William Kunstler

For more information on William Moses Kunstler, visit Britannica.com.

William Kunstler (1919-1995) was one of the best known civil rights attorneys in the United States. His most famous trial was his defense of the Chicago Seven who were charged with conspiracy to commita riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

William Kunstler was one of the country's best known and most reviled radical lawyers, defending clients whom most attorneys shunned. He was revered by supporters and condemned by critics. His clients included civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., mafia don John Gotti, and a terrorist accused in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. Kunstler's most famous trial was the one in which seven people - the Chicago Seven, as they came to be known - were charged with conspiracy to commit a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Kunstler was born in New York City, the son of a proctologist, Monroe Bradford Kunstler, and Frances Mandelbaum Kunstler. Kunstler had one brother, Michael, and one sister, Mary. He was married twice and had four children from the two marriages. His first marriage to Lotte Rosenberger ended in divorce in the mid-1970s. They had two daughters, Karin and Jane. Kunstler blamed the breakup on his long periods away from home defending civil rights causes around the country. His second marriage was to Margaret Ratner; they also had two daughters, Sarah and Emily. Kunstler graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School Manhattan Annex in New York and later from Yale University. After serving in the army in World War II, during which he saw limited combat in the Philippines, Kunstler came home and enrolled in Columbia Law School, and graduated in 1948. After he passed the bar, Kunstler and his brother, Michael, opened a family law firm of Kunstler & Kunstler. In the early 1950s, Kunstler taught law at the New York Law School.

Kunstler's career changed dramatically in 1956 when he represented a black journalist, William Worthy Jr., who was arrested because he didn't have a passport when he returned from a trip to Cuba. Kunstler successfully argued that the law was archaic and unconstitutional and the case was dismissed in 1961. Kunstler said in his book, My Life as a Radical Attorney, that this was the case that launched his career as a civil rights attorney. In his summation before the U.S. Court of Appeals, Kunstler would create one of his trademarks: reciting poetry at the start of his summations. In that trial, Kunstler opened his closing argument with a line from Sir Walter Scott's The Lay of The Last Minstrel: "Breathes there the man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said,/ this is my own, my native land." In addition to his unorthodox antics, Kunstler had a colorful appearance in court. His craggy face was accentuated by a raspy voice, unkept hair, and eyeglasses which were always perched on the top of his head. Critics called Kunstler a showboat and a publicity seeker. "To some extent that has a ring of truth," Kunstler said in an interview with David Margolick, special writer for the New York Times. "I enjoy the spotlight, as most humans do, but it's not my whole raison d'etre. My purpose is to keep the state from becoming all domineering, all powerful. And that's never changed."

After the Worthy case, Kunstler ended up spending a lot of time in the southern United States, representing Freedom Riders arrested on breach of peace and disorderly conduct charges for staging civil rights protests in places like Birmingham, Alabama, and Biloxi, Mississippi. Kunstler even marched in some of the protests. "The sixties was my time of transformation. During this period and into the 1970s I changed from a liberal into a radical," Kunstler wrote in My Life as a Radical Attorney. "I metamorphosed. As the movement expanded from civil rights to Black Power, from protest to militant dissent, I took almost all political cases that came my way." And when politics dissolved altogether, Kunstler was left "with celebrity socio-paths or just plain celebrities. By the end, he wasn't at the action, he was the action," a New Yorker magazine writer commented after his death.

Many of Kunstler's clients, though, were African American, some charged with murdering police or other high profile crimes, which made Kunstler unpopular with some segments of society. "For more than 20 years, my representation of Black defendants has been motivated by one of my strongest beliefs: That our society is racist," Kunstler wrote in his autobiography. It was during the social protests in the South that Kunstler represented Martin Luther King, Jr. on civil rights issues. Then in the late 1960s he became involved with the trial of the Chicago Seven, as the defendants came to be known.

The suspects had come to the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago to protest the war in Vietnam. The proceedings were interrupted repeatedly by confrontations between Kunstler and U.S. District Court Judge Julius Jennings Hoffman. Courtroom decorum suffered as the defendants, Kunstler, and other lawyers battled with Hoffman, who seemingly lost control of the proceedings on occasions. One defendant, Abbie Hoffman (no relation to Judge Hoffman) would do handstands on his way into court, or pole vault over a court railing. Another defendant, Bobby Seale, who was national chair of the Black Panthers, at one point during the trial was ordered by Judge Hoffman to be gagged, chained, and bound to the counsel table. Kunstler, in his book, My Life as a Radical Lawyer, wrote this about Judge Hoffman: "He reminded me [more] of the Queen in Alice in Wonderland with her cries, 'Off with their heads,' than a dignified judicial figure." All defendants were acquitted of the most serious charge of conspiracy to incite a riot. Five were convicted of lesser charges, but those were dismissed on appeal. While the jury was deliberating the fate of the Chicago Seven, Hoffman found Kunstler guilty of 24 counts of contempt of court, one for each time the judge thought Kunstler showed disrespect and rudeness during the five-month trial, and sentenced Kunstler to four years and 13 days in prison. The charges were reversed two years later by the U.S. Court of Appeals, which ordered a new trial for Kunstler. Kunstler was convicted of two counts of contempt, but was not sentenced to prison.

