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; leading advocate for the use of LSD Timothy Leary; 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 former Sicilian Mafia don Gaetano Badalamenti in the Pizza Connection drug-smuggling case, and Ivana Trump in her contentious divorce with Donald Trump.
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.