William Kunstler
William Kunstler was a prominent civil rights attorney from New York City, born in 1919. He graduated from Yale University and Columbia Law School, and served in the Army during World War II, earning a Bronze Star. Kunstler gained recognition in the 1950s for his legal work, notably defending individuals facing government oppression due to their race or political beliefs. His high-profile cases included representing civil rights leaders, antiwar activists, and members of the Black Panther Party. Kunstler co-founded the Center for Constitutional Rights and served as a director of the American Civil Liberties Union. He became well-known for defending the Chicago Seven in a politically charged trial, where he faced contempt charges for his courtroom conduct. Despite the backlash he received for representing controversial clients, including Muslims, Kunstler is remembered for his passionate advocacy for justice and equality. He authored several books and passed away in 1995 at the age of seventy-six.
William Kunstler
- Born: July 7, 1919
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: September 4, 1995
- Place of death: New York, New York
Criminal and civil rights lawyer
Kunstler was an outspoken and zealous civil rights lawyer who defended unpopular defendants and controversial causes. He used his immense legal skills and uncanny ability to generate publicity to defend his clients by putting the prosecution and the American judicial system on trial.
Area of achievement: Law
Early Life
William Kunstler (KUHNST-lur) was born in New York City, the son of a proctologist, Monroe Bradford Kunstler, and Frances Mandelbaum. He had one brother, Michael, and one sister, Mary. Kunstler graduated from Yale University in 1941 and served in the Army in the Pacific during World War II, earning a Bronze Star. In 1948, after graduating from Columbia Law School, Kunstler and his brother opened a law firm. In the early 1950’s, Kunstler taught law at the New York Law School.
In the mid-1950’s, Kunstler successfully represented a local leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), who had been denied housing because he was black. Kunstler’s career as a civil rights lawyer was launched in 1956 when he represented a black journalist, William Worthy, Jr., who had been arrested because he did not have a passport when he returned from a trip to Cuba. Kunstler successfully challenged the law as being unconstitutional and the charges were dismissed in 1961.
Life’s Work
After the Worthy case, Kunstler intensified his focus on clients he saw as victims of government oppression and racism. He traveled frequently to the South, representing Freedom Riders, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others whose opposition to segregation led to arrests for breach of peace and disorderly conduct for protesting in places such as Birmingham, Alabama, and Biloxi, Mississippi. Kunstler was moved to join in some of these protests. Looking back, he would recall the 1960’s and 1970’s as a time of transformation, when he changed from a liberal into a radical.
Kunstler was a director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1964 to 1972. In 1969, he cofounded the Center for Constitutional Rights, and he was also active with the National Lawyers Guild.
In 1968, Kunstler defended antiwar protesters in the most famous case of his career. The defendants, including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Students for a Democratic Society leader Tom Hayden, would become known as the Chicago Seven. Their trial was presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Julius Jennings Hoffman. Kunstler and the other defense lawyers clashed repeatedly with the judge. Another defendant, whose case was separated from the Chicago Seven’s, was Black Panther Party cofounder Bobby Seale. At one point Seale was ordered by Hoffman to be gagged, chained, and bound to the counsel table. All the 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, Hoffman found Kunstler guilty of twenty-four counts of contempt of court, one for each time the judge concluded Kunstler showed disrespect and rudeness during the five-month trial, and he sentenced Kunstler to four years and thirteen days in prison. The charges were reversed two years later by an appellate court, which ordered a new trial. Kunstler was convicted of two counts of contempt, but he was not sentenced to prison.
In other political cases, he represented black power activists Stokely Carmichael, antiwar activist Daniel Berrigan, and prisoners accused of rioting at the state prison in Attica, New York, in 1971.
Kunstler, who was Jewish, was the brunt of withering vilification and repeated threats for his representation of several Muslims. In 1993 and 1994, he represented El Sayyida A. Nossair, who was accused of 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. He also represented Nossair’s cousin, Ibrahim A. Elgabrowny, in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. Kunstler wrote several books, including Beyond a Reasonable Doubt? The Original Trial of Caryl Chessman (1961), The Case for Courage: The Stories of Ten Famous American Attorneys Who Risked Their Careers in the Cause of Justice (1962), and his autobiography, My Life as a Radical Lawyer (1994).
Kunstler was married twice and had four children. His first marriage to Lotte Rosenberger ended in divorce in the mid-1970’s. They had two daughters, Karin and Jane. His second marriage was to Margaret Ratner; they also had two daughters, Sarah and Emily. Kunstler died of heart failure at the age of seventy-six in 1995.
Significance
In the turbulent civil rights and anti-Vietnam War era in America, Kunstler offered his clients not only effective legal representation but also a highly visible platform to express their radical political views, putting the established society, with its ingrown prejudices, on the defensive. In doing so, he was seen by many as disrespectful and disruptive. He is remembered, however, as a no-holds-barred, colorful, and dedicated advocate who used his role as an attorney to combat racism and political oppression and to advance the cause of equal justice.
Bibliography
Clavir, Judy, and John Spitzer, eds. The Conspiracy Trial: The Extended Edited Transcript of the Trial of the Chicago Eight. Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970. Complete with motions, rulings, contempt citations, sentences, and photographs.
Epstein, Jason. The Great Conspiracy Trial. New York: Random House, 1970. Includes an account of the Chicago Seven trial, the background of the radical groups involved, a review of the legal issues, and a cultural history.
Kunstler, William M. My Life as a Radical Lawyer. New York: Carol, 1994. With his typical candor, Kunstler recounts his early life and the famous cases of his fabled law career.
Langum, David J. William M. Kunstler: The Most Hated Lawyer in America. New York: New York University Press, 1999. A biography that shows how Kunstler made a name for himself supporting unpopular causes.