Robert B. McKay; Scholar on Constitutional Law

Robert B. McKay, 70, who headed the citizens’ blue-ribbon “McKay Commission” that investigated the 1971 Attica, N.Y., prison uprising. A scholar on constitutional law, McKay began teaching at New York University Law School in 1953 and was dean from 1967 through 1975. His commission investigated the bloodiest uprising in American prison history, which occurred at Attica in upstate New York on Sept. 13, 1971. Ten hostages and 32 inmates were killed, 39 of them in an assault by state police. The commission criticized prison authorities for having no plans to deal with riots and failing to have nonlethal weapons available, and criticized New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller for not going to the prison personally before ordering the armed assault. On July 13 in Reno, where he was to address the National Judicial College, of a heart attack.