Following the Chicago Seven trial, Kunstler said he felt he would sink into oblivion. But he was soon back in the national news in 1971 when rioting broke out at Attica State Prison in New York. Thirty-nine prisoners were massacred during five days of rioting, which Kunstler said was precipitated by inhumane treatment. Kunstler was called in as an intermediary and later filed lawsuits on behalf of prisoners.

Kunstler had often been the target of abuse because of the clients he represented, but nothing compared to the threats and harassments he received for representing Islamic clients in 1993 and 1994. Kunstler, who was Jewish, was considered a traitor by some. One of his clients, El Sayyida A. Nossair, was charged with murdering Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the militant Jewish Defense League and Israel's anti-Arab Kach party. A jury in New York City found Nossair innocent of the murder charge. During the trial, pickets paraded in front of Kunstler's home in Greenwich Village in Manhattan and windows were broken. Threats were also made over the phone when he represented Nossair's cousin, Ibrahim A. Elgabrowny, in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Kunstler, who became enamored with poetry while at Yale University, had many of his poems published. One of his last works was one entitled "When The Cheering Stopped;" it dealt with the arrest of former football star O. J. Simpson on charges that he murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and a friend, Ronald Goldman. "I was struck with the paradox of how quickly a sports idol can be caught up in a tragedy of immense proportions," Kunstler was quoted as saying in a Harpers ' magazine article. "Of one thing I am certain, this will not be my last sonnet about the matter." Kunstler died seven months later on September 4, 1995, in New York City, one month before Simpson was acquitted.

Months after Kunstler's death, supporters - as well as one vocal detractor - showed up at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City in his honor. Friends and clients, including poets Amiri Baraka and Allen Ginsberg, civil rights leader Betty Shabazz, and Chicago Seven alumnus Bobby Seale, united with Kunstler's family members to share their memories of the flamboyant attorney. The New York Times quoted author Jimmy Breslin as saying, "Dying is no big deal; the least of us can manage that. The trick is how you live, and Mr. Bill Kunstler lived. He lived with a searing pace, a furious energy, and overwhelming love of right and dislike of wrong."

Further Reading

Kunstler, William M., My Life As A Radical Lawyer, Carol Publishing Group, 1994.

Harper's, February 1995, p. 28.

Nation, March 25, 1991, p. 364.

New Yorker, September 18, 1995, p. 39.

New York Times, September 5, 1995, p. B6; September 18, 1995; July 5, 1993; November 20, 1995, p. B11.

USA Today, September 5, 1995, p. 3A.

Washington Post, September 5, 1995, p. B4.

Associated Press wire service, September 5, 1995.

William Moses Kunstler rose to prominence during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. He represented Freedom Riders, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Chicago Eight. Politics and the law are inseparable in his philosophy. He was the author of twelve books, a sometime Hollywood actor, and a cofounder of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in Tennessee.

Even as a child, Kunstler liked trouble. He was born July 7, 1919, in New York City, the eldest of three children of Frances Mandelbaum and Monroe B. Kunstler, a physician. Ignoring schoolwork to run with a street gang called the Red Devils, he worried his conservative Jewish family. He read voraciously on his own, and by high school became a straight A student. At Yale, he majored in French and wrote his senior thesis on the satirist Moli;agere. Then he joined the Army and served in World War II as a cryptographer, taking part in General Douglas MacArthur's invasion of the Philippines, earning the Iron Cross, and rising to the rank of major. Afterward, he entered Columbia Law School, mainly to compete with his younger brother, Michael Kunstler.

Kunstler and his brother opened a law practice in 1949. The mundane work bored Kunstler, who wanted more challenge than handling annulments and divorces. He kept busy writing a book on corporate tax law, contributing to the New York Times Book Review, teaching at New York Law School, and hosting radio shows whose eclectic guest lists covered personalities ranging from Eleanor Roosevelt to Malcolm X.

In the mid-1950s, Kunstler successfully represented a local leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People who had been denied housing because he was black. In 1956 a black journalist had his passport confiscated for violating a national ban on travel to China; he was later arrested on return from Cuba for entering the United States without a passport—in violation of an old federal statute. Kunstler persuaded an appellate court to find the statute unconstitutional. The case had been referred to him by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and a bigger assignment would soon be on the way. Meanwhile, he wrote Beyond a Reasonable Doubt? (1961) about the 1960 conviction and execution of Caryl Chessman, a case that had provoked international outrage.

