In Memoriam: Honorable Sandra J. Feuerstein
January 21, 1946 – April 9, 2021
Statement from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York – April 10, 2021
Judge Sandra J. Feuerstein of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York was fatally struck by a vehicle Friday, April 9, on Ocean Boulevard in Boca Raton, Florida, in a reported hit-and-run crash.
Nominated to the federal bench by George W. Bush in 2003, Judge Feuerstein had been deciding cases in the Central Islip courthouse on Long Island for nearly twenty years, prior to which she served as a state court judge for sixteen years.
Born in New York City in 1946, Judge Feuerstein worked as a teacher in the New York City public school system from 1966 to 1971 before attending law school at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she graduated with honors in 1979 as part of the school’s first graduating class.
After graduating law school, she began her legal career as a law clerk in the law department of the New York Supreme Court from 1980 to 1985 and for Justice Leo H. McGinity of the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, Second Department, from 1985 to 1987.
Prior to her nomination to the federal bench, Judge Feuerstein served as a judge on the Nassau County District Court from 1987 to 1994, as a Justice on the New York Supreme Court Tenth Judicial District from 1994 to 1999, and as an Associate Justice of the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, Second Department, from 1999 to 2003. She was the first woman from the Tenth Judicial District to serve on the Appellate Division.
Judge Feuerstein was sworn in as a Justice of the New York Supreme Court by her mother, Judge Annette Elstein of the Immigration Court in New York. They are believed to be the first mother-daughter judges in the United States, according to Columbia Law School.
Judge Feuerstein was a treasured member of our Eastern District Bench. Her eccentric style and warm personality lit up the courtroom. She will be missed by her colleagues and litigants alike.
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