People's Law Office 1968-2010

[BLUEHAWK]

They're still functioning, in Chicago. Here is a somewhat lengthy but interesting history they wrote of themselves.

Source:
http://www.peopleslawoffice.com/arch...es-law-office/
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A History of the People’s Law Office

THE BEGINNING YEARS

(1968 - 1970)

We started the office because we wanted to work in the movement for the movement & with the movement as lawyers. Ted Stein brought the idea to Dennis Cunningham when they were working together in the Chicago Legal Defense Committee, formed to help deal with the protests at the ‘68 Democratic Convention, and the cases that came out of it. A week later when the smoke cleared, they were sitting in a room downtown with 300 misdemeanor cases, wondering what to do.

The idea was to have an office that would be part of the movement in some real way, with a workload determined by political events and involvements, and thus free of normal constraints of law firmism. Primarily, that meant we would be a collective, whatever that meant: not a firm in any event. Right on!

Ted knew Skip Andrew and Don Stang and Dennis knew Jeff Haas, and the five of them started having meetings to discuss whether such a thing could be done, and whether they ought to try it. Before they got very far, Dennis met Bobby Rush and Fred Hampton, who asked for help with the many legal problems the new Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party was already having. The opportunity to go to work for such clients_even though we were so green we had little idea of what to do_made the decision to start the office academic.
There ensued a baptism of fire. Dennis had his first jury trial in late February 1969, on one day’s notice, with Fred as his client in a case about a demonstration in Maywood City Council chambers the year before. By April, a high level of conflict had developed between the Panthers, the Young Lords and the Police, and a series of major confrontations had begun. Fred went to trial again (with other counsel) and was convicted of robbery for allegedly relieving a Maywood ice cream truck driver of his inventory and passing it out to neighborhood kids. After a vicious attack upon him in the press by State’s Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan, the trial judge reneged on a promise to put Fred on probation and instead sentenced him to two to five years in the penitentiary. Truly frightened at the possibility that it would be denied, we spent over a month preparing a petition for appeal bond, with law students Flint Taylor, Seva Dubuar and Ray McClain joining the effort to free Fred and defend the Panthers.

It was a time of tremendous political activity and drama in the city, involving the BPP, the Young Lords, Young Patriots, two factions (at least) of SDS, an increasingly robust anti-war movement, and militant community organizations such as Concerned Citizens of Lincoln Park and the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO). Young Lords member Manuel Ramos was killed by a policeman in a non-political street incident in May, leading to a tense, very political march by some 2000 activists from People’s Park (Armitage and Halsted) to the Chicago Avenue Police Station.

The militant “Weatherman” group emerged from the SDS convention in June, and soon asked us to serve as legal support for the National Action they announced they would stage in October. Major police raids and shooting incidents against the Panthers occurred on April 16, June 4, July 16, and July 3 1. By summer’s end we were all making multiple appearances in the branch courts almost every day, and beginning not to feel that green anymore.

The actual office was opened in a converted sausage shop at Halsted and Webster on August 1, 1969 with a would-be collective including Skip, Don, Jeff, Dennis, Flint , Seva, Ray, Mariha Kuechmann, and Norrie Davis, with Ted Stein and Burt Steck running the Chicago Legal Defense Committee and the Chicago Area Military Law Project in the front room The storefront space was laid out in a unique honeycomb of tiny hexagonal chambers, designed by Howard Alan, and there was a six-inch-thick concrete wall and steel gate across the front, behind the plate glass window, to protect us in case of an armed attack. We had already boldly decided to call ourselves the Peoples Law Office_informally at least_and our purpose was easily encapsulated in the obligation to be worthy of that name.

We were soon joined by a wonderful older man, Eugene Feldman, who volunteered his services as a receptionist, and who inspired us with his lifelong commitment to the movement and his first person stories of the civil rights struggle in the South and against HUAC in the forties and fifties.

In late August, Supreme Court Justice Walter Shaeffer released Chairman Fred on appeal bond, and he returned from Menard to the People’s Church to a tumultuous and inspiring welcome. The frenetic pace of work only intensified in the fall. Mark Kadish moved from Detroit to organize a National Lawyers Guild chapter in Chicago and to work in our office. The Conspiracy trial began in September with a boisterous demonstration at which numerous Weathermen were arrested for felony mob action and for freeing a comrade from a police wagon. The RYM (Revolutionary Youth Movement) II faction of SDS had their National Action and the Weathermen had their “Days of Rage” in October 1969, all leading to many new cases for the office and other lawyers. There was also another shoot-out at Panther headquarters, and six Panthers were arrested. Most of the six were subsequently set free after Skip and Dennis beat their cases at the preliminary hearing. Bobby Seale was bound and gagged and the Panthers and other supporters held daily protests at the Federal Building. On November 13, in a shoot-out on the South Side, Panther Spurgeon “Jake” Winters and two Chicago police officers were killed.

Our Weathermen clients not only required legal defense, but also challenged us as legal people, questioned our sexism, personal relationships, and struggled with us to reject our privileged status as white lawyers and to further change our lives. You were either “part of the solution or part of the problem.” During this period we also put together a challenge to the grand jury system on the basis of discrimination against Blacks, Latins, and women, and filed it in all our major cases. Together with Warren Wolfson, Jeff and Flint successfully represented Brian Flanagan, the Weatherman accused of attempted murder on Corporation Counsel Richard Elrod, who had broken his neck trying to tackle Brian as he ran through the streets of Chicago in the Days of Rage.