In 1961 the ACLU sent Kunstler to Jackson, Mississippi, where civil rights workers were being abused by southern police officers and the courts. Known as the Freedom Riders, these young white and black people tried to force integration by riding interstate buses, flouting segregation laws. Beatings awaited them, followed by arrests and quick convictions for disturbing the peace. Kunstler found only hostility in courtrooms throughout the state. He lost case after case. He asked Mississippi governor Ross Barnett for help, but Barnett only lectured him on the need for segregation. Then Kunstler and a fellow attorney, William Higgs, devised an ingenious strategy: discovering an 1866 law designed to protect ex-slaves, they used it to have the cases of civil rights workers removed from state courts and heard by federal judges. The law also mandated that federal courts grant the defendants bail, something Mississippi refused to do.

The civil rights movement lived, prospered, and changed Kunstler's life. He helped found the Center for Constitutional Rights in Nashville, and with its resources, he was so ubiquitous in representing the new leadership that his motto became Have Brief, Will Travel. He defended Stokely Carmichael, president of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, against sedition charges. He represented leaders of the Black Panthers. But it was his involvement with another prominent black radical, Hubert Geroid Brown—better known as H. Rap Brown—that led him to a new crossroads. Brown's heated speeches around the country struck fear into Congress, which passed in 1968 the so-called Rap Brown statute (18 U.S.C.A. §2101). The law made it illegal to cross state lines with the intention of inciting a riot. Kunstler saw it as an attempt to crush free speech.

The Rap Brown law created Kunstler's breakthrough case, making him a hero to young people and a virtual outlaw to the legal establishment. In this case, he defended the Chicago Eight, a group of antiwar leaders charged with conspiracy after the Chicago police cracked down on protesters outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Among the Eight were Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, Students for a Democratic Society leader Tom Hayden, and Black Panther party cofounder Bobbie Seale. The trial drew national attention, divided public opinion, and often thrilled with its circus atmosphere. Kunstler argued ferociously in court with Judge Julius J. Hoffman, especially after the judge ordered Seale to be gagged and bound to a chair.

After the jury's near-total acquittal of the defendants, Judge Hoffman slapped each defendant with a contempt-of-court sentence. He reserved the most serious punishment for Kunstler, giving the attorney four years and thirteen days in prison for twenty-four counts of contempt. However, this sentence and the sentences of the defendants were all overturned by an appellate court. Kunstler also managed to escape the wrath of the New York bar association, which ultimately dropped its bid to discipline him.

The era of protest that helped create Kunstler's politics came to a close in the early 1970s, but not without a last great upheaval. In 1972 and 1973, leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM) occupied the historic town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in protest of the U.S. government's long practice of ignoring treaties and its hostility toward Native Americans. Kunstler was at the barricades during the seventy-one-day siege, and later he was in court to defend AIM leader Russell Means. He also represented Native American activist Leonard Peltier through fifteen years of litigation.

In the 1980s and 1990s, he represented reputed Mafia bosses, an accused murderer of police officers, one of the so-called Central Park rapists, a youth shot by vigilante Bernhard Goetz, a convicted Atlanta child murderer, and more. He became involved in the cases of defendants accused of plotting to blow up the World Trade Center in New York, as well as the case of Colin Ferguson, a Jamaican immigrant accused of killing six white commuters and wounding nineteen on the Long Island Railroad in 1993. Kunstler's proposed "black rage" defense of Ferguson—in short, that racism could drive a person to murder—provoked a fierce backlash from many critics, including Kunstler's frequent nemesis the attorney Alan M. Dershowitz.

At the age of seventy-six, Kunstler still reportedly worked fourteen-hour days in his home. Assisted by his partner, attorney Ron Kuby, he took most of his cases for free. He also did a bit of acting, appearing as a fire-breathing judge in director Spike Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X. In 1994 he published his twelfth book, My Life as a Radical Lawyer, in which he held to his belief that a revolution is still inevitable.

Kunstler died on September 4, 1995, at the age of seventy-six, of heart failure. Ron Kuby, his longtime law partner, vowed to continue doing free legal work in their firm, Kunstler & Kuby. Similarly, friends and family established the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice as a memorial.

