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<font size=4><b>Leonard Weinglass (1933-2011)<br>
</b></font><font size=3>by John Mage <br><br>
<a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/mage240311.html" eudora="autourl">
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/mage240311.html<br><br>
</a>Leonard Weinglass, a leading leftwing lawyer in the United States
with an international perspective, died in the early evening on March 23,
2011. Len, who died on his 78th birthday, fell ill in late January
while in Cuba. In the first days of February exploratory surgery at
Montefiore Hospital discovered that he had inoperable cancer of the
pancreas.<br><br>
Lenny, a 1958 graduate of Yale Law School, became active in the U.S. left
lawyers' organization, the National Lawyers Guild, in the course of the
civil rights movements of the 1960s. He rose to fame as co-counsel
with Bill Kunstler in the Chicago Seven (originally Chicago Eight)
conspiracy trial of 1969-70. The seven defendants -- Abbie Hoffman,
Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and
Lee Weiner -- were charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other
charges arising from the mass protests in Chicago, Illinois at the time
of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The eighth defendant,
Bobby Seale, had repeatedly insisted on the trial being delayed to permit
his lawyer, Charles Garry, then recovering from surgery, to be
present. The Judge, the irascible Julius Hoffman, former law
partner of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, had Seale bound and gagged in the
courtroom when he would not cease his protests. Seale was later
severed from the case, but the proceedings -- which lasted from April
1969 to February 1970 -- never recovered any semblance of justice or
dignity. Judge Hoffman made no effort to disguise his open bias for
the prosecution, and took a particular delight in abusing Len, whose name
he claimed not to be able to remember, calling him Weinstein, Steinglass,
Glassberg, etc. At the close of the trial Len was, along with Bill
Kunstler, held in contempt by Judge Hoffman. He always regarded
this as an honor.<br><br>
In the intervening years, Len represented a continuous sequence of
defendants in political prosecutions in the courts of the United
States. A partial list, current to 1995, is available
<a href="http://www.refuseandresist.org/mumia/1995/weinglasscv.html">
here</a>.<br><br>
I have been co-counsel with Lenny, most recently in 2003 in Article 78
proceedings in New York State Supreme Court, Albany County, that set
aside a denial of parole to Kathy Boudin and sent the matter back to the
Parole Board for a rehearing. At the subsequent hearing Kathy was
paroled. Lenny was a meticulous, well-prepared litigator, and with
an extraordinary degree of practical wisdom and foresight. He had
been counsel for Kathy in the 1983 proceedings that resulted in her plea
and sentence to twenty years to life, for a politically motivated
offense. In the 2003 proceedings we had the extraordinary
experience of relying with decisive effect on the words that Lenny,
twenty years before, had fought relentlessly to have inserted into the
sentencing record.<br><br>
In his final struggle, Lenny was counsel for Antonio Guerrero, one of the
<a href="http://thecuban5.org/wordpress/2011/03/24/in-memory-of-leonard-weinglass/">
Cuban 5</a>, who had infiltrated anti-Castro terrorist organizations in
Florida. Tried in a lynch law atmosphere in the Cuban exile
stronghold of Miami, their convictions were guaranteed. In a
magnificent piece of legal work, Lenny -- in practice acting as lead
counsel for the Cuban 5 -- was able to convince a distinguished panel of
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that they had not received
a fair trial in Miami, and indeed could not have received a fair trial
there. In the "war on terror" atmosphere of the Bush
administration, which continues to this day, this was an outstanding
achievement. Not surprisingly, the Justice Department was able to
get the full bench of the 11th Circuit to reverse the panel. But in
the eyes of all but the indoctrinated, the panel's analysis has
permanently tainted the convictions of the Cuban 5. It is decisive
that the U.S. authorities were unable to get even their own judges to
uphold the convictions in the normal course. Lenny continued, to
his last breath, to fight to bring the injustice done to the Cuban 5 to
the attention of the decent people of the world.<br><br>
Len was a defense attorney. He represented clients who did not
choose to be in court, and who faced the near certainty of conviction in
political cases in hopelessly biased courts. Yet, without
disguising the political nature of the cases nor denying the reality of
the bias, he worked diligently to pursue every possibility for successful
defense. As appellate counsel, none I ever worked with surpassed
his ability to master every relevant detail of the record below, however
long and intricate. <br><br>
Lenny never pursued the monetary rewards his skills would easily have
made available, were he but to have put politics aside. <br><br>
His politics were constitutive of his person, and present in every waking
moment. His modest office/living loft, his cabin in the Catskills,
were sufficient for his needs. To the end he cheerfully, and as
effectively as was possible, served those who resisted the all-pervasive
injustice of these United States.<br>
<hr>
John Mage is Director of the Monthly Review Foundation. <br><br>
<br><br>
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