Rise to prominence (1957–1964) cases under the
Civil Rights Act of 1964: protesters at the
1964 New York World's Fair. Kunstler began to garner sustained media attention in 1957, when he unsuccessfully defended the journalist
William Worthy. A correspondent for the
Baltimore Afro-American, Worthy was one of 42 Americans who had their passports seized after violating the
State Department's travel ban on
Communist China (after attending a Communist youth conference in Moscow). Kunstler refused a State Department compromise, which would have returned Worthy's passport if he agreed to cease visiting Communist countries, a condition that Worthy considered
unconstitutional. 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. Working on behalf of the ACLU, Kunstler defended the
Freedom Riders in Mississippi in 1961. He filed for a writ of
habeas corpus with
Sidney Mize, a federal judge in
Biloxi, and appealed to the Fifth Circuit; he also filed similar pleas in state courts. The riders were convicted in a bench trial in Jackson and appealed to a county jury trial, where Kunstler argued that the county systematically discriminated against African-American jurors. In 1962, Kunstler took part in efforts to integrate public parks and libraries in
Albany, Georgia. Later that year, he published
The Case for Courage (modeled on President Kennedy's
Profiles in Courage) highlighting the efforts of other lawyers who risked their careers for controversial clients, as well as similar acts by public servants. At the time of the publication, 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. In 1963, for the
Gandhi Society of New York, 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. Although the district judge
remanded the cases to city court, he dissolved the city's
injunction against demonstrations. In 1964, 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. That year, he also challenged Mississippi's
unpledged elector law and racial segregation in primary elections; he also defended three members of the
Blood Brothers, a Harlem gang, charged with murder. Kunstler went to
St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964 during the demonstrations led by Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. Robert B. Hayling, which put added pressure on Congress to pass the landmark
Civil Rights Act of 1964. 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.
ACLU director (1964–1972) , named for slain civil rights activists
James Chaney,
Andrew Goodman, and
Michael Schwerner, November 25, 1967 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 1966, he co-founded the
Center for Constitutional Rights. Kunstler also worked with the
National Lawyers Guild. In 1965, Kunstler's firm - Kunstler, Kunstler, and
Kinoy - was asked to defend
Jack Ruby by his brother Earl, but dropped the case because they "did not wish to be in a situation where we have to fight to get into the case". Ruby was eventually permitted to replace his original defense team with Kunstler, who got him a new trial. In 1966, he also defended an
arsonist who burned down a Jewish Community Center, killing 12, because he was not provided a lawyer before he signed a confession. Kunstler's other notable clients include:
Salvador Agron,
H. Rap Brown,
Lenny Bruce,
Angela Davis,
Larry Davis,
Gregory Lee Johnson,
Martin Luther King Jr.,
Filiberto Ojeda Rios,
Assata Shakur,
Lemuel Smith,
Wayne Williams, and
Michael X.
Chicago Seven (1969–1972) Kunstler gained national renown for defending the
Chicago Seven (originally Chicago Eight), in a five-month trial in 1969–1970, against charges of conspiring to incite riots in
Chicago during the
1968 Democratic National Convention. Under cross-examination, 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. Another prosecution witness, photographer Louis Salzberg, admitted under Kunstler's cross-examination that he was still on the payroll of the FBI. The trial was marked by frequent clashes between Kunstler and U.S. Attorney
Thomas Foran, with Kunstler taking the opportunity to accuse the government of failing to "realize the extent of antiwar sentiment". Kunstler also sparred with Judge
Julius Hoffman, on one occasion remarking (with respect to the number of federal marshals): "this courtroom has the appearance of an armed camp. I would note that the Supreme Court has ruled that the appearance of an armed camp is a reversible error". During one heated exchange, Kunstler informed Hoffman that his entry in ''
Who's Who'' was three times longer than the judge's, to which the judge replied: "I hope you get a better obituary." Kunstler and co-defense attorneys
Leonard Weinglass,
Michael Kennedy,
Gerald Lefcourt, Dennis Roberts and
Michael Tigar were cited for contempt (the convictions were later overturned unanimously by the Seventh Circuit). , February 23, 1970 The progress of the trial—which had many aspects of
guerrilla theater—was covered on the nightly news and made Kunstler the best-known lawyer in the country, and something of a folk hero. After much deadlock, the jury acquitted all seven on the
conspiracy charge, but convicted five of violating the anti-riot provisions of the
Civil Rights Act of 1968. The Seventh Circuit overturned all the convictions on November 21, 1972, due to Hoffman's refusal to let defense lawyers question the prospective jurors on racial and cultural biases; the Justice Department did not retry the case. 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). Kunstler and co-counsel,
Michael Kennedy, were among the group's six defense attorneys. On the opening day of the HUAC hearings, the subpoenaed men and their lawyers, including Kunstler and Kennedy, 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.