William Kunstler, circa 1989

William Moses Kunstler (July 7, 1919 - September 4, 1995) was an American self-described "radical lawyer" and civil rights activist, known for his controversial clients. Kunstler was a director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the co-founder of the Law Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the "leading gathering place for radical lawyers in the country".^[1]

Kunstler's successful defense of the "Chicago Seven" made him the most famous and controversial lawyer in the United States.^[1] Kunstler is also well-known for his frequent defense of members of the Catonsville Nine, Black Panther Party, Weather Underground Organization, the Attica Prison rioters, and the American Indian Movement.^[1] He also won a de facto segregation case regard the District of Columbia's public schools and "disinterred, singlehandedly" the concept of federal removal jurisdiction in the 1960s.^[1] Kunstler refused to defend right-wing groups like the Minutemen, on the grounds that: "I only defend those whose goals I share. I'm not a lawyer for hire. I only defend those I love".^[1]

He was a polarizing figure: many on the right wished to see him disbarred; many of the left admired him as a "symbol of a certain kind of radical lawyer".^[1] Even some other civil rights lawyers regarded Kunstler as a "publicity hound and a hit-and-run lawyer" who "brings cases on Page 1 and the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund, Inc. wins them on Page 68".^[1] Legal writer Sidney Zion quipped that Kunstler was "one of the few lawyers in town who knows how to talk to the press. His stories always check out and he's not afraid to talk to you, and he's got credibility—although you've got to ask sometimes, 'Bill, is it really true?'".^[1]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Civil rights career 2.1 Rise to prominence (1957-1964) 2.2 ACLU director (1964-1972) 2.3 "Chicago Seven" (1969-1972) 2.4 American Indian Movement (1973-1976) 2.5 Attica (1974-1976) 2.6 Assata Shakur (1977) 2.7 Collaboration with Kuby (1983-1995) 3 Other work 4 Death and legacy 5 List of books 6 Pop culture references 7 Notes 8 External links

Early life

The son of a physician, Kunstler was born in New York City and attended DeWitt Clinton High School.^[2] He was educated at Yale College, graduating Phi Beta Kappa,^[3] and Columbia University Law School. While in school, Kunstler was an avid poet, and represented Yale in the Glascock Prize competition at Mount Holyoke College.

Kunstler served in the U.S. Army during World War II in the Pacific theater, attaining the rank of Major, and received the Bronze Star. While in the army, he was noted for his theatric portrayals in the Fort Monmouth Dramatic Association.^[3] He was admitted to the bar in New York in 1948 and began practicing law. Kunstler went through R.H. Macy's executive training program in the late 1940s and practiced family and small business law in the 1950s before entering civil rights litigation in the 1960s.^[1] He was an associate professor of law at New York Law School (1950-1951).

Kunstler won honorable mention for the National Legal Aid Association's press award in 1957 for his series of radio broadcasts on WNEW: "The Law on Trial".^[4] At WNEW, Kunstler also conducted interviews on controversial topics, such as the Alger Hiss case, on a program called "Counterpoint".^[5]

Civil rights career

Rise to prominence (1957-1964)

Kunstler first made headlines in 1957 defending William Worthy, a correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American, who was one of forty-two Americans who had their passports seized after violating the State Department's travel ban on Communist China (after attending a Communist youth conference in Moscow).^[6] Kunstler refused a State Department compromise which would have returned Worthy's passport if he agreed to cease visiting Communist countries, a condition Worthy considered unconstitutional.^[7]

Kunstler played an important role as a civil rights lawyer in the 1960s, traveling to many of the segregated battlegrounds to work to free those who had been jailed. Working on behalf of the ACLU, Kunstler defended the "Freedom Riders" in Mississippi in 1961.^[8] Kunstler filed for a writ of habeas corpus with Sidney Mize, a federal judge in Biloxi, and appealed to the Fifth Circuit; he also filed similar pleas in state courts.^[8] Judge Leon Hendrick in Hinds County refused Kunstler's motion to cancel the mass appearance (involving hundreds of miles of travel) of all 187 convicted riders.^[9] The riders were convicted in a bench trial in Jackson city and appealed to a county jury trial, where Kunstler argued that the county systematically discriminated against African-American jurors.^[10]

In 1962, Kunstler took part in efforts to integrate public parks and libraries in Albany, Georgia.^[11] Later that year, he published The Case for Courage (modeled on President Kennedy's Profiles in Courage) highlighting the efforts of other lawyers who risked their careers for controversial clients as well as similar acts by public servants.^[12] At the time of the publication, Kunstler was already well-known for his work with the Freedom Riders, his book on the Caryl Chessman case, and his radio coverage of trials.^[12] Kunstler also joined a group of lawyers criticizing the application of Alabama's civil libel laws and spoke at a rally against HUAC.^[13][14]

Kunstler represented the first Title IX federal removal cases under the Civil Rights Act of 1964: protestors at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

In 1963, for the Gandhi Society of New York, Kunstler filed to remove the cases of more than 100 arrested African-American demonstrators from the Danville Corporation Court to the Charlottesville District Court, under a Reconstruction Era statute.^[15] Although the district judge remanded the cases to city court, he dissolved the city's injunction against demonstrations.^[15] In doing so, Judge Thomas J. Michie rejected a Justice Department amicus curiae brief urging the removal to create a test case for the statute.^[15] Kunstler appealed to the Fourth Circuit.^[15] That year Kunstler also sued public housing authorities in Westchester County.^[16]

