Michael John Kennedy (March 23, 1937 – January 25, 2016) was an American criminal defense attorney, expert in U.S. Constitutional law, and a civil rights advocate who defended cases for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (NECLC) and in his private practice. Kennedy, who tried cases in 36 states, was a member of the National Lawyers Guild and the State Bar in California and New York.
A trial lawyer for over 50 years, Kennedy was known as an exceptional legal strategist who was a "steadfast defender of the underdog and the First Amendment." Kennedy, who specialized in civil and criminal litigation and complex negotiations, was a guest teacher of trial advocacy at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City.
His clients included Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party; Bernardine Dohrn of the Weather Underground; Cesar Chavez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers; leading advocate for the use of LSD Timothy Leary; members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA); Los Siete de la Raza; and Pablo Guzmán of the Young Lords. While staff at the NECLC Kennedy defended members of the Fort Hood 43 and the late Stanley Neptune, a member of the Penobscot Nation and protester at Wounded Knee.
Kennedy obtained clemency for Jean Harris in 1993. He represented former Sicilian Mafia don Gaetano Badalamenti in the Pizza Connection drug-smuggling case, and Ivana Trump in her contentious divorce with Donald Trump.
Early life and education Born in Spokane, Washington to Thomas Kennedy and Evelyn (née) Forbes, Kennedy was sent to a Jesuit boarding school when he was four years of age where he remained for over a decade. After high school, Kennedy earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1962, and Juris Doctor from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, California.
Career After law school, Kennedy joined a private law firm and began a career as a defense attorney, often pro bono, in many of the country's well-known civil rights cases.
Time in the U.S. Army In 1964, Kennedy was first lieutenant in the United States Army, where he was often disciplined for making anti-war speeches while in uniform. At an officers' dinner, Kennedy met Eleanora Baratelli, the woman who would become his life partner. Once he returned to private life, Kennedy's law practice focused on representing draft resistors, conscientious objectors as well as marginalized people and underrepresented groups seeking social justice.
Legal career Kennedy's specialty was jury trial work with emphasis on constitutional defenses, including human and civil rights. In the First Amendment area, he was regarded as an authority on the laws of libel and tax fraud defense. Kennedy was considered one of the nation's leading authorities on search and seizure law and the emerging area of privacy rights arising out of the Fourth and Ninth amendments. He also tried many cases involving constitutional issues raised by constitutional due process clauses and Sixth Amendment fair trial concerns and right to counsel. He litigated many constitutional issues by Writ of Habeas Corpus.
Kennedy was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States and the Court of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and District of Columbia Circuits. He was also admitted to a number of United States District Courts.
Kennedy, and colleague Michael Tigar, put on many provocative programs for the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association (ABA), including a death penalty case at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, an Israeli/Palestinian mock arbitration about sovereignty and human rights in Gaza and the West Bank,Francis A. Boyle, Palestine, Palestinians and International Law, Clarity Press, Inc. September 2006 and a much-heralded international tribunal investigating war crimes in Bosnia.Bland, Mark A. (1994) "An Analysis of the United Nations International Tribunal to Adjudicate War Crimes Committed in the Former Yugoslavia: Parallels, Problems, Prospects," Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies: Vol. 2 : Iss. 1, Article 15.
Notable civil rights cases and clients Michael Kennedy played a central role in the nationwide protests against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. A new breed of radical attorneys were emerging on the legal scene, which included Kennedy and other contemporaries such as Charles Garry, Michael Tigar, William Kunstler, Michael Ratner, Leonard Boudin, Michael Standard, Victor Rabinowitz, and Charles Nesson who worked on pro bono cases as often as not. Kennedy moved to New York in the late 1960s to take the position of staff counsel of the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, which until 1968 was known as the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee.
1960s United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez
Working on behalf of the NECLC Kennedy represented labor leader Cesar Chavez, who along with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the mostly Latino National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which was later renamed as United Farm Workers. Kennedy defended Chavez and migrant farm workers in their protest against exorbitant rents and subpar living conditions. Shortly thereafter, Kennedy got involved in the successful 1965 strike against the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) for selling non-union grapes and lettuce. The five-year boycott, which became known as the Delano grape strike, prompted an international boycott of grapes. The strike, initially organized by the predominantly Filipino AFL–CIO-affiliated Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, led to the creation of the United Farm Workers of America, the first union representing farm workers in the United States.
