Tribute in Memory of Herbert Wechsler

Abstract

Herbert Wechsler was my teacher at Columbia. He was a model as a scholar and lawyer throughout my career. He taught my classmates and me Criminal Law and, in a very demanding seminar, an introduction to Federal Jurisdiction based on the then paper version of what later became the great Hart and Wechsler casebook. I also served, not very effectively I fear, as a research assistant in his work on the Model Penal Code, particularly addressing the difficult subject, perhaps indeed an opaque one, of mistake as a defense or amelioration of criminal liability. He was an illuminating teacher and a demanding thinker. I later came to appreciate still other abilities of Professor Wechsler in working under his supervision on an American Law Institute project and, thereafter, as his successor as Director of the Institute. He was a leader and professional collaborator of great skill.