In 1964, Kunstler defended a group of four accused of kidnapping a white couple, and succeeded in getting the alleged weapons thrown out of evidence, as they could not be positively identified as ones used.^[17] That year he also challenged Mississippi's unpledged elector law as well as racial segregation in primary elections; he also defended three members of the Blood Brothers, a Harlem gang, charged with murder.^[18][19]

Kunstler went to St. Augustine, Florida in 1964 during the demonstrations led by Dr. Martin Luther King and Dr. Robert B. Hayling that resulted in the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Kunstler himself brought the first federal case under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which allowed the removal of cases from county court to be appealed; the defendants were protestors at the 1964 New York World's Fair.^[20]

ACLU director (1964-1972)

He was a director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1964 to 1972, when he became a member of the ACLU National Council. In 1969 he cofounded the Center for Constitutional Rights. Kunstler also worked with the National Lawyers Guild.

In 1965, Kunstler's firm Kunstler, Kunstler, and Kinoy was asked to defend Jack Ruby by his brother Earl, but dropped the case because they "did not wish to be in a situation where we have to fight to get into the case".^[21][22] Ruby was eventually permitted to replace his original defense team with Kunster,^[23][24] who got him a new trial.^[25] In 1966, he also defended an arsonist who burned down a Jewish Community Center, killing twelve, because he was not provided a lawyer before he signed a confession.^[26]

Kunstler's other notable clients include: Salvador Agron, H. Rap Brown,^{[27][28][29][30]} Lenny Bruce,^[31] Stokely Carmichael,^[1] the Catonsville Nine,^[32] Angela Davis, Larry Davis, Gregory Lee Johnson, Martin Luther King,^[1] Gary McGivern, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.,^[33] Filiberto Ojeda Rios, Assata Shakur, Lemuel Smith,^[34] Morton Sobell,^[35] Wayne Williams, and Michael X.

"Chicago Seven" (1969-1972)

Kunstler's defense of the "Chicago Seven" gained him national fame and infamy.

Kunstler gained national renown for defending the "Chicago Seven" (originally "Chicago Eight"), in a five month trial in 1969-1970, against charges of conspiring to incite riots in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.^[36] Under cross-examination, Kunstler got a key police witness to contradict his previous testimony and admit that he had not witnessed Jerry Rubin, but had rather been given his name two weeks later by the FBI.^[37] Another prosecution witness, photographer Louis Salzberg, admitted under Kunstler's cross-examination that he was still on the payroll of the FBI.^[38]

The trial was marked by frequent clashes between Kunstler and U.S. Attorney Thomas Foran, with Kunstler taking the opportunity to accuse the government of failing to "realize the extent of antiwar sentiment".^[39] Kunstler also sparred with Judge Julius Hoffman, on one occasion remarking (with respect to the number of federal marshals): "this courtroom has the appearance of an armed camp. I would note that the Supreme Court has ruled that the appearance of an armed camp is a reversible error".^[40] During one heated exchange, Kunstler informed Hoffman that his entry on "Who's Who" was three times longer than the judges, to which the judge replied "I hope you get a better obituary".^[34] Kunstler and co-defense attorney Leonard Weinglass were cited for contempt (the convictions were later overturned, unanimously, by the Seventh Circuit).^[36] If Hoffman's contempt conviction had been allowed to stand, Kunstler would have been imprisoned for an unprecedented four years.^[1][41]

The progress of the trial—which had many aspects of guerrilla theatre--was covered on the nightly news and made Kunstler the best-known lawyer in the country, and something of a folk hero.^[1] After much deadlock, the jury acquitted all seven on the conspiracy charge, but convicted five of violating the Federal Antiriot Act.^[42] The Seventh Circuit overturned all the convictions on November 21, 1972 due to Hoffman's refusal to let defense lawyers question the prospective jurors on racial and cultural biases; the Justice Department did not retry the case.

American Indian Movement (1973-1976)

Kunstler defended AIM member Russell Means for his involvement in the Wounded Knee incident.

Kunstler arrived in Pine Ridge, South Dakota on Mach 4, 1973 to draw up the demands of the American Indian Movement (AIM) members involved in the Wounded Knee incident.^[43] Kunstler, who headed the defense, called the trial "the most important Indian trial of the 20th century", attempting to center the defense on the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868).^[44] Kunstler's team represented Russell Means and Dennis Banks, two of the leaders of the occupation.^[45]

Kunstler objected to the heavy trial security on the grounds that it could prejudice the jury and Judge Fred J. Nichol agreed to ease measures.^[45] The trial was moved to Minnesota.^[46] Two authors and three Sioux were called as defense witnesses, mostly focusing on the historical (and non-so-historical) injustice against the Sioux on the part of the U.S. government, shocking the prosecution.^[47]