On December 4,1969, at 4:30 in the morning, Edward Hanrahan and his squad of special police made their murderous pre-dawn raid on the Black Panther Party apartment located on 2337 W. Monroe Street. A hail of police gunfire from rifles, a submachine gun, shotguns and handguns left Fred Hampton and Mark Clark dead, and four other Panthers wounded. In a carefully staged press conference only hours later, Hanrahan falsely claimed that there was a fierce shootout and that Fred and other Panthers had fired numerous shots at police.

In their arrogance, the police neglected to seal the apartment from the public immediately after the raid. Panther leader Bobby Rush contacted Skip and Dennis, and they mobilized the Office to go to 2337 W. Monroe to take pictures and to gather evidence which the police left behind. The entire apartment had been torn apart, and it was quickly apparent from the bullet holes that all the bullets went into the rooms where the Panthers were sleeping. The bloody mattress and pool of blood on the floor showed that Fred was shot at point blank range in his bed, and his body dragged out into the hall.

With the help of several friends, including Mike Gray, who was making a documentary on the Panthers, which later became the “Murder of Fred Hampton,” we filmed, photographed and documented the location of each piece of evidence, then removed it to a secret location_Reverend Jim Reed’s church. We also took custody of the front door panel, which showed that the police had fired a shot through the front door — contrary to their story. Jeff and Marc were at the police station hearing the firsthand accounts of the survivors: that the police came in shooting, that Fred and Mark and the survivors never had a chance to defend themselves, and that the police had said “[Bobby] Rush is next.” Rush was warned and went underground for several days, thereby avoiding being home when the police raided his apartment on December 5th. Two new members of the office were recruited that day — Northwestern students Susan Jordan and Jackson Welch; spouses and loved ones Nancy Dempsey, Mona Mellis, Victory Kadish and Mary Frank, joined Skip, Flint, Seva and Ray in the exhaustive effort to document the murders at the apartment.

The raid and Fred’s murder had a tremendous impact on our lives and the work of the office. We worked continuously for weeks and months, first at the apartment and the police station, then on the legal defense of the survivors, drafting civil rights lawsuits, dealing with the federal grand jury, the coroner’s inquest and the people’s inquest. Skip risked contempt when he was ordered to produce the door panel, then produced it with a public explanation of how it demonstrated that the police fired first. While Hanrahan used the Tribune and WBBM-TV in an attempt to further his lies and cover-up, the Panthers were able to demonstrate at the apartment that the police fired all but one of the shots-and to publicly establish that it was a “shoot-in” and murder, rather than a shootout.

In May the Justice Department continued the Hampton cover-up by refusing to indict the raiders, but rather issued a grand jury report which condemned both the Panthers and the police, while admitting that the police fired 90-99 shots to one by the Panthers.

In June, with the assistance of Arthur Kinoy, Bill Bender, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, we filed several lengthy civil rights lawsuits against Hanrahan and the police on behalf of the Hampton family and the raid survivors.

The Young Lords had taken over the administration building of McCormick Seminary at Fullerton and Halsted, renamed it the Manuel Ramos Building and made several demands including that a grant be made to the office to fund its legal work for the YLO and other community organizations.

In February 1970 after the New York townhouse explosion killed Diana Oughton, Ted Gold and Terry Robbins, our Days of Rage cases were suspended as most of the Weathermen went underground.

Also in 1970, several of us moved into a living collective at Jeff’s house. This collective included Courtney Esposito, Liza Lawrence, Susie Waysdorf and Carrie Shuman who joined the office as legal workers. We were also the targets of daily surveillance by the Red Squad and particularly one Maurie Daley, who made it a point to aggressively taunt us. We later discovered that the FBI had rented a room across the street from our collective after our Weathermen clients went underground, and was filming us and reading our mail. We duly documented the Red Squad surveillance, and even drafted a lawsuit, but we never filed it because it never seemed like a priority, given all the other work that we were doing.

U.S. SUPREME COURT REPORTS
… How is the applicant in this case to establish the existence of such clandestine activity so expertly carried on by the Executive Branch? She has introduced sworn statements that her attorneys_themselves likely subjects of government surveillance_discussed her case over phone lines fraught with indicia of intrusion.

Her attorneys include members of the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and an organization in Chicago known as the ‘Peoples Law Office.’ Peoples is a firm almost exclusively devoted to the criminal defense of ‘militants’ and ‘radicals,’ including Chairman Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party and Bernadine Dohrn and Marc Rudd of the Weatherman faction of the SDS.

In Re Grand Jury Subpoena of Margaret Heutsche 39L.E.2d 140,142 (1973), Douglas, J., dissenting.
On November 12,1970, there was a predawn shootout between the Panthers and police at a Panther house in downstate Carbondale, Illinois. At the request of Bobby Rush, we went down to investigate and to get the Panthers out on bond. Jeff and Flint were joined by Michael Deutsch, who had recently decided to stop clerking for Judge Otto Kerner in the Seventh Circuit and to join the office. We were successful in obtaining bond from the Appellate Court and gathered physical evidence at the apartment in a similar manner to the Hampton case.

