David W. Peck

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Justice David W. Peck (New York State Supreme Court)

Justice Peck was a successful court reformer who also wrote the book for a television drama.

David W. Peck (December 3, 1902—August 23, 1990) was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He graduated in three years from Harvard Law School. A partner in Sullivan & Cromwell at age 31, he was later known as one of the "Young Turks" who revived the Republican party in New York County in the 1930s. In ten years as Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court he greatly reduced calendar congestion in Manhattan and the Bronx. Afterward he wrote The Greer Case, a real-life television drama featuring Melvyn Douglas and Zsa Zsa Gabor. An avid baseball fan, his law clerks, called themselves ''Peck's Paragons'' and used to hold annual meetings with him at Ebbets Field..