Background

Leslie Crocker Snyder was born on March 8, 1942, in New York City, New York, United States. She is the daughter of Lester and Billie Crocker.

Education

Leslie Snyder began her studies at Radcliffe College (now defunct) where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in 1962. In 1963 she graduated from Harvard Business School with a certificate. She continued her studies at Case Western Reserve University School of Law and obtained a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree with honors in 1966.

Career

Leslie Snyder, after receiving her law degree, in 1966, applied to New York City firms including Kaye, Scholer, Fiennan, Hayes & Handler, and because her first name is gender-neutral, she was granted interviews that would lead to nothing when it was discovered that she was female.

Snyder joined the Manhattan district attorney's office as an assistant district attorney in 1968, where District Attorney Frank Hogan suggested that she concentrate on consumer fraud cases. Hogan finally caved and assigned Snyder to homicide. In 1970 Snyder tried a robbery case in which two women had been raped. At that time, the law required that three things be proven before rape could be established: force, identity, and penetration. Snyder could prove the first two, but not the third. Outraged, Snyder worked to change the law and did.

She was also responsible for New York's rape shield law, which disallows a victim's sexual history in a rape case. After hearing her first rape case, she was determined to make rape laws fairer to women, and in 1974, she established the first sex crimes division in the nation within the Manhattan district attorney's office. As a state Supreme Court judge, Snyder heard cases involving the most heinous crimes and was known for her tough sentencing, particularly of drug dealers.

In 1976 Snyder left the district attorney's office to work on a special task force investigating police corruption. From 1979 to 1983 she worked in private practice. She reentered public service, first as a judge in criminal court, and then in 1986 for a ten-year term on the New York State Supreme Court. She was first appointed by Mayor Ed Koch and was reappointed in 1996 by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. She took her place on the bench as the crack cocaine epidemic and its associated crime hit the streets.

In June of 2000, Judge Snyder was appointed to the Court of Claims. While on the bench, she presided over the trials of some of the City's most vicious and violent drug gangs as well as many white-collar, stock fraud, and mob cases. She resigned from the Court of Claims in 2004. She was also a partner at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP in 2003, and in 2005 she was a candidate for Manhattan District Attorney.

Snyder shares her history with the criminal justice system in her memoir 25 to Life: The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth (2002).

Achievements

• Leslie Crocker Snyder is a known and recognized lawyer and judge. She became the first female assistant district attorney in New York City's Homicide Bureau and the first female attorney in that city to try felonies.
  
  Snyder was honored with a number of awards in recognition of her career as a public servant, including the Hogan-Morgenthau Award, the Association of Legal and Medical Experts Outstanding Contribution Award, the FBI Award for exceptional service in the public interest, and the American Academy for Professional Law Enforcement Distinguished Service Award.

Works

More photos

• book

  • 25 to Life: The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth

    (In the book 25 to Life: The Truth, the Whole Truth, and N...)

    2002

Politics

A lifelong reformer, Leslie Crocker Snyder is an outspoken advocate for meaningful and balanced Rockefeller Drug Law reform and innovative rehabilitation programs that incorporate drug treatment, job training, counseling for the entire family, and assistance in re-entry. A committed community advocate, Leslie Crocker Snyder initiated the "DA's in the Schools" program, the aim of which is to link Assistant District Attorneys with New York public schools as mentors and crime prevention specialists.

In 2008, Snyder renounced her support for the death penalty. She said she had done so after learning more about wrongful convictions in capital cases.

Views

Leslie Snyder's tough stance and maximum sentences have resulted in threats to her life, beginning in 1988, when she was told that a drug lord had put out a hit on her. Since then, she has had around-the-clock police protection. Snyder and her husband never discuss their family, and the children, now grown, were also guarded while attending high school. The threats continue, but Snyder takes them in stride.

Membership

Leslie Snyder served on various advisory boards and committees, including the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club, DARE, Abraham House, Federal Drug Agents Foundation, and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She is a member of the Women's Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association.

Personality

Leslie Snyder speaks French.

Quotes from others about the person

• "She's not a nasty person; she's not someone who is trying to do things for political expediency. She is speaking from her heart, and she's saying honest facts about people that, sometimes, people don't want to hear." - Douglas Snyder

Connections

Leslie Snyder married Fred Snyder in 1968. The marriage produced two sons, Nick and Doug.

Father:

Lester Crocker

Mother:

Billie Crocker

husband:

Fred Snyder