In the Spring of 1971, we continued to pursue our “litigate and demonstrate” philosophy, helping to organize an “opening day” anti-war demonstration and festival in Lincoln Park, while going to court to obtain a permit for amplifiers. We went to the May Day demonstration in Washington, and joined the demonstration to disrupt the Government, which ran the Indochina War Machine. Several of us were arrested.

Also in the spring of 1971, we decided to open a branch office in Carbondale to deal with the Panther defense, as well as other movement cases arising from Southern Illinois University and the community. Michael, Flint, and Steven White moved south, and were assisted by local people including Patricia Handlin and Arnie Jochums. In the summer of 1971, the Carbondale Panther case went to trial, with the legal team consisting of Jeff, Michael, Flint, and Steve White. During the second weekend of the trial, we drove to the cemetery in Mt. Vernon, Illinois where George Jackson’s mother delivered an impassioned eulogy at her son’s funeral. The trial concluded the following weekend, and the “Carbondale 3” were acquitted on all 41 counts. We became close to the Panthers in Carbondale, and were moved by their dedication and commitment. We were particularly impressed by the leadership of Jimmy Brewton, later known as Ali Shanna, who displayed many of the same qualities as Fred Hampton.

ATTICA, MARION, AND OTHER PRISON WORK

(1971 - 1975)

On September 9,1971, Attica prisoners took over the prison, seizing guards as hostages. After the prisoners made 28 demands and entered into negotiations, the uprising was ended on September 13 with a state police assault and massacre ordered by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. Jeff and Mzizi, a legal worker who had recently joined the Office, went to New York and were among the first legal people allowed to see the prisoners. They met many of the Attica brothers, including “Big Black” who had been tortured by the prison guards after the massacre, and Mara Siegel, a Buffalo law student who had responded to the call for legal support. Over the next months, several different lawyers, law students, and legal workers made trips to Attica, where we learned first hand of the atrocities, developed relationships with many of the brothers, and worked on several of the injunctive cases which sought relief from the hideous maltreatment of prisoners in the aftermath of the massacre.

Our work in Carbondale had also brought us in contact with prisoners at the Marion Federal Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. In 1972, there was a work stoppage at Marion, which led to the segregation of over one hundred protesting prisoners. We filed a suit, Adams v. Carlson, which challenged this segregation. We were inspired by the strength of the prisoners, particularly Rafael Cancel Miranda, a Puerto Rican Nationalist Prisoner who at that time had been imprisoned for early 20 years for the attack on Congress in 1954. We finally won Adams on appeal, and the men were released from segregation in early 1974. During this period, two new law students, Ralph Hurvitz and Lee Tockman, joined the office and quickly became immersed in the Marion work.

Much of our energy was being channeled into prison work. We fought against behavior modification units, later named “control units” both in the federal and the state systems. We became involved in the challenge to Stateville’s Special Programs Unit (SPU), which ultimately, along with Adams, established in the Seventh Circuit the right to due process before placement in such control units. In the wake of the Adams decision, the Marion authorities converted the segregation unit to a control unit, and we filed a second suit, Bono v. Saxbe, which challenged that unit, and which became another piece of protracted litigation as the Bureau of Prisons developed their draconian maxi-maxi penology and offered it as a brazen defense to their unconstitutional conduct. We also represented the family of a Cook County Jail prisoner, George Lucas, who was suffocated to death by guards, at a coroner’s inquest and in a civil rights suit.

In the early seventies, we also put a lot of energy into the Lawyers Guild. In the summer of 1971, we attended the Guild convention in Boulder, and, led by Susan, actively participated in the struggle to admit legal workers as equal members of the Guild. After the convention Susie Gamm, Lorry Sirkin, Adrianne Kahn, Ed Schwartz and Stuart Gorelik became local NLG staff members, and we worked with them on many projects, including the local Guild newspaper, called “Up Against the Bench.” We helped to organize and participated in several local and national prison and criminal law committees and projects, and wrote several papers, including one on behavior modification in prisons, called “Check Out Your Mind.” In the summer of 1972, one member of the local criminal law project, Peter Schmiedel, a Marshall law student, began to work with us writing criminal appeals and soon was totally immersed in working on the Hampton case.

We were also handling a large number of serious felonies, including several murder cases, and Dennis, Jeff, Don, and Susan tried many of them. Susan and Don began to actively participate in defending political persons subpoenaed before grand juries and in writing a grand jury manual. Susan also helped develop the battered women’s defense. Also in the summer of 1972, Hanrahan and his men, who had been indicted by a special state grand jury for obstruction of justice, went on trial before Democratic machine judge Philip Romiti.

During the trial, the special prosecutor discovered some attorney-client statements allegedly made by some survivors to PLO lawyers which were found in our case files, and which contained several material inconsistencies with their testimony at trial. Prosecutors turned them over to Hanrahan’s lawyers, who promptly turned the trial into an inquisition against us. Romiti then entered a directed verdict for Hanrahan and his men. Only a week later, the Black community delivered a very different verdict as Hanrahan was defeated by Republican Bernard Carey in the State’s Attorney election.

The tide in the Hampton case turned, however after the Seventh Circuit restored Hanrahan as a defendant, when Jim Thompson’s prosecution of rogue police officer Stanley Robinson revealed that William O’Neal was an FBI informant who had been intimately involved in setting up the Hampton raid. O’Neal was not only an original member of the Panthers who served as Fred’s bodyguard, he was also a client of ours, who had frequently visited our office and our houses, all the while, it turned out, reporting to the FBI.

