| Whitman Knapp, 95; judge who worked with Serpico
By Larry Neumeister, Associated Press, 6/16/2004 NEW YORK — Whitman Knapp, a judge who worked to eliminate corruption in the city police department before beginning a 30-year career on the federal bench, died Monday. He was 95. Mr. Knapp died of ‘‘old age and pneumonia,’’ said his wife, Ann Knapp, an artist who married him in 1962. Mr. Knapp was best known for presiding over the five-member commission that investigated widespread police corruption in the early 1970s. Mayor John Lindsey in 1970 appointed him to what became known as the Knapp Commission. The commission earned a spot in a movie that traced the experiences of Frank Serpico, a legendary whistle-blower who was labeled a traitor by other police officers for refusing payoffs and turning in crooked cops. Serpico said he remembered Mr. Knapp from his closed-door meetings with the commission. He said Mr. Knapp put him at ease with his ‘‘knowing smile,’’ and he praised the Knapp report’s accuracy and directness in its depiction of police corruption. ‘‘He was a very decent guy who had a very difficult job to do,’’ Serpico said Monday. ‘‘Under the circumstances, he didn’t pull any punches. His job was to investigate, and that he did.’’ Chief Judge Michael Mukasey said the death was ‘‘certainly a big loss for us.’’ ‘‘He had a superb career before he got here and a superb career afterwards,’’ Mukasey said. Ann Knapp said her husband ‘‘loved being a judge.’’ ‘‘The law was his life,’’ she said. ‘‘He liked to do good.’’ Mr. Knapp, born in Manhattan on Feb. 24, 1909, was educated at private schools in Manhattan and at Choate School, in Wallingford, Conn. After receiving his bachelor of arts degree from Yale, he graduated in 1934 from Harvard Law School. He worked in private practice and in the Manhattan district attorney’s office in the 1930s and 1940s. From 1950 to 1953, he served as special counsel to the state Youth Commission and from 1953 to 1954 with the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. From 1964 through 1969, he worked to revise the New York state penal law and criminal code. In 1972, he was appointed to the federal bench by President Nixon. During the next three decades, he presided over several high-profile cases, including the 1986 prosecution of former Bronx Democratic leader Stanley Friedman. In 1993, Mr. Knapp joined about 50 other federal judges who had refused to preside over drug cases across the country to protest drug policies and sentencing guidelines. Through much of his life, Mr. Knapp rode horses and skied. He cracked his hip and ribs and suffered a collapsed lung about eight years ago, when he fell from a horse jumping over a fence in Millbrook, N.Y. But he recovered to remain a fixture in the older of two federal courthouses in lower Manhattan, not far from his Greenwich Village home. He continued to carry a caseload there until his death. Besides his wife, Mr. Knapp leaves their son, Gregory Knapp, of Chicago. He had three children from a previous marriage: Whitman Knapp, of Brookline, Caroline Hines, of New York, and Marion Knapp, of Oak Clare, Wis., along with five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. This story ran on page D11 of the Boston Globe on 6/16/2004. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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