James Kenneth Campbell (lawyer)

James Kenneth Campbell was born on September 24, 1920, in New York. His father was Eugene Campbell, who served as the Secretary of New York State Racing Commission until 1945{{Cite web|title=RACE OFFICIAL TO RETIRE; Eugene Campbell, Secretary of State Commission, to Quit |date=February 1, 1945 |work=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1945/02/01/archives/race-official-to-retire-eugene-campbell-secretary-of-state.html |access-date=April 14, 2023}}{{Cite web|title=Minutes of the New York State Racing Commission |website=New York State |publisher=New York State Gaming Commission |date=February 1, 1945 |url=https://www.gaming.ny.gov/pdf/1945.pdf |access-date=November 11, 2023}} and authored the 1934 "riches to rags" novel The Long Whip.{{Cite web|title=Inherited Wealth; THE LONG WHIP. By Eugene Campbell. 361 pp. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $2. |work=The New York Times |date=March 11, 1934 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1934/03/11/archives/inherited-wealth-the-long-whip-by-eugene-campbell-361-pp-new-york.html |access-date=November 12, 2023}}{{Cite web|title=The Long Whip |work=Kirkus Reviews |date=February 1, 1934 |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/eugene-campbell/the-long-whip-3/ |access-date=April 22, 2024}} Campbell's uncle was actor Clay Clement, one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild.{{Cite book |last=Frey |first=Emma |url=https://archive.org/details/TheHistoryOfTheFreyFamilyByEmmaFrey1969/page/n11/mode/2up?view=theater |title=The History of the Frey Family |date=1969 |pages=14 |access-date=April 14, 2023}}

Campbell received his Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor from Fordham University. During his time at Fordham University School of Law, Campbell took a leave of absence to serve as a lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.

Campbell was predominantly known in his lifetime as a high-powered attorney in national legal circles, including serving as one of a mining company's attorneys in the Supreme Court case United States v. Central Eureka Mining Co.[https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep357/usrep357155/usrep357155.pdf United States v. Central Eureka Mining Co. Et Al. Certiorari to the Court of Claims]. United States Supreme Court opinion. June 16, 1958. "...On the brief were ... J. Kenneth Campbell for the Homestake Mining Co...." He was a senior partner at the white shoe New York City law firm of Alexander and Green.{{Cite web |date=May 25, 1971 |title=Mtr. of Jurzykowski |url=https://casetext.com/case/mtr-of-jurzykowski |access-date=April 14, 2023 |website=Casetext: Smarter Legal Research |publisher=Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, First Department}}

His personal passion for ending the culture of abuse and poor conditions at insane asylums led him to pursue changes in relevant New York laws. Conditions both inside and beyond New York state were abysmal, with reports of restraint, starvation, and beatings commonplace.{{Cite web |last=Paun |first=Carmen |date=January 1, 2023 |title=Mental hospitals warehoused the sick. Congress wants to let them try again. |url=https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/01/mental-hospitals-drug-users-congress-00132671 |access-date=January 2, 2023 |work=POLITICO}} As such, Campbell became an advocate in the courts and in government for increasing the civil rights of mental patients. He chaired a Special Committee on the Study of Commitment Procedures and the Law Relating to Incompetents as part of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, which published its findings in 1968 as Mental Illness, Due Process and the Criminal Defendant: A Second Report and Additional Recommendations.{{Cite journal |last=Cunningham |first=William |date=1968 |editor-last=Polier |editor-first=Justine Wise |editor2-last=Simon |editor2-first=Rita James |title=Studies of Law and Psychiatry |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3052799 |journal=Law & Society Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=153–159 |doi=10.2307/3052799 |jstor=3052799 |issn=0023-9216 |quote=Mental Illness, Due Process and the Criminal Defendant: A Second Report and Additional Recommendations. Special Committee on the Study of Commitment Procedures and the Law Relating to Incompetents. Association of the Bar of the City of New York, J. Kenneth Campbell, Chairman, in cooperation with Fordham University School of Law. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1968. xv + 261 pp. $5.95.).....The report, 'Mental Illness, Due Process and the Criminal Defendant,' is an outgrowth of the issuing committee's earlier works [Committee of the Ass'n of the Bar of the City of New York, in Cooperation with the Cornell University Law School, Mental Illness and Due Process (1962)] which led to New York's revision in 1965 of the laws governing hospitalization in civil institutions. This current report deals with the hospitalization of patients at the two mental institutions in New York for the so-called "Criminal Insane," Matteawan and Dannemora. |via=JSTOR}}

Though Campbell was a Democrat, he was an ally of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. At the governor's behest, he authored a bill for the New York State Legislature on the topic of reforming the state's psychiatric institutions, which was subsequently passed and signed by Governor Rockefeller. In the years since, deinstitutionalization in New York has been hotly debated, with advocates praising it as a civil rights approach and critics arguing that it increased rates of homelessness.{{Cite web |last1=Fitzsimmons |first1=Emma G. |last2=Newman |first2=Andy |date=November 30, 2022 |title=New York's Plan to Address Crisis of Mentally Ill Faces High Hurdles |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/nyregion/mental-health-plan-eric-adams.html |access-date=January 2, 2023 |work=The New York Times}}

