GABRIELA YARELIZ

By: Gabriela Yareliz

This should probably go under the “Chronicles of a Law Student” page where I update about things that go on as a 1L, but I found this to be so powerful that I wanted to share generally. Today I watched an excellent documentary on a controversial lawyer who defended civil liberties and fought racism, but He also was seen as a hypocrit and a bit crazy as his days came to a close; William (Bill) Kunstler. His daughters made the documentary in a way vindicating but also discovering the man their father was.

Though ego-centric and though he had questionable ethical reasoning behind his representation of certain clients, I can’t help but really, really respect him. I had read, in the past, cases he litigated, and it wasn’t until now that I found out, oh wow–he was the one who won that case.

I think about many of the people I admire, such as Gandhi and Mandela, all were lawyers. I admire their passion for the people. Though they are icons now, in the past they had to go to prison, sweat it out and get dirt under their nails. They were rejected, hated and mocked. I see this man a bit like them. A man, imperfect like they all were, but a man who in the end I think really connected with people. He personified a justice that doesn’t exist in our legal system. Our definition of justice is skewed when we look at our justice compared to God’s justice toward man.

Anyway, I hope I have sparked your curiosity enough. There are still many injustices in the world. They often get transfered from one group to another. I hope we can all do our part and “disturb the universe” a bit– I leave you with William Kunstler.

February, 1970
Transcript

And that is the terrible myth of organized society, that everything that’s done through the established system is legal  — and that word has a powerful psychological impact. It makes people believe that there is an order to life, and an order to a system, and that a person that goes through this order and is convicted, has gotten all that is due him. And therefore society can turn its conscience off, and look to other things and other times.

And that’s the terrible thing about these past trials, is that they have this aura of legitimacy, this aura of legality. I suspect that better men than the world has known and more of them, have gone to their deaths through a legal system than through all the illegalities in the history of man.

Six million people in Europe during the Third Reich? Legal.

Sacco Vanzetti? Quite legal.

The Haymarket defendants? Legal.

The hundreds of rape trials throughout the South where black men were condemned to death? All legal.

Jesus? Legal.

Socrates? Legal.

And that is the kaleidoscopic nature of what we live through here and in other places. Because all tyrants learn that it is far better to do this thing through some semblance of legality than to do it without that pretense.

From PBS.