Ephraim London
| Ephraim London | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Ephraim S. London June 17, 1911 Brooklyn, New York U.S. |
| Died | June 12, 1990 (aged 78) New York City, New York U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Years active | 1934-1990 |
Ephraim S. London (June 17, 1911 – June 12, 1990) was an American attorney and law professor specializing in constitutional law who established a reputation as a defender of free speech and civil liberties. He taught constitutional law at the New York University School of Law, his alma mater. He wrote The World of Law, a textbook that was widely used in law schools. He was also the author of The Law as Literature.
London was born in Brooklyn, New York to parents Horace London and Rosalind "Rae" London (née Safran).
He graduated from NYU School of Law in 1934, and after graduation, went to work for the law firm run by his father, his mother and his uncle, U.S. Representative Meyer London, who belonged to the Socialist Party of America. His law career was interrupted by service as an Army officer during World War II, then a stint as a special investigator in post-war Germany for the United Nations War Crimes Commission investigating Nazis.
Taking on movie censorship cases, London won all nine cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, including The Miracle (1948) and Lady Chatterley's Lover (1955), which had been banned in New York in 1950 and in 1956, respectively. The first case, Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court overturned its 1915 precedent in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio that movies were merely a business, and did not have free speech protection under the First Amendment. The Court ruled that provisions of the New York State law allowing censors to ban motion pictures they determined to be "sacrilegious" violated the First Amendment as a restraint on free speech.
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