Solomon "Sol" Wachtler (born April 29, 1930) is an American lawyer and Republican politician from New York. He was Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 1985 to 1992. Wachtler's most famous quote, made shortly after his appointment as Chief Judge, was that district attorneys could get grand juries to "indict a ham sandwich". He achieved national notoriety when he was charged with, and then convicted of, acts stemming from threats he made against a former lover, Joy Silverman, and her daughter. Upon conviction, Wachtler served thirteen months in prison and a half-way house. After his release, Wachtler became an author and critic, as well as an advocate for the mentally ill. Early life and education Wachtler was born in Brooklyn, New York but was mostly raised in the South due to the fact that his father, Phillip, was a traveling salesman. His mother, Faye, was an immigrant from Russia. Wachtler is Jewish. Wachtler graduated with both a B.A. and an LL.B. from Washington and Lee University. He served in the United States Army before moving to Great Neck, Long Island, near his wife's family, where he worked as an attorney. Career He began his political career in 1963, when he was first elected to be a councilman, then Town Supervisor of the Town of North Hempstead, New York. In 1968 after a failed bid for Nassau County executive Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller appointed him to the New York State Supreme Court. In 1972, he was elected to the New York Court of Appeals where he served for nearly 20 years and authored close to 400 opinions. In January 1985, Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo appointed him Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals. The same month as his appointment, Wachtler was quoted by the New York Daily News as saying that "district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that 'by and large' they could get them to 'indict a ham sandwich.'" This quote was then used by Tom Wolfe (and attributed to Wachtler) in Wolfe's 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, paraphrased into "a grand jury would 'indict a ham sandwich', if that's what you wanted." As of 2018, the "ham sandwich" phrase remains in common usage in legal discussions. Wachtler's 1975 decision in Chapadeau v. Utica Observer protected the right of the defendant newspaper (and by extension of the press in general)