American Indian Movement (1973–1976) Kunstler arrived in
Pine Ridge, South Dakota, on March 4, 1973, to draw up the demands of the
American Indian Movement (AIM) members involved in the
Wounded Knee incident. 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 (1868). Kunstler's team represented
Russell Means and
Dennis Banks, two of the leaders of the occupation. Kunstler objected to the heavy trial security on the grounds that it could prejudice the jury and Judge
Fred J. Nichol agreed to ease measures. Two authors and three Sioux were called as defense witnesses, mostly focusing on the historical (and more recent) injustice against the Sioux on the part of the U.S. government, shocking the prosecution. In 1975, Kunstler defended AIM members
Robert Robideau and Darrelle Butler in the slaying of two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, at
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, not far from the site of the Wounded Knee incident. Butler and Robideau had become involved in the shootout in which Coler and Williams were killed after running to the aid of other AIM members who were shooting at the agents; Kunstler argued that "an atmosphere of fear and violence" existed between the FBI and the AIM, and as a result Butler and Robideau had feared for their lives when they heard gunfire and acted in perceived self-defense. At the trial in 1976, Kunstler subpoenaed prominent government officials to testify about the existence of a
Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) against Native American activists. District Judge
Edward J. McManus approved Kunstler's attempt to
subpoena FBI director
Clarence M. Kelley. Robideau and Butler were ultimately acquitted, with the jury agreeing with Kunstler's argument that they had acted in fear for their lives.
Leonard Peltier, who had also participated in the shootout, was later convicted of the murders; he did not retain Kunstler to defend him.
Attica (1974–1976) In 1974–1975, Kunstler defended a prisoner charged with killing a guard during the
Attica Prison riot. Under cross-examination, Kunstler forced Correction Officer Donald Melven to retract his sworn identification of
John Hill, Kunstler's client, and
Charles Pernasilice (defended by Richard Miller), admitting he still retained "slight" doubts that he confessed to investigators at the time of the incident. 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 (Miller called none), who testified that other prisoners hit the guard. Despite Justice King's repeated warnings to Kunstler to "be careful, sir", Kunstler quickly became "the star of the trial, the man the jurors watch most attentively, and the lawyer whose voice carries most forcefully". Although the prosecution was careful to avoid personal confrontation with Kunstler, who frequently charmed the jury with jokes, on one occasion, Kunstler provoked a shouting match with the lead prosecutor, allegedly to wake up a sleeping jury member. In June, Kunstler and Barbara Handshu, representing another inmate at Attica,
Mariano Gonzales, asked for a new hearing on the role of FBI informant
Mary Jo Cook.
Assata Shakur (1977) 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. Shakur, sentenced to
life imprisonment, in early 1979 escaped from prison. In 1984, Shakur was granted asylum in
Cuba by
Fidel Castro, who called the charges “an infamous lie". William Kunstler told reporters in 1979 that Shakur's health had declined in prison; he said: “I was very happy that she escaped because I thought she was unfairly tried".
Collaboration with Ron Kuby (1983–1995) ("the Blind Sheik") for the
1993 World Trade Center bombing. From 1983 until Kunstler's death in 1995,
Ron Kuby was his partner. The two took on controversial civil-rights and criminal cases, including: El Sayyid Nosair who was charged with assassinating Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990 in New York City [The jury acquitted Nosair of Kahane's murder but the judge in the case overruled the jury’s decision and sentenced him to 71/3 to 22 years in prison, the maximum allowed]; Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, head of the Egyptian-based terrorist group Gama'a al-Islamiyah, and nine others, including Nosair and Nosair’s cousin Ibrahim A. Elgabrowny, some of which were found responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Colin Ferguson, the man responsible for the
1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting, who would later reject Kuby and 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 New York City public-school teacher who absconded with a 15-year-old girl for two months;
Nico Minardos, a flamboyant actor indicted by
Rudy Giuliani for conspiracy to ship arms to Iran; Darrell Cabey, one of the persons shot by
Bernard Goetz; and associates of the
Gambino crime family. Kunstler's defense of the three clerics made him "more visible, more venerated, more vilified than ever". During the first
Gulf War, they represented dozens of American soldiers who refused to fight and claimed
conscientious objector status. ==Representation of mobsters==