Hon. Carol E. Heckman

1992 – 2000 

Federal Judicial Service: 

  • Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court, Western District of New York.  Entered duty in 1992 and served until 2000. 

Education: 

  • Cornell Law School, J.D., magna cum laude, 1977 
  • Lawrence University, B.A., magna cum laude, 1974 

Professional Career: 

  • Private Practice, 1985-1992, 2000-present 
  • Assistant United States Attorney, Western District of New York, 1981-1985 
  • Trial Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, 1979-1981 
  • Law Clerk, Hon. John T. Curtin, Western District of New York, 1977-1979 

Noteworthy Cases: 

United States v. Donald Green, No. 92CR159: 

Within one month of being sworn in, Judge Heckman was assigned this multidefendant case involving charges including racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, and narcotics conspiracy.  Defendants were alleged to be members of the “LA Boys,” a major narcotics trafficking enterprise that operated in Buffalo, New York.  The lead defendant, Donald “Sly” Green, was alleged to have orchestrated the enterprise’s criminal activities using prison telephones at Shawangunk Correctional Facility, where he was serving a sentence for murder.  The pivotal suppression issue in the case was whether approximately 1,000 telephone conversations involving Green should be suppressed because the recordings were made in violation of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control & Safe Streets Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510 et seq., the Fourth Amendment, and the New York State Constitution.  Judge Heckman recommended denial of the motion to suppress on the basis that the defendant impliedly consented to the recordings.  Judge Curtin, the district judge assigned to the case, adopted Judge Heckman’s recommendation and denied the motion. The Second Circuit affirmed the denial, concluding that the defendant, despite being provided less notice than other inmates in similar cases, received sufficient warning of the monitoring program in place at the prison so as to place him on notice that his use of the prison telephones was subject to monitoring by prison officials and that he had no expectation of privacy when using the prison telephones.  

See United States v. Green, 842 F. Supp. 68 (W.D.N.Y. 1994), aff’d sub nom. United States v. Workman, 80 F.3d 688 (2d Cir. 1996)
https://casetext.com/case/us-v-green-312  

 

 

Blum v. Schlegel, No. 91CV633: 

The pro se plaintiff in this matter alleged that he was denied tenure in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights.  Judge Heckman recommended denial of plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, a recommendation that was adopted by the District Court and affirmed by the Second Circuit.  As the case proceeded, Judge Heckman resolved several motions and discovery disputes and presided over several hearings that became increasingly contentious.  A dispute arose concerning the discoverability of another professor’s tenure file.  Judge Heckman issued a protective order permitting plaintiff to review the file but prohibiting him from communicating the contents of the file in any way.  The day after reviewing the file, the plaintiff circulated a memorandum to the law faculty at the University of Buffalo Law School, prompting Judge Heckman to issue an Order to Show Cause why the District Court should not hold the plaintiff in contempt.  Judge Skretny, the district judge assigned to the case, determined that the plaintiff was in contempt of court, a finding which fueled a further barrage of discourteous and uncivil filings by the plaintiff, and led to a finding that plaintiff’s conduct was sanctionable under Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Court’s own inherent power and the dismissal of the case.  The Second Circuit affirmed the District Court’s dismissal. 

Blum v. Schlegel, 150 F.R.D. 38 (W.D.N.Y. 1993) and 150 F.R.D. 42 (W.D.N.Y. 1993); see also Blum v. Schlegel, 830 F. Supp. 712 (W.D.N.Y. 1993), aff’d, 18 F.3d 1005 (2d Cir. 1994) and 1996 WL 925921 (W.D.N.Y. 1996), aff’d, 108 F.3d 1369 (2d Cir. 1997)
https://casetext.com/case/blum-v-schlegel-4 
https://casetext.com/case/blum-v-schlegel