Feldman, Stanley
Part 1 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on October 25th, 2017. It covers the following themes:
Family history, migration from Europe to New York. Move to Tucson at 5 years of age in 1938.
Tucson’s Jewish community in the early 1940s. Difficulty in finding kosher food. Attending the conservative synagogue.
Early years in Tucson, father’s employment, housing, school, movies, and time at the library.
Role of walking, safety. Unemployment during the depression.
Family’s move to Colonia Solana during the depression; anti-Semitic deed restrictions.
Outbreak of World War II and life during wartime. Family conversations about anti-Semitism in Europe and experiences with anti-Semitism in Tucson.
Reading during elementary school.
Middle school: poker, basketball, and poetry.
High school experience, L&L Drive In, movies, basketball.
College at UCLA and University of Arizona in the early 1950s and amateur basketball league.
Part 2 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on November 20th, 2017. It covers the following themes:
Law school at the University of Arizona. Other activities during law school, dating, and marriage.
Graduation in 1956 and Stanley’s inability to find work because of his Jewish surname.
Joining Students for Democratic Action and an experience with McCarthyism.
Description of Tucson law firms in the mid-1950s.
Starting individual practice and launching a career.
Early cases and move from a legal generalist to a specialist in insurance law.
Meeting Stewart and Morris Udall.
Hank Oyama case.
Part 3 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on November 30th, 2017. It covers the following themes:
Tucson during the long 1960s.
The local Civil Rights movement.
Pressuring the Tucson Country Club to grant membership to all Tucsonans.
Using law for reform.
Hippie culture in the 1960s and drug prosecution.
The Vietnam War.
Important cases of the 1960s and 1970s, including:
A pre-Roe v. Wade lawsuit to allow medical exceptions for abortion in Arizona.
The first birth control case in Arizona.
A product liability case against Merck.
Suit against Monsanto for a dangerous product.
Several medical malpractice cases which set precedents about the relationship between hospitals, doctors, and corporate subsidiaries and their respective obligations to patients.
A case against Ramada Inns of North Denver, which made parent companies legally responsible for their franchises.
Part 4 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on December 11th, 2017. It covers the following themes:
Formation of Miller, Pitt, and Feldman. Building a law office on the former site of Art’s Hot Dogs.
Acting as Special Council for the City of Tucson during Urban Renewal. Supervision of condemnation work.
Previous eminent domain work for the City during a Broadway widening project between Randolph and Country Club.
A description of downtown Tucson south of Broadway prior to Urban Renewal.
Eminent domain cases on behalf of the state for the expansion of Interstates 10 and 8. Suits over location and value of offramps.
Donald Pitt and the formation of the Phoenix Suns.
Cultural shifts after the sixties: Goldwater movement and the increasing rift between American liberals and conservatives, decreasing bipartisanship in state politics.
The Groundwater Act of 1980 and Bruce Babbit.
How Bruce Babbit became Governor.
Stanley’s appointment to the Arizona Supreme Court in 1982. Interview by the State Bar Commission and Bruce Babbit.
Impressions of the Arizona Supreme Court in the early 1980s.
Swearing-in ceremony of Evan Mecham.
Meeting Babbit years later when he was head of Bill Clinton's Interior Department.
Part 5 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on December 20th, 2017. It covers the following themes:
Pima and Maricopa county’s switch from judicial elections to merit selection in the mid-1970s.
Description of the Arizona Supreme Court prior to the 1980s.
Motivation to serve on the Supreme Court.
Stanley’s first case on the Court and work to developing “reasonable expectations” of consumers in business contracts.
Development of Arizona’s dram shop laws.
Conversation and persuasion among justices of different political opinions.
Rising use of statistics and specialist testimony to inform judges and juries.
Wagenseller v. Scottsdale Memorial Hospital and lawsuits about wrongful termination.
The Arizona Constitution and public school financing.
Complications surrounding Arizona’s 19th-century groundwater law and the tension between science and precedent.
Changes in jury instruction, rights, and selection.
Work as Chief Justice, starting in 1992.
Changes in Arizona judicial policy: compulsory education for elected justices without law degrees and creating a disciplinary process for judges themselves.
Part 6 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on January 4th, 2018. It covers the following themes:
The Fife Symington scandal and the legal precedents it set.
Two cases that illustrate different interpretations of duty and obligation in civil law.
Transformation of the Arizona Supreme Court from 1982 to 2002: changes in court rules, new frameworks for expedited cases.
The court increasing assertiveness, diversity, and standards for research.
Stanley’s departure from the Court and return to legal work.
Cases that interested Stanley after his experience on the court.
The increasing role of the Arizona State Constitution in trials.
Reflections on changes in judiciary over Stanley’s lifetime: the rise of so-called “original intent” interpretations of the Constitution and increasing partisanship.
Changes in Tucson’s Jewish community over Stanley’s life.
Growth in metropolitan Tucson.