Immigrant of the Day: Judge Denny Chin (Hong Kong)

 
Judge Denny Chin is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He previously served as a U.S. District Court judge on the Southern District of New York. President Clinton nominated Chin to the district court in 1994.  In 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Chin to the federal appeals court.

Chin was the first Asian American appointed as a U.S. District Judge outside of the Ninth Circuit. He currently is the only active Asian American judge on the U.S. court of appeals.

Chin was born in 1954 in Kowloon, Hong Kong and came to the U.S. in 1956. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School and received his Bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Princeton University and J.D. from Fordham.  

In 2009, Judge Chin presided over U.S. v. Madoff. Madoff admitted to committing securities fraud involving billions of dollars. Madoff pled guilty to federal charges and Judge Chin sentenced Madoff to a prison term of 150 years. Chin explained that the maximum sentence was appropriate because Madoff’s crimes were “extraordinary evil.”

KJ