Armed with this information, we began to pursue the FBI’s involvement in the murders. In conjunction with William Bender and the Rutgers Law School Constitutional Law Clinic, we subpoenaed documents, which revealed that O’Neal and the FBI had supplied a floor plan to Hanrahan’s men, which marked the bed on which Fred would be sleeping. We deposed O’Neal, his FBI contact and other FBI officials, and began to focus on the role of the FBI’s COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence) Program in the conspiracy to assassinate Fred. By this time another Northwestern Law student, Holly Hill, had joined the office and together with Flint, Jeff, Ralph, Peter, the Rutgers people, and numerous volunteers, were working nearly full time on the Hampton case.

During this time period, we also began to work with women in prison, particularly with the women at Dwight. Mara, who moved from Buffalo, and Pat Handlin, who moved from Carbondale, joined the office. Holly and Pat, together with Marie Leaner and several other women, started the Women’s Prison Project, which taught weekly classes to the women at Dwight.

Much time and effort was also devoted to the Attica work. Michael and Dennis became the main persons from the office working on Attica, and they relocated to Buffalo to work on various suits and to deal with the Attica brothers. The state, in an outrageous attempt to blame the victims, had indicted 60 brothers. Dennis, Michael, and Liz Fink became deeply involved in the legal defense and the attendant political organizing. During their Attica days they also represented Martin Sostre, a noted prisoner of conscience who had been banished to indefinite segregation because he refused to shave his beard and submit to anal searches. After several hearings and trials and a tremendous amount of political organizing, the state dismissed the remaining indictments against the Attica brothers, and nullified the convictions of those who had been convicted. Since then, the Office has continued its involvement by pursuing the civil rights case filed against the state officials responsible for the massacre. (See the history of the last ten years.)

HAMPTON TRIAL AND PUERTO RICAN INDEPENDENCE

(1975 - 1978)

In November of 1975, we moved our offices downtown in anticipation of the impending Hampton trial, and in January of 1976, the trial began before Judge Sam Perry. The office at the time consisted of Jeff and Flint, who were working full time on the trial; Peter, Pat and Chick Hoffman, who had joined the office in late 1975; and several volunteers. Ralph left for Seattle, while Holly, Michael, and Mara went to work for the Criminal Law Consortium, a neighborhood public defender office. James Montgomery and Herb Reid were also active members of the Hampton trial team, and Dianne Rapaport and the December 4th Committee lent invaluable political and legal support.

Dennis returned from Attica to help during the first few months of the trial_during which it was revealed that the FBI had withheld 200 volumes of documents from us during discovery. In those volumes were documents, which established that the raid was part of the FBI COINTELPRO program designed to destroy the Panthers, and that O’Neal was paid a $300 bonus by the FBI for making the raid a “success.” While Jeff and Flint tried Hampton, everyone else hustled cases for money, and did as much Hampton work as possible, while we lived on $75 each per week.

In the summer of 1976, several of us participated in marches led by the Martin Luther King Jr. movement in response to racist terror and Nazi organizing in Marquette Park. On the first march, as we passed the park itself, we were jeered by a large crowd of angry whites, and bombarded by large rocks and chunks of cement. Unfamiliar with the terrain and unprotected by the police, we felt lucky to escape with our lives.

Also in 1976, the Department of Corrections cracked down on the Women’s Prison Project, barring the law class and locking Maxine Smith, the only jailhouse lawyer at the women’s prison at Dwight, in indefinite segregation on the pretextual charge of possession of a camera. The Department offered to release Maxine if she would stop her jailhouse lawyer activities and relinquish her law library job, but she refused on principle. Peter, Pat, Marie, and the Women’s Prison Project drafted and filed a complaint seeking her release and damages.

In 1974, Michael and Mara had become deeply involved in the struggle to free the Five Puerto Rican Nationalist prisoners_Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irwin Flores, Oscar Collazo, Lolita Lebron, and Andres Figueroa Cordero. They had helped organize and worked with a national committee to “Free the Five.” They worked with Puerto Rican lawyers, filed lawsuits in the District of Columbia, and later with the International Human Rights Commission in Geneva, and Michael testified before the United Nations.

In November of 1976, grand juries were impaneled in New York and Chicago, subpoenaing leading independence activists in both cities, as well as some of their most militant Chicano supporters, in their search for FALN fugitives and in order to harass the above ground movement. Michael, Dennis, Mara and Peter worked to fight the subpoenas, in furtherance of the movement’s strong position of non-collaboration, and for 14 months were successful in keeping all those subpoenaed out of jail. Ultimately many of the subpoenas were dropped, but Jose Lopez, Ricardo Romero, Pedro Archuleta, and Roberto Caldero were held in contempt and jailed. It was during this period we began our close association with the Puerto Rican Cultural Center and Rafael Cancel Miranda (now Pedro Albizu Campos) alternative high school.

