In still another case involving media issues, Goddard signed a consent decree in 1940 ending the practice of block booking of motion pictures into theatres. In 1948, Goddard presided over the case of Danny Gardella, who challenged the antitrust exemption for major league baseball in a dispute arising from his attempt to return to the major leagues after having played a season in the Mexican League.[6]
In criminal matters, Goddard was best known as the judge who presided over the second perjury trial of Alger Hiss, in 1949 and 1950, after Hiss's earlier trial before Judge Samuel Kaufman resulted in a hung jury.[7][8] Goddard was more lenient in his evidentiary rulings than Kaufman had been, allowing both prosecutor Thomas Murphy and Hiss's counsel, Claude Cross, to elicit testimony that Kaufman had excluded, including the opinion of a psychiatrist who had examined the government's key witness, Whittaker Chambers.[9][10] Hiss was convicted at the second trial, and Goddard sentenced him to five years in federal prison. In 1952, Hiss moved for a retrial based on newly discovered evidence relating to the typewriter on which certain incriminating documents had been typed. Goddard denied the motion, finding that Hiss failed to establish that he would probably have been acquitted had the new evidence been presented to the jury.[11]
^Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp., 45 F.2d 119 (2d Cir. 1930); see Gerald Gunther, Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge (Alfred A. Knopf 1994), pp. 323-25. ISBN0-674-51880-2
^Sidis v. F-R Publishing Co., 34 F. Supp. 19 (S.D.N.Y. 1939), aff'd, 113 F.2d 806 (2d Cir. 1940).
^Gardella v. Chander, 79 F. Supp. 260 (S.D.N.Y. 1948), rev'd, 172 F.2d 402 (2d Cir. 1949). Goddard's position was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in Toolson v. New York Yankees, 346 U.S. 356 (1953).
^pg 183 - Steven M. Chermak, Frankie Y. Bailey (2007). Crimes and Trials of the Century: From the Black Sox scandal to the Attica prison riots (2007 ed.). Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 360. ISBN978-0-313-34110-6.
^Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. Random House. pp. 791fn. ISBN0-89526-571-0.
^United States v. Hiss, 88 F. Supp. 559 (S.D.N.Y. 1950).
^United States v. Hiss, 107 F. Supp. 128 (S.D.N.Y. 1952), aff'd, 201 F.2d 372 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 345 U.S. 942 (1953).