Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz (/ˈdɜːrʃəwɪts/; born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer and legal scholar known for his scholarship of U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law,[1][2] and a noted advocate for civil liberties.[1][3] He began his teaching career at Harvard Law School where, in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history. He held the Felix Frankfurter professorship there from 1993[4] until his retirement in December 2013.[5] Dershowitz is a regular media contributor, political commentator, and legal analyst. He is also a prominent voice on the Arab–Israeli conflict and has written several books on the subject.
Alan Dershowitz | |
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![]() Dershowitz in 2009 | |
Born | Alan Morton Dershowitz September 1, 1938 |
Education | |
Occupation | Former Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School |
Spouse(s) |
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Children | 3 |
Website | www![]() |
Dershowitz is known for taking on high profile and often unpopular causes and clients.[5][6][7] As of 2009, he had won 13 of the 15 murder and attempted murder cases he handled as a criminal appellate lawyer.[8] Dershowitz has represented celebrity clients including Mike Tyson, Patty Hearst, Leona Helmsley, Julian Assange, and Jim Bakker.[9] Major legal victories have included two successful appeals that overturned convictions, first for Harry Reems in 1976, followed by Claus von Bülow in 1984 who had been convicted for the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny.[7] In 1995, Dershowitz served as the appellate adviser on the O. J. Simpson murder trial, part of the legal "Dream Team", alongside Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey.[10] He was a member of the legal defense team for Jeffrey Epstein, his personal friend, and helped to negotiate a 2006 non-prosecution agreement on Epstein's behalf.[11] Dershowitz was a member of the defense team for Harvey Weinstein in 2018[7] and for the impeachment trial of Donald Trump in 2020.[6]
Dershowitz is the author of several books about politics and the law, including Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case (1985), the basis of the 1990 film; Chutzpah (1991); Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case (1996); The Case for Israel (2003); Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights (2004); and The Case for Peace (2005). His two most recent works are: The Case Against Impeaching Trump (2018) and Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo (2019).[12][13]
Early life
Dershowitz was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on September 1, 1938, the son of Claire (née Ringel) and Harry Dershowitz,[14] an Orthodox Jewish couple.[9] He was raised in Borough Park.[15] His father was a founder and president of the Young Israel of Boro Park Synagogue in the 1960s, served on the board of directors of the Etz Chaim School in Borough Park, and in retirement was co-owner of the Manhattan-based Merit Sales Company.[16][17] Dershowitz's first job was at a deli factory on Manhattan's Lower East Side in 1952, at age 14.[18]
Education
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Dershowitz attended Yeshiva University High School, an independent boys' prep school owned by Yeshiva University, in Manhattan, New York City, where he played on the basketball team. He was a rebellious student, often criticized by his teachers. He later said his teachers told him to do something that "requires a big mouth and no brain ... so I became a lawyer".[19] After graduating from high school, he attended Brooklyn College and received his A.B. in 1959, majoring in Political Science. Next, he attended Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal,[15] and graduated first in his class with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) in 1962.[4] He was a member of a Conservative minyan at Harvard Hillel but is a secular Jew.[20]
Legal and teaching career
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After graduating from law school, Dershowitz clerked for David L. Bazelon, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[9] Dershowitz described Bazelon as an influential mentor. He said that, "Bazelon was my best and worst boss at once ... He worked me to the bone; he didn't hesitate to call at 2 a.m. He taught me everything—how to be a civil libertarian, a Jewish activist, a mensch. He was halfway between a slave master and a father figure." Dershowitz clerked for the Justice Arthur Goldberg of the U.S. Supreme Court[9] from 1963 to 1964.