In early June of 1977, as the 18 month Hampton trial finally ground to a close, Police Sergeant Thomas Walton led a contingent of charging police into Humboldt Park on Puerto Rican Day and shot in the back and killed two unarmed men, Julio Osorio and Rafael Cruz. This led to a two day uprising by outraged members of the West town community. While Jeff and Flint were giving their closing arguments in Hampton, Peter and Dennis, with Michael’s help, were filing a multimillion-dollar suit against Walton and the City, which became known as the Humboldt Park case. The jury deadlocked in Hampton, Judge Perry entered a directed verdict for the defendants, and assessed $100,000 in costs against the Hampton plaintiffs.

Much of the next year was devoted to preparing the Hampton appeal, a massive task which involved reading and abstracting a 37,000 page record, and writing a 250 page brief, which had Fred and Mark’s pictures on the inside cover and a signature page which said “All Power to the People.” Flint, Dennis, Chick, and Jeff were assisted by Jon Moore, a graduating DePaul Law student, and a crew of devoted typists, including Linda Turner, who tirelessly did so many of our large typing tasks, often working through the night with us.

Together with Val Klink, Ed Voci, Jim Fennerty and others, Jeff and Flint also represented Iranian students who were arrested at several militant demonstrations against the Shah and his secret police (SAVAK), and obtained documentation which linked the FBI, the Chicago Police Department and SAVAK. Michael, Mara, and Peter represented Palestinian students who were expelled from Circle Campus for protesting against Israeli Day; and Jeff and Marc Kadish successfully defended Stateville prisoner William Jennings, who was accused of killing a Stateville Lieutenant. In August of 1978, the Seventh Circuit finally ordered that Maxine Smith be released from segregation and Flint, Jeff and Dennis argued Hampton before the Seventh Circuit at a special session.

The next week Pontiac Prison erupted, with three guards killed. The prison was placed on total deadlock, and lawyers were barred. Together with Shel Bannister, Jerry Block, David Thomas and Laurie Shatsoff, we first filed a suit to regain entry into the prison, and then sought to end the deadlock. We obtained a preliminary injunction ending the deadlock and defended it on appeal, and then spent several months in early 1979 pressing contempt against the Department of Corrections for noncompliance with the injunction. As a result, the DOC ended the deadlock and we received a substantial attorney’s fee award for our work. During this time Jeff, Shel, Val, and Kingsley Clark began to meet with prisoners who were targeted for indictment and began to plan their defense.

On April 23, 1979, the Seventh Circuit issued its opinion in Hampton. In a landmark decision, authored by Judge Luther Swygert, the Court reversed Judge Perry’s entry of directed verdicts, found there to be substantial evidence of a conspiracy between the FBI, Hanrahan, and the police to murder Fred and destroy the Panthers, found that the FBI had obstructed justice by suppressing 200 volumes of documents, and reversed the contempt citations against Flint and Jeff. Soon thereafter, Judge Swygert received a “Right on Luther” tee shirt, compliments of the Peoples Law Office.

In September of 1979, the international struggle to Free the Five Puerto Rican Nationalist Prisoners culminated in victory when the sentences of four were unconditionally commuted and they were released. Andres Cordero had been released the year before because he had terminal cancer. 3,000 people greeted the freed patriots in Chicago, 10,000 in New York, and 25,000 jammed the airport in San Juan for their triumphant return home. Also in September, we joined with Lewis Myers and Chokwe Lumumba in filing a Freedom of Information Act suit on behalf of Imari Obadele and the Republic of New Africa. This suit ultimately compelled the production of documents, which exposed the FBI’s efforts to destroy the RNA.

Also in 1979, the Supreme Court took certiorari in Green v. Carlson, a case we filed against Bureau of Prisons officials for the 1975 death of Joseph Jones in the Terre Haute Prison Hospital. Jones was the fourth black prisoner to die at Terre Haute in eight months due to grossly inadequate medical care. Jon Moore had joined the office and worked with Michael, Flint, Dennis, and Chick in preparing the brief. Flint, Dennis, and Jon then moved on to prepare an answer to the petitions for certiorari in Hampton. In this endeavor, we were assisted by Jani Hoft, a student intern who had been working with Mara.

In early 1980, the entire Green team piled into a station wagon dubbed the Butz (for Butz v. Economu) Express and descended upon Washington and the Supreme Court. Michael argued the case before the Court, with the major issue being whether a prisoner’s cruel and unusual punishment claim for damages could be implied against federal officials under the Eighth Amendment. Later that year, the Supreme Court decided both Green and Hampton in our favor, although the Court reversed the $100,000 in interim attorney’s fees, which the Seventh Circuit had awarded us for winning the appeal.

In April of 1980, eleven alleged FALN members were arrested in Evanston and charged in state and federal court with numerous criminal offenses including seditious conspiracy. Like William Morales, whom Michael and Dennis had previously represented in New York, these independence fighters, citing international law, did not recognize the authority of the U.S. courts to criminalize their struggle against colonialism, and asserted a prisoner of war position. Michael, Dennis, and Mara gave legal assistance to them by preparing a petition to the UN Decolonization Commission and the Human Rights Commission in support of their position.

In state court, Judge Bailey held Mara in contempt and threatened to throw Michael out of a window. In federal court, before Judge McMillen, 10 of the 11 were given sentences from 55 to 90 years and Haydee Torres received a life sentence from Judge Whitman Knapp in the Southern District of New York. The 11 were shipped off to prison, and the protection of their human rights against the politically motivated treatment of state and federal prison authorities and the campaign for the recognition of their prisoner of war status became a major task of the Office. Michael appeared before international human rights conferences in Malta, Cuba, and Barcelona, and at the United Nations in support of their claim for status as anti-colonial POWs.