Fort Hood 43
A group of African American GIs who recently returned from Vietnam were ordered to serve on riot-control duty at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois where protests were anticipated in response to the recent assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The servicemen refused to serve and were consequently court-martialed. Kennedy successfully represented the group, which became known as the Fort Hood 43. One of Kennedy's clients, the decorated Sgt. Robert D. Rucker, later became an attorney then went on to become the second African American to serve as Judge on the Illinois Supreme Court and the first African American to serve on the Indiana Court of Appeals.
The 1968 Democratic Convention and The Chicago Seven The Chicago Seven were charged with conspiracy to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. While defending Rennie Davis, Kennedy and three other lawyers - Gerald B. Lefcourt, Michael Tigar and Dennis Roberts - were briefly jailed for contempt of court by presiding Judge Julius Hoffman. Attorney William Kunstler, at the time with the Center for Constitutional Rights, was also cited for contempt though all the convictions were overturned unanimously by the Seventh Circuit. Some thirty attorneys in San Francisco protested Hoffman's punitive decision by burning their Bar Association cards on the steps of the federal building. By the end of the five-month trial, referred to as one of the "most bizarre courtroom spectacles in U.S. history" by the Washington Post, Judge Hoffman had issued over 200 citations for contempt of court against the defendants and their attorneys. All seven defendants - Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner - were acquitted on riot conspiracy charges, though found guilty of intent to riot.
House Un-American Activities Committee
Shortly after the 1968 Democratic Convention, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Dave Dellinger and Robert Greenblatt received subpoenas to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Michael Kennedy was among the group's six defense attorneys. The HUAC hearings were viewed by the NECLC as an "attempt by the Johnson administration to use every mechanism at its disposal to legitimize the action of Mayor [Richard) Daley and the Chicago police," and the violence they displayed against protesters during the 1968 DNC. Daley had ordered the entire Chicago police force of 12,000 men to work 12-hour shifts and called in over 5,000 National Guardsmen in addition to some 1,000 Secret Service and FBI agents who were also on duty.
On the opening day of the HUAC hearings, the subpoenaed men and their lawyers, including Kennedy and William Kunstler, staged a "stand-in" to protest the investigations. "The Constitution is being raped and we as lawyers are being emasculated in an armed camp," Kennedy shouted at the hearing.Jonah Raskin, For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman, University of California Press; First edition (May 28, 1998)
Los Siete de la Raza
Michael Kennedy, along with co-counsel Charles Garry, defended a group of seven young Hispanic men in San Francisco's Mission District who, while moving a television set into a friend's home in May 1969, were stopped by two plain clothes policemen and asked for their ID cards. An altercation ensued between the young men and police officers Joseph Brodnik and Paul McGoran. In the scuffle, a gun was fired, killing one of the police officers. According to a New York Times account of the shooting, "about the only evidence that is not disputed is that the bullet that killed the policeman, Patrolman Joseph Brodnik, was fired from the gun of his partner, Patrolman Paul McGoran, at a distance of about two inches." During the scuffle, McGoran called the youths "wetbacks."Joshua Bloom, Waldo E. Martin, Jr., Waldo E. Martin Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, Publisher University of California Press; First Edition, October 25, 2016 pg. 288
It was revealed during the much publicized trial that Brodnik had harassed the same young men previously, had 38 counts of police brutality and 4 counts of brandishing a gun in past skirmishes, and was known as a racist. Kennedy and the other defense attorneys proved that Brodnik's partner Paul McGoran had accidentally fired the shot that killed him. After the stormy four-month trial, which had become a cause célèbre in the Latin-American community and the New Left, the young men - Gary Lescallett, Rodolfo Antonio Martinez, Mario Martinez, Jose Rios, Nelson Rodriguez, and Danilo Melendez - were acquitted and freed. The seventh defendant, George Lopez, was never apprehended.
Columbia University protests of 1968
Kennedy represented Columbia Law students who tried to shut down the law school in protest of the Vietnam War. Disciplinary hearings were held to expel them. Kennedy represented the students, including Gus Reichbach and Eleanor Stein, who were charged with violating campus rules. Ultimately, charges were dismissed. Stein and Reichbach both went on to become attorneys, then judges.
1960s gay liberation movement The Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF) was a gay and lesbian rights organization founded in San Francisco in April 1969 by gay activists Leo E. Laurence and Gayle Whittington. Both were fired by their employers (respectively, ABC Radio and freight company, State Steamship Line) after a photo of them embracing was published by the countercultural newspaper the Berkeley Barb. Laurence said he was fired by ABC for his "radical politics, revolutionary writings, and strong union activities." Kennedy defended Laurence's case on the basis of what Laurence referred to as "ABC's unwritten discrimination against homosexuals; an attack on freedom of speech and press."
1970s