Michael John Kennedy facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Michael Kennedy
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Michael John Kennedy
March 23, 1937 Spokane, Washington, U.S.
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| Died | January 25, 2016 (aged 78) Manhattan, New York, U.S.
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| Education | University of California, Berkeley (BA) University of California, Hastings (JD) |
| Children | 3, including Scott |
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; 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 Ivana Trump in her contentious divorce with Donald Trump.
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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, 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, and a much-heralded international tribunal investigating war crimes in Bosnia.
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.
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
Kennedy defended numerous conscientious objectors and draft resistors at the height of the Vietnam War. Some draft protesters chose prison over fighting in what they regarded as an immoral and unjust war. Others opted to go to Canada where they were welcomed. Vietnam deserters got as far as Sweden, to where Kennedy traveled to represent persons sought for extradition by the United States.
Andy Stapp and Dennis Ciesielski
Kennedy defended Andy Stapp, an anti-war activist who had formed the American Servicemen's Union, an unofficial union for US military members who opposed the Vietnam War.
In 1968 Kennedy tried the case of Dennis Ciesielski, the first US sailor to refuse orders to serve in Vietnam. Ciesielski, charged with desertion, was convicted of a lesser offense.
The Buffalo Nine
The Buffalo Nine comprised a group of students associated with State University of New York at Buffalo who sought sanctuary in a Unitarian Universalist church in Buffalo, New York. When US Marshals, FBI agents and the Buffalo Police stormed the church with blackjacks, Bruce Beyer - leader of the Buffalo Draft Resistance Union - was arrested along with eight others for evading the draft and assaulting an officer. Their arrest drew national attention. Kennedy, then staff counsel with the NECLC, along with former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, represented members of the group that became known as Buffalo Nine. Beyer, who faced considerable jail time, jumped bail and fled to Canada then eventually made his way to Sweden, where he was granted humanitarian asylum.
Puerto Rican Vietnam War draft resisters
In the first case of its kind in San Juan, Puerto Rico's Federal Court, Kennedy represented Edwin Feliciano Grafals, a self-described, non-religious conscientious objector, who was studying math and science at the university when he was drafted into the US military. A member of the Movimiento Pro-Independencia de Puerto Rico (MPI), Grafals objected to being drafted and condemned American aggression in Vietnam. Grafals and other Puerto Ricans took issue with forced induction into the U.S. Armed Forces, arguing that Puerto Ricans had no allegiance to, nor received any benefits from, the United States. As an unincorporated territory, Puerto Rico has no US voting rights, no representation in the US Congress and is not entitled to electoral votes in presidential elections. Kennedy, at the time a teacher at Rutgers Law School, moved to Puerto Rico with his wife Eleanora Kennedy to represent Grafals and to train Puerto Rican attorneys in the event there was another similar anti-draft case. However, the Grafals case, for which two U.S. prosecutors were appointed and flown to Puerto Rico, was the last of its kind. Ultimately, presiding Judge Hiram Rafael Cancio ruled in favor of Kennedy's client. Judge Cancio noted in his opinion, issued on January 23, 1970, with regard to Grafals: "You believe, for the same reasons, with the same conviction and just as honestly, that the Military Selective Service Act is not constitutional nor valid, insofar as it applies to Puerto Ricans, who were not represented with a voice and vote in the legislative body which approved it. Your conscience does not permit you to serve compulsorily in the United States Armed Forces, regardless of how justified or unjustified are the wars this nation is engaged in."
H. Bruce Franklin, Freedom of Speech, Stanford University and William Shockley
H. Bruce Franklin, a Stanford professor, renowned Herman Melville scholar and outspoken critic of the Vietnam War was fired from Stanford University in 1972 for allegedly urging protestors to riot, "resist police efforts" and to make "people's war" against the university. Stanford University's president and advisory board had proposed dismissal. But Franklin, a self-proclaimed revolutionary with a sizable campus movement behind him, elected to have a public hearing. He chose Michael Kennedy as his counsel. Franklin and Kennedy argued that the professor's actions involved constitutionally protected free speech but the university prevailed and recommended serious penalty, short of dismissal. At that time, the ACLU got involved and took Franklin's case into the courts where, after eight years of decision and appeal, the case was decided in the university's favor.
William Shockley on race and eugenics challenged
Dr. William B. Shockley of Stanford University, a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics and considered by colleagues to be a genius, evoked controversy and considerable hostility for his insistent views that blacks were genetically inferior to whites and scored lower on intelligence quotient tests as a result of heredity.
Shockley's views prompted not only Stanford students but students around the country to protest his lectures. In January 1972, a group of approximately 16 Stanford students and non-students entered his classroom where he was giving a quiz. The students challenged him to a debate. Shockley declined and called campus police who removed the students who were later expelled by Stanford University authorities. Kennedy represented several of the students in court but ultimately the university prevailed. The students, some of whom were months from graduating, remained expelled and Shockley continued teaching at Stanford though his lecture circuit was deeply curtailed as hundreds of students and individuals around the country showed up to protest his racist views.