In 1975, Kunstler again defended AIM members in the slaying of two FBI agents at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, not far from the site of the Wounded Knee incident.^[48] At the trial in 1976, Kunstler subpoenaed prominent government officials to testify about the existence of a Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) against Native American activists.^[49] District Judge Edward J. McManus approved Kunstler's attempt to subpoena FBI director Clarence M. Kelley.^[50]

Kunstler also defended a Native American woman who refused to send her daughter with muscular distrophy to school.^[51]

Attica (1974-1976)

In 1974-1975, Kunstler defended a prisoner charged with killing a guard during the Attica Prison riot.^[52] Under cross-examination, Kunstler forced Correction Officer Donald Melven to retract his sworn identification of John Hill, Kunstler's client, and Charles Pernasilice (defended by Richard Miller), admitting he still retained "slight" doubts that he confessed to investigators at the time of the incident.^[53] Kunstler focused on pointing out that all the other prosecution witnesses were testifying under reduced-sentencing agreements and called five prison inmates as defense witnesses (Miller called none), who testified that other prisoners hit the guard.^[54]

Despite Justice King's repeated warnings to Kunstler to "be careful, sir", Kunstler quickly became "the star of the trial, the man the jurors watch most attentively, and the lawyer whose voice carries most forcefully".^[55] Although the prosecution was careful to avoid personal confrontation with Kunstler, who frequently charmed the jury with jokes, on one instance Kunstler provoked a shouting match with the lead prosecutor, allegedly to wake up a sleeping jury member.^[55] The jury convicted Hill of murder and Pernasilice of attempted assault.^[54] When Kunstler protested that the defendants would risk being murdered due to the judges remanding them, King threatened to send Kunstler with them.^[54] NY Governor Cary granted executive clemency to Hill and the other inmates in 1976, even though Hill's name was not on the recommended list of pardons delivered to the governor and his appeals were still pending.^[56]

In June, Kunstler and Barbara Handshu, representing another inmate at Attica, Mariano Gonzales, asked for a new hearing on the role of FBI informant Mary Jo Cook.^[57]

Assata Shakur (1977)

Kunstler joined the defense staff of Assata Shakur in 1977, charged in New Jersey with a variety of felonies in connection with a 1973 shootout with New Jersey State Troopers.^[58]

Collaboration with Kuby (1983-1995)

Kunstler was defending Omar Abdel-Rahman ("the Blind Sheik") for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing at the time of his death.

Promotional poster for William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe

From 1983 until Kunstler's death in 1995, he employed future radio personality Ron Kuby as a junior partner. The two took on controversial civil rights and criminal cases, including cases where they represented Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, head of the Egyptian-based terrorist group Gama'a al-Islamiyah, responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Colin Ferguson, the man responsible for the LIRR shootings, who would later reject Kuby & Kunstler's legal counsel and choose to represent himself at trial; Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, accused of plotting to murder Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam; Glenn Harris, a New York public school teacher who absconded with a fifteen-year-old girl for two months; Nico Minardos, a flamboyant actor indicted by Rudy Giuliani for conspiracy to ship arms to Iran; Darrell Cabey, one of the persons who assaulted Bernard Goetz; and associates of the Gambino crime family.

Kunstler's defense of the three clerics made him "more visible, more venerated, more vilified than ever".^[31]

During the first Gulf War, they represented dozens of American soldiers who refused to fight and claimed conscientious objector status. They also represented El-Sayyid Nosair, the assassin of the late Jewish leader Rabbi Meir Kahane.

Other work

In 1979, Kunstler represented Marvin Barnes, an NBA player, with past legal troubles and league discipline problems.^[59]

During the 1994-95 television season, Kunstler starred as himself in an episode of Law & Order titled "White Rabbit". It was based on the 1971 shooting of a policeman in connection with the robbery of a Boston Brinks truck by members of the Weatherman Underground.

Death and legacy

In late 1995, Kunstler died in New York of heart failure at the age of 76. In his last major public appearance, at the commencement ceremonies for the University at Buffalo's School of Architecture and Planning, Kunstler lambasted the death penalty, saying, "We have become the charnel house of the Western world with reference to executions; the next closest to us is the Republic of South Africa."