Campbell was married to Dorothea Burke from 1944 until her death in 1995, and they long resided in the Village of Saltaire, New York. Before permanently relocating to Saltaire, the couple raised a family on Long Island.{{citation needed|date=June 2025}} Campbell and Burke had seven children together, including actor J. Kenneth Campbell. At the time of his passing, Campbell had fifteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Campbell passed away at the age of eighty-three on March 30, 2004, at a New York retirement home. The cause of death was declared "a tragic fire." After funeral services at Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, he was buried at the Campbell family plot in Brooklyn.

Following in Campbell's footsteps, his son-in-law Scott S. Rosenblum served on the Saltaire Board of Trustees for decades. He would famously serve as Saltaire's mayor in the 2000s, during a heavily divided time in the community.{{Cite web |last=Finn |first=Robin |title=THE ISLAND; Where You Don't Want to Say 'So Sue Me' |date=June 4, 2006 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/nyregion/the-island-where-you-dont-want-to-say-so-sue-me.html |access-date=April 29, 2024 |archive-date=April 30, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240430034537/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/nyregion/the-island-where-you-dont-want-to-say-so-sue-me.html |url-status=live }}

Two of Campbell's granddaughters, Kim Gruenenfelder and Emma Rosenblum, grew up visiting Fire Island and became writers. Rosenblum's debut novel Bad Summer People (2023) generated controversy in Fire Island and Saltaire for its satirical depiction of local life.{{Cite web |last=Silman |first=Anna |date=15 August 2022 |title='Bad Summer People,' a salacious summer read, is causing chaos in a Fire Island town full of wealthy Manhattanites |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/emma-rosenblum-novel-bad-summer-people-scandalizing-saltaire-fire-island |access-date=14 April 2024 |website=Business Insider |archive-date=14 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240914055519/https://www.businessinsider.com/emma-rosenblum-novel-bad-summer-people-scandalizing-saltaire-fire-island |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |last=Rosenblum |first=Emma |date=29 July 2023 |title='Things started getting weird': why my novel caused a storm in my small town |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/29/things-started-getting-weird-why-my-novel-caused-a-storm-in-my-small-town |access-date=14 April 2024 |website=The Guardian |archive-date=14 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240914055520/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/29/things-started-getting-weird-why-my-novel-caused-a-storm-in-my-small-town |url-status=live }}

Campbell's greatest accomplishment outside of Saltaire, the role that he played in New York's deinstitutionalization, has also been debated. In the 2020s, politicians including New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Governor Kathy Hochul began suggesting a move toward institutionalizing the mentally ill once again,{{Cite web|last=Rosalsky |first=Greg |title=Could the U.S. force treatment on mentally ill people (again)? |work=NPR |date=April 16, 2024 |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2024/04/16/1244702372/could-the-u-s-force-treatment-on-mentally-ill-people-again |access-date=January 6, 2025}}{{Cite web|last=Eide |first=Stephen |title=A New Day for Mental Health in New York |work=City Journal |date=February 23, 2022 |url=https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-new-day-for-mental-health-in-new-york |access-date=January 6, 2025}} in response to perceived increases in violent crime related to mental illness.{{Cite web|last=Goldman |first=Samuel |title=A murder in New York and the dilemma of deinstitutionalization |work=The Week |date=January 19, 2022 |url=https://theweek.com/public-health/1009111/a-murder-in-new-york-and-the-dilemma-of-deinstitutionalization |access-date=January 6, 2025}}{{Cite web|last=Eide |first=Stephen |title=How New York Is Going Backward in Handling Serious Mental Illness |website=Manhattan Institute for Policy Research |publisher=New York Post |date=March 19, 2019 |url=https://manhattan.institute/article/how-new-york-is-going-backward-in-handling-serious-mental-illness |access-date=January 6, 2025}} Critics of this approach note that overall major crime rates have fallen in New York City in recent years,{{Cite web|last1=Cramer |first1=Maria |last2=Marcius |first2=Chelsia Rose |title=Most Major Crimes Are Down. Why Are Assaults Up? |work=The New York Times |date=April 20, 2024 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/20/nyregion/assault-rates-new-york-city.html |access-date=January 6, 2025}} while pointing to the history of failures in forced mental treatment.{{Cite web|title=Editorial: Forcing treatment on mentally ill homeless people is a bad idea |work=Los Angeles Times |date=June 6, 2023 |url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-06-06/mentally-ill-californians-forced-treatment |access-date=January 6, 2025}}

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Category:1920 births

Category:2004 deaths

Category:American lawyers

Category:Deinstitutionalization in the United States

Category:Fire Island, New York

Category:Fordham University people

Category:Lawyers from Brooklyn