William Moses Kunstler: A lawyer who put the trial system on trial
by Surajit Sen Sharma
A prolific writer, with 13 published books, William Kunstler is one of the very few lawyers in recent history to have a book written entirely on him: ''William M. Kunstler: the most hated lawyer in America'' by David Langum. William Kunstler never cared about ruffling feathers, and according to his own convictions he was engaged in putting the trial system on trial. Over the years, his clients included people like Lenny Bruce, Malcolm X, H. Rap Brown, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, Jack Ruby, and several leaders of American Indian Movement, as well as, Islamic terrorists.
However, though William Kunstler had an uncanny knack of connecting with controversial cases and controversial clients, it is unclear how far he sought them and how far they sought him out. There are definite instances to prove that William Kunstler was not the ''publicity hound'' as which his opponents and critics tagged him. Kunstler consistently refused to defend right-wing groups including the Minutemen and has been on record saying ''I only defend those whose goals I share. I'm not a lawyer for hire. I only defend those I love.''
Between 1941 and 1979, more than 60 articles by different authors have been penned on William Kunstler and his activities. A man who knew well how to remain constantly in the public eye, William Kunstler has been described by legal writer Sydney Zion as ''one of the few lawyers in town who know how to talk to the press. His stories always check out and he's not afraid to talk to you, and he's got credibility - although you've got to ask sometimes, ‘Bill, is it really true?''' And that is the kind of reputation any lawyer dreams of. In November 2009, a documentary film named ''William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe'' has been released with people like Herman Badillo, Harry Belafonte, Julian Bond and a host of other celebrities on the cast.
William Kunstler's first case that made the headlines was the defense of William Worthy in 1957. Worthy was a correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American whose passport was seized for attending a Communist Youth Conference in Moscow that violated a travel ban to communist countries. William Kunstler refused to accept a compromise forwarded by the State Department, fought the trial and won the case for William Worthy. Though Kunstler continued to hit the headlines for a series of controversial cases, he shot to national fame for defending and winning the famous ''Chicago Seven Trial,'' an incident that has been the subject of numerous national and international award winning films, books, articles, plays, and songs.
William Kunstler's life reads like a thriller itself. In his own autobiography, Kunstler mentions that he was a terrible kid until he reached high school. During teenage he belonged to a gang called the Red Devils who were into stealing from gum machines and breaking windows in the Central Park area of New York. Kunstler detached himself from the group, turned into an ‘A' grade student and joined DeWitt Clinton High School. He went on to Yale College graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and continued education at Columbia University Law School. As a student, Kunstler was a passionate poet and represented Yale in the Glascock Prize Competition. After his student life, William Kunstler served in the U.S. Army during World War II attaining the rank of Major and receiving the Bronze Star. He joined the bar in New York in 1948.
Winning and participating in a veritable slew of cases that drew the attention of the press and the public, William Kunstler ultimately died of heart stroke on Labor Day in 1995. Widely popular as an iconic radical lawyer, William Moses Kunstler was a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union and the co-founder of the Law Center for Constitutional Rights.
William Kunstler proved that a lawyer's career grew as long as he played his cards right and was in the public eye. Whether the lawyer was regarded as famous or infamous was inconsequential. In 1983, William Kunstler employed Ron Kuby as a junior partner with the focus on taking up controversial cases, whether civil rights or criminal. In the course of his partnership with Kuby, Kunstler represented Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the head of an Egypt based terror group responsible for the World Trade Center bombing. According to critics, his defense of the heads of terror groups made him ''more visible, more venerated, more vilified than ever.''
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