William Kunstler was survived by his wife Margaret Ratner Kunstler and daughters Karin Kunstler Goldman, Jane Drazek, Sarah Kunstler and Emily Kunstler and grandchildren Jessica Goldman, Daniel Goldman and Andrew Drazek. Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler have recently completed a documentary about their father entitled William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe which had its world premiere screening as part of the Documentary Competition of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

List of books

• Our Pleasant Voices, 1941
• The Law of Accidents, 1954
• First Degree, 1960
• Beyond a Reasonable Doubt? The Original Trial of Caryl Chessman, 1961 & 1973
• The Case for Courage: The Stories of Ten Famous American Attorneys Who Risked Their Careers in the Cause of Justice, 1962
• And Justice For All, 1963
• The Minister and the Choir Singer: The Hall-Mills Murder Case, 1964 & 1980
• Deep in My Heart, 1966
• Trials and Tribulations, 1985
• My Life as a Radical Lawyer, 1994
• Hints & Allegation: The World (In Poetry and Prose), 1994
• Politics on Trial: Five Famous Trials of the 20th Century, 2002
• The Emerging Police State: Resisting Illegitimate Authority, 2004

Pop culture references

• In the film The Big Lebowski, Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (played by Jeff Bridges) demands representation by Kunstler or Ron Kuby during the Malibu Police Station scene.
• Kunstler also appeared as himself for one episode of the television series Law & Order in the 1994 episode of "White Rabbit".
• Kunstler also appeared as a lawyer for Jim Morrison in The Doors (Oliver Stone, 1991) and as a judge in Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992).
• Kunstler was parodied as an attorney representing R. Kelly during his trial for ‘soliciting a minor’ and/or ‘sex with a minor’ on the animated comedy series The Boondocks.
• In the 1996 Law & Order episode "Blood Libel", Jack McCoy says, "He's a political prisoner? Alice please, Bill Kunstler is spinning in his grave."
• Chicago 10, an animated documentary covering the trial of the Chicago Seven, includes original footage of Kunstler, and he is featured prominently in the animated reenactments.
• According to Lionel Shriver, the character of Joel Litvinoff in Zoë Heller's 2008 novel The Believers may be modelled on Kunstler. ^[1]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} Victor S. Navasky. 1970, April 19. "Right On! With Lawyer William Kunstler". New York Times. p. 217. "William Kunstler is without doubt the country's most controversial and, perhaps, its best-known lawyer period".
2. ^ Langum, David J. "William M. Kunstler: the most hated lawyer in America", p. 25. New York University Press, 1999. ISBN 0814751504. "Kunstler attended DeWitt Clinton High School at its annex on West End Avenue."
3. ^ ^{a b} Brooks Atkinson. 1941, December 21. "Acting on the Camp Grounds". New York Times. p. X1.
4. ^ Warren Weaver. 1957. "Public Defender in State Opposed". New York Times. p. 53.
5. ^ Jack Gould. 1957, July 15. "TV-Radio: 2 New Comics". New York Times. p. 41.
6. ^ Dana Adams Schmidt. 1957, September 19. "U.S. Youths in China Will Lose Passports". New York Times. p. 1.
7. ^ New York Times. 1957, December 30. "Reporter Rejects Passport Condition". p. 35.
8. ^ ^{a b} New York Times. 1961, July 22. "New Challenges Made". p. 46.
9. ^ New York Times. 1961, August 11. "Riders Lose Appeal". p. 45.
10. ^ New York Times. 1961, August 23. "Jury List Scored in Trial of Rider". p. 31.
11. ^ Hendrick Smith. 1962, August 12. "Albany, Ga., Closes and Parks and Libraries To Balk Integration". New York Times. p. 1.
12. ^ ^{a b} Alan F. Westin. 1961, October 14. "Counsel for the Defense Was on Trial Too". New York Times. p. 283.
13. ^ Leonard E. Ryan. 1964, October 14. "Suits in Alabama Stir New Protest". New York Times. p. 74.
14. ^ New York Times. 1962, October 24. "Display Ad 61--No Title". p. 9.
15. ^ ^{a b c d} Ben A. Franklin. 1963, July 12. "Dr. King Steps Up Danville Protest". New York Times. p. 8.
16. ^ New York Times. 1963, October 26. "'Westchester Suit' Scores Rent Aid". p. 41.
17. ^ New York Times. 1964, February 27. "State Rests Case in Kidnapping Trial". p. 20.
18. ^ Claude Sittons. 1964, June 20. "U.S. Official Warns Mississippi-Bound Students". New York Times. p. 12.
19. ^ New York Times. 1964, July 2. "Writ Denied 3 Boys Indicted in Murder". p. 26.