In the fall of 1980, John Stainthorp, who had worked on the Attica cases in Buffalo, joined the Office, and Linda Peters replaced Alarie Mack as our secretary and office manager. In April of 1981, Pat and Flint won a verdict from a Terre Haute jury for the wrongful segregation of prisoner David Saxner, who was punished for organizing against the atrocious medical conditions in Terre Haute federal prison which led to the death of Joseph Jones.

In 1980 and 1981, the Pontiac criminal cases went to trial. Seventeen Pontiac brothers had been indicted for the murders of the three guards who had been killed during the 1978 prison uprising, and several more had been charged with lesser offenses. Venue in the murder cases was moved to Chicago, and Jeff and Michael, along with several leading Black criminal defense lawyers, took a major role in coordinating the defense and adopting a strategy of maintaining unity among the defendants, exposing the prison conditions, and putting the state on trial. In the first trial, the prosecution proceeded against ten of the defendants, including Jeff’s client, Joe Smith, but after a lengthy trial the jury acquitted all defendants on all counts. The state then dropped all remaining murder charges.

Dennis and Peter participated in the defense of the lesser charges in Bloomington, together with David Thomas, She1 Bannister, and Bob Hodge. Peter’s client was acquitted, while Dennis’ and several other defendants were convicted. The success obtained in the Pontiac cases was due in large part to the organizing and educating work of the Pontiac Prisoner Support Coalition, and the Concerned Family and Friends of the Pontiac Prisoners.

STREET FILES, GRAND JURY AND HAMPTON SETTLEMENT

(1981 - 1984)

In May of 1981, the office became involved in a murder case, which eventually led to the discovery of “street files” - secret police files in which evidence favorable to criminal defendants was systematically hidden. George Jones, an 18- year-old black youth about to graduate from high school, was arrested for murder and rape, and was brought by Area II detectives to a hospital room for a show up. Fortunately, Peter was present in the hospital room and observed that the witness - a 7 year old boy who had suffered serious brain damage - could not identify George. Nonetheless, the police alleged that the police did identify George and George was charged, indicted, and held for 5 weeks before he could make bond. Jeff and Peter became George’s lawyers and the case was set for trial in April of 1982.

In April 1982 the murder prosecution of George Jones proceeded. After the seven-year-old survivor dramatically broke down while testifying, a story on the case appeared in the Chicago Tribune. Frank Laverty was an honest Area II detective who had investigated the case and had uncovered evidence showing George Jones was not the offender. His superiors had assured him and coworkers that the case would never go to trial, and when he happened to see the article, he was shocked that the case was proceeding and immediately called the courtroom. Jeff was called to the phone and Laverty told him that he had information establishing that Jones was the wrong man and that the detectives had framed him. Laverty then came to the courthouse and revealed that the evidence, which established Jones’ innocence, was hidden in the secret “street files.”

As a result of Laverty’s revelations and his subsequent testimony in the trial, the prosecution was dismissed, and we immediately filed a class action lawsuit seeking to end the use of street files. After establishing that the use of “street files” was a longstanding and widespread practice, which was often utilized by the police to hide exculpatory evidence, we obtained a preliminary injunction enjoining the practice. We also received an attorney’s fee award, however, the injunction was subsequently reversed on appeal and our fees award was taken away, despite the fact we had in fact stopped the practice. We determined, however, that we would not let this issue drop, and we filed a civil case on George’s behalf. The publicity surrounding exposure of the street file policy led to many criminal defendants filing discovery requests for street files and obtaining evidence that would help to establish their innocence.

Meanwhile, in 1981, Jon and Peter became involved in the Irish struggle and both joined the Irish Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild. Jon went to Ireland on a NLG fact-finding trip and was there for the final stages of Bobby Sand’s hunger strike, his death and funeral. Later, Peter also went to Ireland, staying with the courageous Irish lawyer and activist Patrick Finucane, who was later assassinated because of his political activities.

In the fall of 1981, Jill Inglis, another former student intern, joined the office as office manager; and Peter, Flint, and Michael went to trial in the Humboldt Park case. After three weeks of trial, with our case nearly complete, and after many defendants including killer Thomas Walton had testified, trial Judge Prentice Marshall had emergency heart surgery. From his hospital bed, he offered us the option of concluding the trial before Judge Hubert Will or accepting a mistrial with a retrial before him after he recuperated. We chose the mistrial, a decision we regretted as soon as we interviewed the jurors and learned that all but one was strongly for us, and that they were considering making a multimillion-dollar damage award. We were even more upset when Judge Marshall later transferred the case to Judge Nordberg rather than retry it himself. We ultimately settled the case for $625,000.

Although we had not filed a lawsuit to challenge the Red Squad’s surveillance against us, several of us were named plaintiffs in the lawsuit to stop police spying and disruption brought by Val Klink, Richard Guttman and the Alliance to End Repression. The FBI, the CIA, and Military Intelligence were later named as defendants, and in 1981 many of the named plaintiffs agreed to consent decrees to end the injunctive aspect of the litigation. We felt that the decrees did not go far enough, and that many of the most frequent movement targets were not sufficiently protected, so we intervened in the lawsuit on behalf of those individuals and organizations, and opposed the entry of the decrees. Brian Glick, who had recently joined the office, assisted Dennis, Jeff, and Flint in preparing the papers, and in authoring an article explaining our position for The Nation. We also appeared at the objectors hearing and articulated our position, but Judge Getzendanner approved the decrees over our objection.

