Harold Medina, Jr.

Harold Raymond Medina Jr. (October 19, 1912 – February 17, 1991) was an American trial lawyer and expert in libel, privacy, and copyright, who spent his career with the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

Early life and education Medina was born in New York City, the son of Judge Harold R. Medina Sr. and Ethel Forde Hillyer. He had a brother, Standish, who also became a New York City lawyer. He graduated from The Hill School. He received a B.A., summa cum laude, from Princeton University and in 1937 a law degree from Columbia University.

In early December 1948, Chambers conferred with Medina about his employment with Time. Medina assured him "In six weeks this whole thing will be forgotten and you will be back at work as usual." He escorted Chambers to a meeting at Time headquarters, where Chambers decided he should nevertheless resign. (Less than two weeks later, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Hiss on two counts of perjury, which turned into two trials that ended with sentencing in January 1950.) When Chambers sought his advice on picking counsel in New York City during the Hiss trials, Medina received a call from congressional representative Richard M. Nixon. Nixon told Medina that Kodak had found that the microfilm from the "Pumpkin Papers" did not exist until 1945 (and not in 1938), the date of Chambers' microfilm. Chambers attempted suicide that evening, failed, and then learned from Kodak next morning that they had made an error: Kodak had merely discontinued production of that kind of microfilm during WWII.

Time v. Hill case In 1967, Medina won a 5-to-4 US Supreme Court vote on Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374, in a suit brought by a family that claimed invasion of privacy based on portrayal of family members in a review of the 1955 Broadway play, The Desperate Hours. He argued that "articles or broadcasts that give a false impression of a person do not constitute an invasion of privacy unless the falsehood is published deliberately or recklessly", thus extending constitutional protections of the press.

Personal and death Medina married Janet Williams. They had three children, Harold R. Medina III, Robert Medina and Ann Medina Welch.

He died from lung cancer on February 17, 1991, at home in Village of Golf, Florida, at the age of 78. His father had died eleven months earlier at the age of 102.