20. ^ Alfred E. Clark. 1964, August 27. "U.S. Judge to Hear Rights Case Here". New York Times. p. 37.
21. ^ Alfred E. Clark. 1965, February 13. "Law Firm Here Steps Out of Ruby Case". New York Times. p. 50.
22. ^ New York Times. 1965, February 18. "Ruby Family Bid Ignored by Texas Appeals Court". p. 26.
23. ^ New York Times. 1966, February 27. "Jack Ruby Draws and Colors to While Away Time in Jail". p. 72.
24. ^ Martin Waldron. 1966, June 14. "Ruby Ruled Sane by a Texas Jury". New York Times. p. 27.
25. ^ New York Times. 1967, April 30. "Tennessee Teacher Wins Support in Evolution Case". p. 68.
26. ^ New York Times. 1966, February 20. "Youth Held For Grand Jury in Yonkers Center Fire". p. 47.
27. ^ New York Times. 1967, August 26. "Judge Lets Brown Leave Jurisdiction to Make Speeches". p. 23.
28. ^ New York Times. 1967, September 17. "A Hearing is Set on Bond for Brown". p. 60.
29. ^ New York Times. 1967, October 5. "Brown Asks Appeals Court to Ease Curbs on Travel". p. 30.
30. ^ New York Times. 1971, March 20. "Rap Brown Case to be Reviewed". p. 23.
31. ^ ^{a b} David Margolick. 1993, July 6. "Still Radical After All These Years". New York Times. p. B1.
32. ^ Sidney E. Zion. 1968, October 13. "Law". New York Times. p. E8.
33. ^ Homer Bigart. 1967, July 22. "Powell Remains in Island Exile". New York Times. p. 10.
34. ^ ^{a b} David Stout. 1995, September 5. "William Kunstler, 76, Dies; Lawyer for Social Outcasts". New York Times. p. A1.
35. ^ Sidney E. Zion. 1966, September 13. "Handwriting Expert Casts Doubt on Evidence Used Against Sobell. New York Times. p. 31.
36. ^ ^{a b} New York Times. 1972, May 14. "A Judge Judged". p. E5.
37. ^ Seth S. Kings. "'Chicago 8' Man Accused of Urging Attack on Police. New York Times. p. 27.
38. ^ John Kifner. 1969, October 24. "F.B.I. Paid 'Friend' of the 'Chicago 8'". New York Times. p. 28.
39. ^ Seth Kings. 1969, October 15. "'Chicago 8' Denied Moratorium Day". New York Times. p. 15.
40. ^ Seth S. Kings. 1969, October 17. "Chicago 8 Lawyer Sees A Conviction". New York Times. p. 25.
41. ^ New York Times. 1970, February 22. "Judge Hoffman and the Contempt Weapon". New York Times. p. E2.
42. ^ John Kifner. 1970, December 4. "Hoffman Recalls 2 Jury Messages". New York Times. p. 35.
43. ^ New York Times. 1973, March 5. "Indians Get Offer on Ending Seizure". p. 26.
44. ^ Martin Waldron. 1974, January 8. "Judge Defers Ruling on Treaty for First Wounded Knee Trial". New York Times. p. 11.
45. ^ ^{a b} Martin Waldrons. 1974, January 27. "Security Eased At Indians' Trial". New York Times. p. 47.
46. ^ Martin Waldrons. 1974, January 27. "Kunstler Works; Disbarment Effort Fails". New York Times. p. 32.
47. ^ Martin Waldrons. 1974, August 17. "2 Indians Summon Only 5 Witnesses". New York Times. p. 50.
48. ^ Grace Lichtenstein. 1975, June 28. "16 Sioux Sought by F.B.I. in Slaying of 2 Agents". New York Times. p. 59.
49. ^ New York Times. 1976, June 9. "Two Indians Go on Trial in Deaths of F.B.I. Agents". p. 16.
50. ^ Paul Delaney. 1976, June 7. "U.S. Judge Orders F.B.I. Chief to Testify at Trial of Two Indians". New York Times. p. 26.
51. ^ Kevin R. Reilly, 1975, December 14. "Indian is Fighting School Over Rights". New York Times. p. BQLI149.
52. ^ Tom Wicker. 1974, October 1. "Hindsight on Attica Won't Wash". New York Times. p. 41.
53. ^ Mary Breasted. 1975, February 28. "Attica Witness Has Some Doubts". New York Times. p. 38.
54. ^ ^{a b c} Michael T. Kaufman. 1975, April 6. "Attica Jury Convicts One of Murder, 2d of Assault". New York Times. p. 1.
55. ^ ^{a b} Mary Breasted. 1975, March 4. "Attica Drama Unfolds in Back Rows and Halls as well as on Stand". New York Times. p. 66.
56. ^ Tom Goldstein. 1976, December 31. "Governor Pardons 7 to 'Close the Book' on Attica Episode". New York Times. p. 31.
57. ^ Mary Breasted. 1975, June 10. "Attica Witness Tells of Slaying". New York Times. p. 80.
58. ^ Walter H. Waggoner. 1977, February 4. "Mrs. Chesimards' Defesnse Seeks to Change Site of Murder Trial". New York Times. p. 39.
59. ^ Jane Gross. 1979, June 8. "Barnes is Kunstler's New Cause". New York Times. p. A22.

External links

• A Remembrance of William Kunstler
• Kunstler's speech at the University of Buffalo
• Center for Constitutional Rights
• William Kunstler at imdb.com
• William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice

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