40 Facts About William Kunstler

William Moses Kunstler was an American lawyer and civil rights activist, known for defending the Chicago Seven.

William Kunstler is well known for defending members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Catonsville Nine, Black Panther Party, Weather Underground Organization, the Attica Prison rioters, Meir Kahane assassin El Sayyid Nosair, and the American Indian Movement.

William Kunstler won a de facto segregation case regarding the District of Columbia's public schools and "disinterred, singlehandedly" the concept of federal criminal removal jurisdiction in the 1960s.

William Kunstler was born to a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Frances Mandelbaum and Monroe Bradford William Kunstler, a physician.

William Kunstler then went on to attend Columbia Law School from which he graduated in 1948.

William Kunstler volunteered for cryptography and served in New Guinea.

William Kunstler rose to the rank of major, and received the Bronze Star.

William Kunstler was an associate professor of law at New York Law School.

William 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".

At WNEW, William Kunstler conducted interviews on controversial topics, such as the Alger Hiss case, on a program called Counterpoint.

William 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.

William 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.

William Kunstler filed for a writ of habeas corpus with Sidney Mize, a federal judge in Biloxi, and appealed to the Fifth Circuit; he filed similar pleas in state courts.

The riders were convicted in a bench trial in Jackson and appealed to a county jury trial, where William Kunstler argued that the county systematically discriminated against African-American jurors.

In 1962, William Kunstler took part in efforts to integrate public parks and libraries in Albany, Georgia.

At the time of the publication, William 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.

William Kunstler joined a group of lawyers criticizing the application of Alabama's civil libel laws and spoke at a rally against HUAC.

In 1963, for the Gandhi Society of New York, William 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.

In 1964, William Kunstler defended a group of four accused of kidnapping a white couple, and succeeded in getting the alleged weapons thrown out as evidence, as they could not be positively identified as those used.

William Kunstler went to St Augustine, Florida, in 1964 during the demonstrations led by Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

William Kunstler 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.

William Kunstler was a director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1964 to 1972, when he became a member of the ACLU National Council.

Ruby was eventually permitted to replace his original defense team with William Kunstler, who got him a new trial.

Under cross-examination, William 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.

William Kunstler arrived in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, on March 4,1973, to draw up the demands of the American Indian Movement members involved in the Wounded Knee incident.

William 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.

William Kunstler's team represented Russell Means and Dennis Banks, two of the leaders of the occupation.

In 1975, William 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.

At the trial in 1976, William Kunstler subpoenaed prominent government officials to testify about the existence of a Counter-Intelligence Program against Native American activists.

William Kunstler defended a Native American woman who refused to send her daughter with muscular dystrophy to school.

Under cross-examination, William Kunstler forced Correction Officer Donald Melven to retract his sworn identification of John Hill, William Kunstler's client, and Charles Pernasilice, admitting he still retained "slight" doubts that he confessed to investigators at the time of the incident.

William 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, who testified that other prisoners hit the guard.

When William Kunstler protested that the defendants would risk being murdered due to the judges remanding them, King threatened to send William Kunstler with them.

William 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.

William Kunstler represented a number of convicted mafiosi during his career, claiming "they were victims of government persecution", and said to have "never made a nickel on an OC [organized crime] case".

In 1979, William Kunstler represented Marvin Barnes, an ABA and NBA basketball player, with past legal troubles and league discipline problems.

William Kunstler appeared as a lawyer in the movie The Doors in 1991, as a judge in the movie Malcolm X in 1992, and as himself in several television documentaries.

In 1993 William Kunstler represented Yusuf Saalam of the Central Park 5 during his appeal, a move which alienated several friends.

In late 1995, William Kunstler died in New York City of heart failure at the age of 76.

William Kunstler was survived by his wife Margaret Ratner Kunstler and his four daughters Karin Kunstler Goldman, Jane Drazek, Sarah Kunstler and Emily Kunstler, and several grandchildren.