The New York legal community is mourning the loss of 34-year District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, one of the state’s most popular public servants who died last night at age 99. The World War II hero and former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who prosecuted some of the nation’s highest-profile cases, recently received the McCloy Award of the Fund for Modern Courts. Robert A. Katzmann, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, gave this speech:

It is a singular privilege to present Robert M. Morgenthau with the John J. McCloy Memorial Award of the Fund for Modern Courts, an organization which has contributed greatly to the fair and effective administration of justice. There is no one more deserving of this award than Robert M. Morgenthau who is to me a personal hero, his devotion to public service and to the public good an inspiration. It is no exaggeration to say that there is no one in the history of this nation who has done more over a lifetime to serve the public than he. Indeed, his record of service and accomplishment is staggering: just to offer a few illustrations, he is a decorated, courageous World War II enlistee, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander, who saw action in both the Pacific and Mediterranean theaters; he has been a partner at Patterson Belknap & Webb; the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1961-69; the pathbreaking District Attorney of New York County from 1975 to 2009; the guiding light of the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Police Athletic League.