He told Tom Van Riper of Forbes that getting a Supreme Court clerkship was probably his second big break. His first was at age 14 or 15, when a camp counselor told him he was smart but that his mind operated a little differently.[18] He joined the faculty of Harvard Law School as an assistant professor in 1964, and was made a full professor in 1967 at the age of 28, at that time the youngest full professor of law in the school's history.[21] He was appointed Felix Frankfurter professor of law in 1993.[4] Dershowitz retired from teaching at Harvard Law in December 2013.[5] He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.[22][23][24]
Throughout his tenure at Harvard, Dershowitz maintained his legal practice in both criminal and civil law. His clients have included high-profile figures such as Patty Hearst, Harry Reems, Leona Helmsley, Jim Bakker, Mike Tyson, Michael Milken, O.J. Simpson and Kirtanananda Swami. Dershowitz reportedly was one of Nelson Mandela's lawyers.[25][26]
Notable clients
Harry Reems (1976)
In 1976, Dershowitz handled the successful appeal of Harry Reems, who had been convicted of distribution of obscenity resulting from his acting in the pornographic movie Deep Throat.[7] Dershowitz argued against censorship of pornography on First Amendment grounds, and maintained that consumption of pornography was not harmful.[27][28]
Claus von Bülow (1984)
In one of his first high-profile cases, Dershowitz represented Claus von Bülow, a British socialite, at his appeal for the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny von Bülow, who went into a coma in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1980 (and later died in 2008).[29] He ultimately succeeded in having the conviction overturned, and von Bülow was acquitted in a retrial.[30] Dershowitz told the story of the case in his book, Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow case (1985),[31] which was turned into a movie in 1990. Dershowitz was played by actor Ron Silver, and Dershowitz himself had a cameo role as a judge.[32]
Dershowitz, in his book Taking the Stand, recounts that von Bülow had a dinner party after he was found not guilty at his trial. Dershowitz told him that he would not attend if it was a "victory party," and von Bülow assured him that it was only a dinner for "several interesting friends." Norman Mailer attended the dinner where, among other things, Dershowitz explained why the evidence pointed to von Bülow's innocence. Dershowitz described Mailer grabbing his wife's arm and saying: "Let's get out of here. I think this guy is innocent. I thought we were going to be having dinner with a man who actually tried to kill his wife. This is boring."[33]
Józef Glemp (1989)
In 1989, Dershowitz filed a defamation suit against Cardinal Józef Glemp, then Archbishop of Warsaw, on behalf of Rabbi Avi Weiss. That summer, Weiss and six other members of the Jewish community in New York had staged a protest at the Auschwitz concentration camp over the presence of a controversial convent of nuns.[34] Weiss and the protesters were ejected after attempting to scale a wall surrounding the convent.[34] In an August 1989 speech, Glemp referenced the incident and ascribed a violent intent to the protesters, saying "Recently, a squad of seven Jews from New York launched an attack on the convent at Oswiecim (Auschwitz). They did not kill the nuns or destroy the convent only because they were stopped." In the same speech, Glemp made anti-semitic remarks suggesting that Jews control the news media.[34] Dershowitz's suit centered on these statements.[34] Dershowitz's account of the lawsuit appears in his 1991 book Chutzpah.[35][36]
Mike Barnicle (1990)
Dershowitz sued The Boston Globe in 1990 over a remark reporter Mike Barnicle attributed to him, in which Dershowitz allegedly said he preferred Asian women because they are deferential to men. Dershowitz reportedly received a $75,000 out-of-court settlement, and the newspaper's ombudsman questioned Barnicle's credibility, according to The Boston Phoenix.[37]
O. J. Simpson (1995)
In the O. J. Simpson murder case, Dershowitz acted as an appellate adviser to O. J. Simpson's defense team during the trial,[10] and later wrote a book about it, Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O. J. Simpson Case (1996). Dershowitz wrote: "the Simpson case will not be remembered in the next century. It will not rank as one of the trials of the century. It will not rank with the Nuremberg trials, the Rosenberg trial, Sacco and Vanzetti. It is on par with Leopold and Loeb and the Lindbergh case, all involving celebrities. It is also not one of the most important cases of my own career. I would rank it somewhere in the middle in terms of interest and importance."[38] The case has been described as the most publicized criminal trial in American history.[39]
Jeffrey Epstein (2008)
Dershowitz was a member of the legal defense team for the first criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein, who was investigated following accusations that he had repeatedly solicited sex from minors.[40] Dershowitz had previously befriended Epstein through their mutual acquaintance Lynn Forester de Rothschild.[11]
The first investigation into Epstein concluded with a controversial non-prosecution agreement which Dershowitz helped negotiate on Epstein's behalf.[11] On June 30, 2008, after Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge (one of two) of procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18 and he was sentenced to 18 months in prison.[41]
Julian Assange (2011)
In 2011, Dershowitz served as a consultant for Julian Assange's legal team while Assange was facing the prospect of charges from the U.S. government for distributing classified documents through WikiLeaks.[42] On his decision to engage with Assange's team, Dershowitz asserted Assange should be considered a journalist and said, "I believe that to protect the First Amendment we need to protect new electronic media vigorously."[43]
Harvey Weinstein (2018)
In May 2018, Dershowitz joined Harvey Weinstein's legal team as a consultant for Weinstein's lawyer Benjamin Brafman. Dershowitz advised the team on obtaining documents from The Weinstein Company related to the sexual abuse allegations against Weinstein.[44]
Donald Trump (2020)
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In January 2020, Dershowitz joined 45th President Donald Trump's legal team as Trump was defending against impeachment charges that had proceeded to the Senate.[45] Dershowitz's addition to the team was notable, as commentators pointed out that Dershowitz was a supporter of Hillary Clinton and had offered occasionally controversial television defenses of Trump in the preceding two years.[46] The statement announcing Dershowitz's joining the team said that Dershowitz was "nonpartisan when it comes to the Constitution.”[45] Dershowitz said he would not accept any compensation, and if he was paid something, he would donate it to charity.[40][47] Dershowitz defended his representation of Trump, which was controversial among critics of Trump, saying "I'm there to try to defend the integrity of the constitution – that benefits President Trump in this case."[47] Dershowitz said that his role would be limited to presenting oral arguments before the Senate opposing impeachment.[48]
