Born in Manhattan, New York City, on November 23, 1929,[1] Keenan graduated from Regis High School in 1947.
[2] He was an assistant district attorney in charge of Supreme Court Bureau of New York County from 1968 to 1969.
[4][6][5] His rulings include authorizing the publication of Jeffrey Toobin's Opening Arguments, an account of the Iran–Contra affair, over the objections and threat of prosecution by Lawrence E. Walsh;[7] managing the delivery of medical relief funds to India following the Union Carbide Corporation gas plant disaster in Bhopal[8] and dismissing attempts to sue Union Carbide in U.S. courts rather than in India;[9] denying a gay Irish group the right to hold its own march on the same day as the city's St. Patrick's Day parade in 1995, determining that the city's claims that it would pose a safety hazard trumped the group's First Amendment claims.
[13] This sentence was overturned on October 24, 2011, at which time the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in favor of Banki reversing the sanctions charges against him.
[14] Appellate court ruled that Judge John F. Keenan had erred at trial; in denying Banki's defense request to instruct the jury on the law that specifically exempts family money as an exception to the sanctions law, permitting such transfers without the need for a license.
The final appellate court brief stated: "Banki's conviction [on the sanctions charges] cannot stand".