In 1982, Jan Susler joined the office where she continued her prison work with the Puerto Rican Independence Movement. Janet Good also joined the office as a receptionist and secretary the same year. Also in 1982, Michael, Liz Fink, and Margaret Ratner from the Center for Constitutional Rights represented five political activists from Brooklyn, who were indicted for criminal contempt for refusing to testify before another grand jury investigating the Puerto Rican Independence Movement. The use of criminal contempt and anonymous petit juries was clearly an escalation of the government’s attacks on the above ground movement.

The government asked for a 15-year sentence supported by a memorandum accusing the five and Michael of being members of the FALN. The five were given three years in prison. Jan continued her work on behalf of the Puerto Rican prisoners of war by speaking extensively concerning their treatment and by working with Amnesty International and other human rights groups; and Michael and Jan worked to revive and coordinate the NLG Puerto Rico subcommittee.

In April of 1983, Jan and Flint obtained a $60,000 verdict on behalf of Hinda Hoffman, who had been strip searched after a traffic arrest pursuant to a police department policy and practice and in the presence of a male officer. In June, Jan, Flint, and Curtis Pierce, another student intern who had gone on to work full time in the office, went to trial in Peoria on behalf of Maxine Smith, and obtained a $100,000 verdict from an all white jury for her wrongful segregation. Later that same year, Jan, Jeff, and Flint obtained a $350,000 settlement for George Lucas, the Cook County Jail prisoner who had been suffocated ten years before.

Also in 1983, we finally reached a settlement in the Hampton case. Before a new judge, and utilizing the powerful Court of Appeals decision, we sought sanctions against the defendants for their obstruction of justice and fabrication of a second informant, complete discovery, and enforcement of the Court of Appeals’ finding that we had proven a prima facie conspiracy. Given these new realities, the City, County, and FBI combined to provide a $1.85 million settlement.

1983 also saw the election of Harold Washington as Mayor of Chicago. During the campaign, we participated in a Washington police brutality press conference, and poll watched during the primary and general election. The strength and commitment of the movement was impressive while the manifestations of racism on the Southwest and Northwest sides were sobering.

In the summer of 1983, Susan Gzesh and Peter successfully fought the government’s efforts to deport Dennis Brutus, a noted South African poet and political activist, and won his political asylum. That fall Stan Willis and Jose Berrios joined the office_Stan as a lawyer and Jose as a law clerk.

In November of 1983, many of us drove to Washington to participate in a national demonstration against intervention in Central America Jan, Jeff, and other NLG members helped to form the Chicago NLG Central America Task Force and for the next several years worked against U.S. intervention. This work, later joined in by Jani and John, consisted of a broad range of activity which included defending activists arrested for civil disobedience and sanctuary networking, staging a major war crimes tribunal as part of a national effort, and organizing a march on contra headquarters at the 50th anniversary of the Guild.

In 1984, Jani Hoft became a full time PLO lawyer. She began to represent anti-intervention and anti-nuclear demonstrators, and successfully pursued a necessity defense to trespass charges at Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Stan and Peter filed a lawsuit on behalf of Black and women public defenders, challenging hiring, promotion, pay scale and supervision as discriminatory, and eventually obtained a settlement incorporating substantial relief. Flint made several trips to New Orleans to assist Mary Howell and Pam Bayer in the “Algiers” case_a case of systematic police torture and murder, which arose in response to the killing of a white police officer in the Black community in New Orleans.

GREENSBORO, PUERTO RICAN TRIALS,AND GEORGE JONES

(1984 - 1988)

During 1983 and 1984, Dennis and Flint were becoming more deeply involved in the lawsuit brought by Lewis Pitts, Gayle Korotkin, Dan Sheehan and the Greensboro Justice Fund against the Klan, the Nazis, police, FBI and BATF in Greensboro, North Carolina for the murder of five Communist Workers Party leaders at an anti-Klan demonstration on November 3rd, 1979. In January 1985, Flint moved to North Carolina for six months for discovery and trial, and was later joined by Curtis. The evidence at trial showed that a BATF agent provoked the Nazis, that an FBI and police informant planned and led the Klan’s assault on the demonstrators, and that the local and federal authorities knew that the assault was going to take place and consciously absented themselves. Much of the massacre itself was filmed by the local TV stations and videotapes were repeatedly shown on T.V. monitors in the courtroom. The jury returned a verdict against several of the Klan, Nazis and police_the first such verdict ever obtained in the South. The victory was due in large part to the indomitable spirit and persistent organizing of the widows and comrades of the slain leaders.

In the summer of 1985, Dennis and Michael participated in the trial and defense of four accused FALN members charged with seditious conspiracy, three of whom asserted the prisoner of war position. On August 16 Puerto Rican independence activists, accused of being members of the Macheteros, a clandestine pro- independence organization, were arrested and brought to Hartford, where they were charged with conspiracy to rob Wells Fargo of $7.3 million. Michael soon became involved in the defense of one of the alleged leaders and thus became embroiled in the longest federal criminal proceedings in history, which would require his presence in Hartford for months at a time. This case also marked the most extensive use ever of pretrial preventive detention, and it was only after protracted argument and struggle that the defense lawyers were able to secure the release of all defendants on bond.

