William Moses Kunstler (July 7, 1919 - September 4, 1995) was a American jurist, self-described "radical lawyer" and civil rights activist. July 7 is the 188th day of the year (189th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 177 days remaining. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... September 4 is the 247th day of the year (248th in leap years). ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ...

Early Life

The son of a physician, Kunstler was born in New York City and educated at Yale College and Columbia University Law School. While in school, Kunstler was an avid poet, and even represented Yale one year in the prestigious Glascock Prize competition at Mount Holyoke College. The Doctor by Samuel Luke Fildes This article is about the term physician, one type of doctor; for other uses of the word doctor see Doctor. ... Nickname: Big Apple, Gotham, NYC, City That Never Sleeps, The Concrete Jungle, The City So Nice They Named It Twice Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island Settled 1676 Government  - Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area... Yale redirects here. ... Jerome L. Greene Hall, home of the Arthur W. Diamond Library. ... YALE (Yet Another Learning Environment) is an environment for machine learning experiments and data mining. ... The Glascock Poetry Prize is awarded to the winner of the the annual Kathryn Irene Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest at Mount Holyoke College, the oldest intercollegiate poetry competition in the United States [1]. // The contest Each year, about six young poets from the nations top colleges and universities are selected... Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts womens college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. ...

Kunstler served in the U.S. Army during World War II in the Pacific theater, attaining the rank of Major. He received the Bronze Star. He was admitted to the bar in New York in 1948 and began practicing law. He was an associate professor of law at New York Law School (1950-1951). Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration and is the fourth highest award for bravery, heroism or meritorious service. ... NY redirects here. ... New York Law School (NYLS) is an independent law school located in lower Manhattan a couple blocks north of the World Trade Center site. ...

Career as a movement lawyer

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. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a major American non-profit organization with headquarters in New York City, whose stated mission is to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.[1] It... NOTE: The following text may have been literally copied from http://www. ... The National Lawyers Guild is a progressive Bar Association in the United States for lawyers and law students, as well as paralegals, legal secretaries, jailhouse lawyers, and other legal workers. ...

To many, Kunstler's image was that of a flamboyant radical. He defended many controversial clients, including Lenny Bruce, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, American Indian Movement (AIM) leaders, Jack Ruby, Abbie Hoffman, Angela Davis, Jerry Rubin, Martin Luther King, Lemuel Smith, Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, Ibrahim A. ElGabrowny, Gregory Johnson, Wayne Williams, Larry Davis and Gary McGivern. Lenny Bruce (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), born Leonard Alfred Schneider, was a controversial American stand-up comedian, writer, social critic and satirist of the 1950s and 1960s. ... H. Rap Brown in 1967 H. Rap Brown (born October 4, 1943) came to prominence in the 1960s as a civil rights worker, black activist, and the Justice Minister of the Black Panther Party. ... Carmichael amidst a demonstration near the United States Capitol protesting the House of Representatives action denying Rep. ... AIM logo AIM flag The American Indian Movement (AIM), is a Native American activist organization in the United States. ... For the song Jack Ruby by Camper Van Beethoven, see Key Lime Pie. ... Abbott Howard Abbie Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was a social and political activist in the United States, co-founder of the Youth International Party (Yippies), and later, a fugitive from the law, who lived under an alias following a conviction for dealing cocaine. ... Angela Davis in the 1970s Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an African American communist organizer and philosopher who was associated with the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the Communist Party of the United States of America. ... Jerry Rubin (July 14, 1938 – November 28, 1994) was a high-profile American social activist during the 1960s and 1970s. ... The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr, Ph. ... Lemuel Warren Smith (born 1941-07-23), is a convicted serial killer and rapist from Upstate New York who was the first convict ever to kill an on-duty female prison officer. ... Gregory Johnson may refer to: Gregory H. Johnson (born 1962), astronaut Gregory Scott Johnson (died 2005), executed murderer See also: Greg Johnson This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... Wayne Williams during his murder trials. ... Larry Davis (born 1966) is a controversial figure whose shooting of six NYPD officers in self-defense on November 19, 1986 during a raid on his sisters Bronx apartment created a heated debate in New York about police behavior and accusations of racism. ... Gerald “Gary” McGivern (October 26, 1944–November 19, 2001) was the recipient on December 31, 1985 of what may be the most controversial grant of executive clemency signed by a governor in the case of a prisoner of the State of New York. ...

He gained national renown for defending the "Chicago Seven" (originally "Chicago Eight") against charges of conspiring to incite riots in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. During the trial, he and the other defense attorney, Leonard Weinglass, were cited for contempt (the convictions were later overturned). The Chicago Seven were seven (originally eight, at which point they were known as the Chicago Eight) defendants charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other charges related to violent protests that took place in Chicago, Illinois on the occasion of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. ... Nickname: The Windy City, The Second City, Chi Town, City of the Big Shoulders, The 312, The City that Works Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in Chicagoland and Illinois Coordinates: Country United States State Illinois County Cook & DuPage Incorporated March 4, 1837  - Mayor... The 1968 National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968, for the purposes of choosing the Democratic nominee for the 1968 U.S. presidential election. ... Leonard I. Weinglass is a U.S. lawyer and civil rights activist. ...

From 1983 until Kunstler's death in 1995, Kunstler took on fellow radical and future radio personality Ron Kuby as a junior partner. The two worked together on a number of highly controversial, well-publicized civil rights and criminal cases, including cases where the two represented Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, head of the Egyptian-based terrorist group Gama'a al-Islamiyah - 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 public school teacher in New York who absconded with a fifteen year-old girl for two months - Darrell Cabey, one of the victims of the Bernard Goetz shooting, and perhaps most controversially, associates of the Gambino crime family. During the first Gulf War, they represented dozens of Americans soldiers who refused to fight and claimed conscientious objector status. They also represented El-Sayyid Nosair, the assassin of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. Ronald L. Kuby (born in 1956 in Cleveland, Ohio) is a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer, radio talk show host and TV commentator. ... Omar Abdel-Rahman Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (Arabic: عمر عبد الرحمن) (born May 3, 1938) is a blind Egyptian Muslim cleric who is currently serving a life sentence at the Federal Administrative Maximum Penitentiary hospital in Florence, Colorado, United States. ... Colin Ferguson For the Canadian actor, see Colin Ferguson (actor) Colin Ferguson (born January 14, 1958, Kingston, Jamaica) was convicted of murdering six people and injuring nineteen others on the Long Island Rail Road in Nassau County, New York on December 7, 1993. ... Qubilah Shabazz (born 1960) is the daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz. ... Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Bernhard Hugo Goetz, the subway vigilante (born 1947), became a symbol of New Yorkers frustrations with high crime rates after he shot four youths on an express subway train in the Bronx. ... John Gotti, The Dapper Don The Gambino Crime Family is one of the Five Families that controls organized crime activities based in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia (or La Cosa Nostra). ... Combatants UN Coalition Republic of Iraq Commanders Norman Schwarzkopf Peter de la Billière Khalid bin Sultan Saleh Al-Muhaya Mohamed Hussein Tantawi Saddam Hussein Strength 883,863 360,000 Casualties 378 dead, 1,000 wounded 25,000 dead, 75,000 wounded The Gulf War or the Persian Gulf War... John T. Neufeld was a WWI conscientious objector sentenced to 15 years hard labour in the military prison at Leavenworth. ... El Sayyid Nosair (born November 16, 1955) is an Egyptian-born American citizen and Islamic terrorist involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. ... Meir David Kahane (Hebrew: מאיר דוד כהנא, Kahane being a variation on Cohen or priest) (August 1, 1932–November 5, 1990), Rabbi and member of the Israeli Knesset was famed first and foremost for his strong views and activities. ...

During the 1994-95 television season, Kunstler starred as himself in an episode of Law & Order called White Rabbit. It was based on the 1971 Boston Brinks truck robbery in which a policeman was shot. Law & Order is an American television police procedural and legal drama set in New York City. ... The White Rabbit is a fictional character in Lewis Carrolls book Alice in Wonderland. ...

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 of Buffalo's School of Architecture and Planning, Kunstler lambasted America's continued use of 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." A charnel house (Med. ...

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

Eleanor Reinhardt (1888-1922) wife of James Mills, and murder victim Frances Noel Stevens (1874-1942) wife of Edward Wheeler Hall (1881-1922) and murder suspect The bodies as discovered on September 16, 1922 Henry Hewgill Stevens (1869-1939) murder suspect Henry de la Bruyere Carpender (1882-1934) was a...

Pop Culture References

• In the film The Big Lebowski, Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (played by Jeff Bridges) demands representation by Mr. 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".

The Big Lebowski, a 1998 comedy film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, chronicles a few days in the life of an unemployed California slacker and recreational bowler after he is mistaken for a millionaire with the same name. ... Ronald L. Kuby (born in 1956 in Cleveland, Ohio) is a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer, radio talk show host and TV commentator. ...

External links

• Remembering William Kunstler
• A Remembrance of William Kunstler
• Kunstler's speech at the University of Buffalo
• William Kunstler at imdb.com