Born in
Waterbury,
Connecticut, Winter graduated from the
Taft School in 1953. He received his
Bachelor of Arts degree from
Yale University in 1957 and obtained his
Bachelor of Laws from
Yale Law School in 1960. He served as a
law clerk for Judge
Caleb Merrill Wright of the
United States District Court for the District of Delaware from 1960 to 1961 and as a law clerk for Judge
Thurgood Marshall of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1961 to 1962. He served as a faculty member at
Yale Law School from 1962 to 1982, as a research associate and lecturer from 1962 to 1964, as an assistant and associate professor from 1964 to 1968 and as a professor of law from 1968 to 1982. He was a consultant to the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1968 to 1972. He was a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution in
Washington, D.C., from 1968 to 1970. He was a
Guggenheim Fellow in Washington, D.C., from 1971 to 1972. He was an adjunct scholar at the
American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., from 1972 to 1981. He was a member of the Board of Trustees at
Brooklyn Law School. ==Federal judicial service==