During this time Peter assisted Irish Republican prisoner Gabriel Megahey with his attempts to be paroled from U.S. prison, and along with Jack Kilroy and Kathleen Herron began publishing “The Lark” the newsletter of the Ireland Task Force of the Guild.

In the fall of 1985, Chick and Flint returned to the Supreme Court to argue Saxner v. Benson, which raised the issue of whether prison guards were entitled to absolute immunity when they sit on disciplinary committees. Flint argued the case, and in a six to three decision, we won affirmance of the jury verdict and rejection of the guard’s claim of immunity.

Jani represented women who were arrested on International Women’s Day for chaining themselves to the Playboy Club. Jani, Jeff, and Jan represented demonstrators arrested at protests against the Rock Island Arsenal, and later filed suit for the unlawful arrest, and imprisonment of over a dozen Rock Island protestors, including a claim that the women were strip- searched. Jani also represented Pledge of Resistance demonstrators, Armed Forces Day demonstrators, Hiroshima Day demonstrators, and Sanctuary supporters, while various other PLO members defended anti-apartheid protestors, toxic waste demonstrators, homeless activists, anti-CIA protesters, anti-Zionist protesters, and demonstrators who protested discriminatory CTA hiring practices. In many of these cases, we worked with Shel, Melinda Power, and Peggy Byrne.

The Office continued to represent a large number of people who had been beaten, wrongfully arrested or otherwise abused at the hands of police, prison guards and other government agents. Jon and Flint participated in founding and editing the “Police Misconduct Litigation Report,” and Peter joined later as an editor. We brought and successfully litigated numerous brutality cases, including many police killings, and developed theories and proof in areas of Monell policy and practice. We litigated several additional strip search cases, and obtained a large settlement in a case where the police failed to protect a woman from a known rapist who had previously raped her. We participated in the Civil Rights Study Group, wrote articles, spoke, testified and lectured on police brutality. We also took a strong position against NLG members who defended police officers in brutality cases.

In early 1987, Jeff, John, and Flint went to trial in the George Jones damages case, and after a seven week trial the jury returned a $801,000 verdict, including punitive damages against the city, the Commander of Area II, and ten police detectives and supervisory personnel. The trial again publicized the “street files” policy of the Chicago Police Department, whereby information that might be helpful to criminal defendants was hidden in secret “street files.” The verdict was subsequently affirmed by the Seventh Circuit in a decision which set the legal standard for when police officers are liable for malicious prosecutions. When all was said and done, the total award in the case, including attorneys fees, was nearly $1.5 million.

During this period, Stan devoted a substantial amount of time and energy providing legal and political support to the effort to re-elect Mayor Washington and to the Washington movement in general.

In the fall of 1987, Jeff, Jan, Carol Brook and David Thomas went to trial in a FALN “conspiracy to escape” case. The trial exposed that government informants had initiated and built the conspiracy, but the defendants, local Puerto Rican independence activists Jaime Delgado and Dora. Garcia, Puerto Rican POW Oscar Lopez, and black political prisoner Kojo Sababu, were nonetheless found guilty.

Jan, with the assistance of Michael and Dennis, continued the office’s commitment to federal prisons, the Puerto Rican prisoners of war, and political prisoners. This work included litigation, and work with Amnesty International, congressional committees, human rights organizations, the United Nations, and the various Marion committees. Some of the major issues which were taken on were the banning of the Marion Prisoners Rights Project from the prison, the imposition of a complete and permanent lockdown at Marion, and the opening of a new political prison for women in Lexington, Kentucky. Dennis and Michael obtained injunctive relief, and then Jan joined them in obtaining a jury verdict against Marion officials for the banning of the Marion Prisoners Rights Project. Subsequently, Jan, Michael, and a team of lawyers from Washington and New York obtained an injunction which prohibited the Bureau of Prisons from placing women in the Lexington High Security Unit on the basis of their political beliefs and associations, an injunction which was later overturned by the Court of appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Another crucial part of this work was Jan’s tireless traveling to Marion, Lexington, and various other places across the entire country in order to visit with clients in these cases, with other political prisoners, and with the Puerto Rican prisoners of war.

In the fall of 1987, Eugene Feldman, weakened by kidney disease, was honored for his lifelong commitment to the struggle. This moving event took place at the DuSable Museum of Black History, an institution which Eugene had helped to found. Even after he officially stopped volunteering at the office, Eugene would sometimes stop by to give us words of encouragement and inspiration. Less than two months after he was honored, we were all saddened to hear that Eugene had passed away.

John, Peter and Stan had continued to bring employment discrimination cases, and in 1988 John and Robin Potter went to trial on behalf of Frank Daniels, a Black pipefitter who had long protested his union’s discrimination against Blacks, and who had been expelled from the union for his activities. The evidence showed blatant, continuing discrimination against Daniels and other Blacks, and the jury awarded a $331,000 verdict to him. Subsequently, Robin and John obtained injunctive relief in the case which completely changed the hiring system for pipefitters and welders in the Chicago area and became a blueprint for similar systems nationwide. The new system minimized the influence of race discrimination in a union that had been all-white until the 1940s and still maintained substantial vestiges of race discrimination.