joel died in an aircrash on Saturday, November 21, 1931 at the New Bern Regional Airport.
In 1939 Nott presided over the second trial of James Joseph Hines.
Nott died on May 10, 1957 at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan.