Leonard Weinglass
Encyclopedia
Leonard Irving Weinglass (August 27, 1933 March 23, 2011) was a U.S. criminal defense lawyer and constitutional law advocate. Weinglass graduated from Yale Law School
in 1958, then served as a Captain, Judge Advocate, United States Air Force
from 1959 to 1961. He was admitted to the bar in the states of New Jersey
, New York
, Connecticut
, and California
. He taught criminal trial advocacy at the University of Southern California
Law School from 1974 to 1976, and at the People's College of Law
, in Los Angeles, California
from 1974 to 1975. After a short illness, Weinglass died on March 23, 2011.
.
Along with attorney William Kunstler
, Weinglass represented the Chicago 7 in their 1968 trial. He also participated in the defense of Daniel Ellsberg
and Anthony Russo
, who were charged with leaking the Pentagon Papers
and whose trial ended in a dismissal of all charges. In 1970, he represented and won the acquittal of Angela Davis
who was charged with participation in the abduction and murder of a local judge. Other prominent clients included Kathy Boudin
, a member of the Weather Underground charged with felony murder for her participation in an armed robbery; anti-war activist Ron Kaufman; Bill
and Emily Harris
(kidnappers of Patty Hearst
); Jimi Simmons
; and Skyhorse and Mohawk. He was for several years the lead defense attorney for Mumia Abu-Jamal
. In 1995, he authored a book about Abu-Jamal's case entitled Race for Justice: Mumia Abu Jamal's Fight Against the Death Penalty.
In 1972, Weinglass took on the defense of John Sinclair
, Chairman of the White Panther Party
in Detroit, Michigan. The case became United States v. U.S. District Court
, 407 U.S. 297 (1972) on appeal to the United States Supreme Court, a landmark decision prohibiting the government's use of electronic survelliance without a warrant.
Weinglass also defended Stephen Bingham
, an attorney accused of smuggling a handgun to George Jackson
in San Quentin Prison setting off an escape attempt that resulted in the death of Jackson, two other inmates, and three prison guards.
Weinglass was the lead appellate attorney for the Cuban Five
from 2002 until his death in 2011.
Leonard Weinglass traveled to Cuba
(1968) and to Hanoi
(1972). In 2010 he worked with the defense team for WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange
. Weinglass has worked with former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark
.
Weinglass was photographed by Richard Avedon
and appears in the book The Sixties by Richard Avedon and Doon Arbus
Up until the end of his life at the age of 77, Weinglass continued to take on cases. He saw no reason to stop - "the typical call I get is the one that starts by saying 'You are the fifth attorney we've called'. Then I get interested".
. The film features an interview of him in which he describes the preparation of the defense of Daniel Ellsberg
and Anthony Russo
: "When we went to select our jury, we brought in an expert - actually: psychiatrist. He told us we were defending two young men: bright, high achievers - men with a future, who were willing to risk it all for the sake of not themselves, or their own careerist' interest, but for the sake of a principle. And the psychiatrist said to us: You don't want on this jury men of middle age, because these are people who in the course of their lives might possibly have sacrificed principle for the sake of career, for the sake of family, and they lived with that compromise, and they will have a lot of disdain, even contempt, for two men who did it for the sake of principle and took the risk."
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
in 1958, then served as a Captain, Judge Advocate, United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
from 1959 to 1961. He was admitted to the bar in the states of New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, and California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He taught criminal trial advocacy at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
Law School from 1974 to 1976, and at the People's College of Law
People's College of Law
The People's College of Law is an unaccredited, private, non-profit law school located in Los Angeles, California. PCL offers a part-time, four-year evening law program centered around work in the public interest.-History:...
, in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
from 1974 to 1975. After a short illness, Weinglass died on March 23, 2011.
Career
Weinglass has championed a number of liberal and radical causes. An expert in constitutional law, he served as co-chairman of the international committee of the National Lawyers GuildNational Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild is an advocacy group in the United States "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system . ....
.
Along with attorney William Kunstler
William Kunstler
William Moses Kunstler was an American self-described "radical lawyer" and civil rights activist, known for his controversial clients...
, Weinglass represented the Chicago 7 in their 1968 trial. He also participated in the defense of Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War,...
and Anthony Russo
Anthony Russo (whistleblower)
Anthony J. "Tony" Russo, Jr. was an American researcher who assisted Daniel Ellsberg, his friend and former colleague at the RAND Corporation, in copying the Pentagon Papers.-Early life:...
, who were charged with leaking the Pentagon Papers
Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967...
and whose trial ended in a dismissal of all charges. In 1970, he represented and won the acquittal of Angela Davis
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
who was charged with participation in the abduction and murder of a local judge. Other prominent clients included Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin
Kathy Boudin is a former American radical who was convicted in 1984 of felony murder for her participation in an armed robbery that resulted in the killing of three people. She later became a public health expert while in prison...
, a member of the Weather Underground charged with felony murder for her participation in an armed robbery; anti-war activist Ron Kaufman; Bill
Bill Harris
- Sports :*Bill Harris , American MLB pitcher*Bill Harris , Canadian MLB pitcher*Bill Harris American basketball coach, head coach India national basketball team...
and Emily Harris
Emily Harris (SLA)
Emily Harris was, along with her husband William Harris , a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army , a leftist United States group involved in bank robberies, kidnapping and murder. In the 1970s, she was convicted of kidnapping Patty Hearst...
(kidnappers of Patty Hearst
Patty Hearst
Patricia Campbell Hearst , now known as Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress, socialite, actress, kidnap victim, and convicted bank robber....
); Jimi Simmons
Jimi Simmons
Jimi "Dexter" Simmons was a Muckleshoot/Rogue River Indian man who was accused of killing a prison guard in Walla Walla Penitentiary in 1979. Jimi and his brother George Simmons were charged with the death penalty. Jimi's defense attorneys were Leonard Weinglass and John Wolfe.George Simmons was...
; and Skyhorse and Mohawk. He was for several years the lead defense attorney for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death. He has been described as "perhaps the world's best known death-row inmate", and his sentence is one of the most debated today...
. In 1995, he authored a book about Abu-Jamal's case entitled Race for Justice: Mumia Abu Jamal's Fight Against the Death Penalty.
In 1972, Weinglass took on the defense of John Sinclair
John Sinclair (poet)
John Sinclair is a Detroit poet, one-time manager of the band MC5, and leader of the White Panther Party — a militantly anti-racist countercultural group of white socialists seeking to assist the Black Panthers in the Civil Rights movement — from November 1968 to July 1969...
, Chairman of the White Panther Party
White Panther Party
The White Panthers were a far-left, anti-racist, White American political collective founded in 1968 by Lawrence Plamondon, Leni Sinclair, and John Sinclair. It was started in response to an interview where Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was asked what white people could do...
in Detroit, Michigan. The case became United States v. U.S. District Court
United States v. U.S. District Court
United States v. U.S. District Court, 407 U.S. 297 , also known as the Keith case, was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision that upheld, in a unanimous 8-0 ruling, the requirements of the Fourth Amendment in cases of domestic surveillance targeting a domestic threat.-The case:The United...
, 407 U.S. 297 (1972) on appeal to the United States Supreme Court, a landmark decision prohibiting the government's use of electronic survelliance without a warrant.
Weinglass also defended Stephen Bingham
Stephen Bingham
Stephen Mitchell Bingham, a legal services and civil rights attorney, was tried and acquitted in 1986 for his alleged role in Black Panther George Jackson's attempted escape fifteen years earlier from San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California, in 1971.-Early life and education:Stephen...
, an attorney accused of smuggling a handgun to George Jackson
George Jackson (Black Panther)
George Lester Jackson was an American convict who became a left-wing activist, Marxist, author, a member of the Black Panther Party, and co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang...
in San Quentin Prison setting off an escape attempt that resulted in the death of Jackson, two other inmates, and three prison guards.
Weinglass was the lead appellate attorney for the Cuban Five
Cuban Five
The Cuban Five, also known as the Miami Five are five Cuban intelligence officers convicted in Miami of conspiracy to commit espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, and other illegal activities in the United States...
from 2002 until his death in 2011.
Leonard Weinglass traveled to Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
(1968) and to Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
(1972). In 2010 he worked with the defense team for WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
founder Julian Assange
Julian Assange
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian publisher, journalist, writer, computer programmer and Internet activist. He is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website and conduit for worldwide news leaks with the stated purpose of creating open governments.WikiLeaks has published material...
. Weinglass has worked with former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark
Ramsey Clark
William Ramsey Clark is an American lawyer, activist and former public official. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, which included service as United States Attorney General from 1967 to 1969, under President Lyndon B. Johnson...
.
Weinglass was photographed by Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
and appears in the book The Sixties by Richard Avedon and Doon Arbus
Doon Arbus
Doon Arbus, , daughter of actor Allan Arbus and the late photographer Diane Arbus, is a writer and journalist. Her sister, Amy Arbus, is a photojournalist...
Up until the end of his life at the age of 77, Weinglass continued to take on cases. He saw no reason to stop - "the typical call I get is the one that starts by saying 'You are the fifth attorney we've called'. Then I get interested".
Awards
- 1974: First recipient of the Clarence DarrowClarence DarrowClarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
Award. - 1980: Humanitarian Award for 1980 of the First Unitarian Church of Los AngelesFirst Unitarian Church, Los AngelesFirst Unitarian Church of Los Angeles is an independent congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. Since its founding in 1877 the church has been a leader in social justice activism for the Unitarian Universalist faith, and for the city of Los Angeles...
- 1994: Outstanding Achievement Award (California Attorneys for Criminal Justice)
Trivia
Weinglass makes an appearance in the documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon PapersThe Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers is a 2009 documentary film directed by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith...
. The film features an interview of him in which he describes the preparation of the defense of Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War,...
and Anthony Russo
Anthony Russo (whistleblower)
Anthony J. "Tony" Russo, Jr. was an American researcher who assisted Daniel Ellsberg, his friend and former colleague at the RAND Corporation, in copying the Pentagon Papers.-Early life:...
: "When we went to select our jury, we brought in an expert - actually: psychiatrist. He told us we were defending two young men: bright, high achievers - men with a future, who were willing to risk it all for the sake of not themselves, or their own careerist' interest, but for the sake of a principle. And the psychiatrist said to us: You don't want on this jury men of middle age, because these are people who in the course of their lives might possibly have sacrificed principle for the sake of career, for the sake of family, and they lived with that compromise, and they will have a lot of disdain, even contempt, for two men who did it for the sake of principle and took the risk."
External links
- Curriculum Vitae of Leonard I. Weinglass
- "Cuba's War Against Terrorism" by Leonard Weinglass Le Monde diplomatiqueLe Monde diplomatiqueLe Monde diplomatique is a monthly newspaper offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first created mainly for a diplomatic audience as its name implies...
February 8, 2006 - My friend Len Weinglass (1933-2011), by Michael Steven Smith