1980s–1990s
Irish Republican Army gunrunners
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When five Irish men in New York were charged with conspiring to smuggle weapons to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Michael Kennedy and a team of six attorneys, including renowned Irish-American lawyer Frank Durkan, won an acquittal for them in Federal Court in Brooklyn, New York on Nov. 5, 1982. The legal team's defense showed that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been involved in the IRA gunrunning operation for a period of years. This defense was presented to the jury when one of the main IRA weapons suppliers, George de Meo, formerly regarded as trustworthy by the IRA, was found out to be an undercover CIA agent. With a license to legally export weapons, the CIA was aiding the IRA's gun running operation in order to monitor the flow of arms to Ireland and prevent the IRA from turning to the Soviet Union for weapons, Kennedy's legal team argued. The jury agreed. All five IRA defendants, George Harrison, Michael Flannery, Thomas Falvey, Patrick Mullin, and Daniel Gormley were acquitted and walked free after the 7-week trial.
The CIA had remained silent about the gun running scheme until 2017 when declassified information was uncovered by freedom of information campaigners that showed the accusations to be true. A lawsuit against the CIA finally culminated in the agency releasing the archive, which had previously only been accessible at the through the National Archives and Records Administration
Nicaragua and the Sandinistas
Kennedy opposed American intervention in Nicaragua and US military and financial support for the Contras who were fighting to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government. Kennedy was a legal advisor, friend, and supporter of the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan people. Kennedy was arrested and jailed in New York on several occasions while protesting against the U.S. funded Contra war against the Sandinistas.
Nicaragua vs. U.S. - International Court of Justice
Kennedy served as a legal advisor in Nicaragua's successful court case, The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America, which was heard in 1986 before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ruling Sandinista government had accused the United States of violating international law by supporting the Contras' violent actions against their government, which included mining Nicaragua's ports. The ICJ ruled that U.S. support for the Contras was illegal, and demanded that the United States pay reparations to the Nicaraguan government. The ICJ stated in its verdict that US training and financing of the anti-Sandinista Contras, the October 1983 attack on Puerto Sandino and interference with maritime commerce constituted breaches of international law.
Northern Ireland Peace Accords
Kennedy was involved in encouraging US government officials and other influential individuals to travel to Northern Ireland during peace negotiations with the British government that ultimately resulted in the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) on April 10, 1998. Also known as the Belfast Agreement, the GFA was ratified in both Ireland and Northern Ireland by popular vote on May 22, 1998. The GFA helped end more than 30 years of armed conflict known as The Troubles.
Kennedy and his wife Eleanora took the former US Senator Robert Torricelli and Bianca Jagger to Belfast, Northern Ireland where they met, among other stakeholders, Gerry Adams, then one of the leaders of the Irish Republican Army and later president of its political wing Sinn Féin.
United Nations
Kennedy and wife Eleanora served as special advisors to the 2008-2009 United Nations General Assembly President, Father Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, who was the former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister.
Legacy and media appearances
NORML's Michael J. Kennedy Social Justice Award
The Michael J. Kennedy Social Justice Award was set up by NORML with the blessing of his wife Eleanora and daughter Anna Kennedy. The first recipient of the award in May 2016 was long-time NORML activist and criminal defense attorney Gerald H. Goldstein, The 2018 award went to longtime Kennedy friend and colleague, Michael E. Tigar, acclaimed litigator and renowned constitutional lawyer. In 2019, the Award went to activist Bernardine Dohrn and was presented by rock star Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. Recipient of the Michael J. Kennedy Social Justice Award will be given to the late Dr. Lester Grinspoon (June 24, 1928 – June 25, 2020).
Radical Love
Film director William A. Kirkley met Michael Kennedy at his home in New York City in January 2016. Kirkley was seeking a short interview with Kennedy to complete his recent movie, Orange Sunshine, a documentary about the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. Kirkley had intended to speak to Kennedy about his role as the attorney to the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. Kirkley ended up spending several hours filming a long conversation with Kennedy, which turned out to be his last public interview. Kennedy passed away three weeks later.
Inspired by Kennedy's story, Kirkley used the interview to begin another documentary, Radical Love, about Michael Kennedy's vast legal work in the area of civil rights defense. Woven into the political documentary is the unique love story of Kennedy and his wife and comrade of 47 years, Eleanora. The film also includes significant interviews with two Weathermen, Bernardine Dohrn and her husband Bill Ayers.
The film's producer is Caroline Waterlow, best known for her Oscar-winning documentary O.J.: Made in America.
Radical Love had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City in June 2021. The film was chosen for competition in the Short Documentary category.
Radical Love had been scheduled to premiere at South by Southwest in 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of the festival.
Media appearances and New York Public Library
When making the 1990 film, Presumed Innocent, director Alan J. Pakula needed a professional for actor Raúl Juliá to speak with and observe as an experienced trial lawyer, Michael Kennedy was selected.
Along with eleven of New York's most powerful attorneys, Kennedy performed in a production of Twelve Angry Men as a benefit to raise scholarship funds for Legal Aid attorneys. The production was directed by Toni Kotite.
Michael Kennedy's papers and documents are stored at the New York Public Library's Manuscripts and Archives division.
Personal life
Michael Kennedy was married to Eleanora (née Baratelli) Kennedy for over four decades. Together they have a daughter, Anna Kennedy. Kennedy also has two children from a former marriage: Lisa Marie Kennedy and Scott Hamilton Kennedy, an Academy Award nominated documentary film director. Kennedy and Eleanora lived in New York City for many years and spent summers in a legendary ocean-front mansion known as "Kilkare," located in Wainscott, Long Island. They spent winter months in a cottage in West Palm Beach, Florida and spent long vacations at their stone house in Ireland.