In his oral arguments, Dershowitz stated that proof of a crime is required to impeach a president. Some commentators suggested that his position contradicted his statements during the impeachment of Bill Clinton in which he said no proof of a crime was required.[49] Dershowitz subsequently retracted his statements made during the Clinton era, saying, "To the extent there are inconsistencies between my current position and what I said 22 years ago, I am correct today," he said. "During the Clinton impeachment, the issue was not whether a technical crime was required, because he was charged with perjury."[50]
Some of his comments were considered to represent an overly expansive view of executive power. He argued, "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment." Dershowitz later stated his comment was mischaracterized, stating, "a president seeking re-election cannot do anything he wants. He is not above the law. He cannot commit crimes.”[51][52]
Political views, writings, and commentary
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Dershowitz is a member of the Democratic Party, but in 2016 he stated that he would cancel his party membership if Keith Ellison was appointed party chair;[53] Tom Perez was appointed instead. Dershowitz endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential election, and later endorsed the party nominee, Barack Obama.[54] He opposed the impeachment of Bill Clinton and said that he voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.[55] Dershowitz campaigned against the election of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election and has been critical of many of his actions, including his travel ban, his rescission of protections for "Dreamers" and his failure to single out white nationalists for their provocations during protests in Charlottesville.[56][57] Comparing Trump unfavorably to Hillary Clinton in October 2016, Dershowitz remarked, "I think there's no comparison between who has engaged in more corruption and who is more likely to continue that if elected President of the United States."[58]
Commentary on Trump
Dershowitz has offered commentary on the legal issues of President Donald Trump that have been polarizing among liberals and Democrats, as he has often been perceived as offering defenses of Trump's more controversial actions.[59] Dershowitz has maintained that his weighing in is non-political, saying "I am a liberal Democrat in politics, but a neutral civil libertarian when it comes to the Constitution."[60]
In January 2018 he said that Democrats attacking Trump's mental fitness was a "very dangerous" line of attack[61] and says there is "no case" for allegations that Trump committed obstruction of justice when firing former FBI Director James Comey.[62] He called indictment against Michael Flynn the strangest he's ever seen, because Flynn lied about something that wasn't illegal, and said that claimed "collusion" in reference to Russian meddling in the 2016 election is not a crime.[63] He published a book in 2018, The Case Against Impeaching Trump, in which he argues against impeachment.[64]
However, Dershowitz said that Trump's alleged disclosure of classified information to Russia is "the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president".[56][57] Dershowitz has received some criticism from liberals and praise from conservatives for his comments on these issues.[65][66] Dershowitz defended Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh against accusations by Julie Swetnick that he was present along with Mark Judge at a party where she was gang raped. Dershowitz said on Fox News, "that affidavit is so deeply flawed and so open-ended that any good lawyer, any good defense attorney would be able to tear that apart in 30 seconds".[67] Dershowitz called on Swetnick's lawyer Michael Avenatti, who was also representing Stormy Daniels, to withdraw the affidavit because of inconsistencies.[68][69] Dershowitz, along with others, recommended Trump to commute Sholom Rubashkin's sentence for bank fraud in the Agriprocessors case.[70]
Criticism of the American Civil Liberties Union
In June 2018, Dershowitz wrote an op-ed criticizing the American Civil Liberties Union, alleging that it had become an organization dedicated to advancing leftist policy goals and marginalizing conservatives and centrists. He wrote, "The move of the ACLU to the hard-left reflects an even more dangerous and more general trend in the United States: the right is moving further right; the left is moving father left; and the center is shrinking... The ACLU's move from the neutral protector of civil liberties to a partisan advocate of hard-left politics is both a symptom and consequence of this change."[71]
Presidential candidates
During the 2008 Democratic Party primaries, Dershowitz endorsed Hillary Clinton, calling her "a progressive on social issues, a realist on foreign policy, a pragmatist on the economy".[72] In 2012, he strongly supported Barack Obama's re-election, writing, "President Obama has earned my vote on the basis of his excellent judicial appointments, his consensus-building foreign policy, and the improvements he has brought about in the disastrous economy he inherited."[73] In 2018, after a photo with then-Senator Obama and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan at a 2005 meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus emerged, Dershowitz insisted that he never would have campaigned for Obama had the photo been publicized soon after it was taken.[74]
During the 2020 Democratic Party primaries, Dershowitz endorsed Joe Biden. He said: "I'm a strong supporter of Joe Biden. I like Joe Biden. I've liked him for a long time, and I could enthusiastically support Joe Biden." He criticized Bernie Sanders, saying: "I don't think under any circumstances I could vote for a man who went to England and campaigned for a bigot and anti-Semite like Jeremy Corbyn."[75]
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Israel and the Middle East
Dershowitz is a strong supporter of Israel.[7][9] He self-identifies as "Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine",[76] and said "were I an Israeli, I'd be a person of the left and voting the left".[77] At the same time, he is on record as stating that both the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people supported a genocidal war, and revere a figure, Amin al-Husseini, probably because, in Dershowitz's view, the latter actively participated in the Holocaust.[78] In addition, he has criticized President Barack Obama on his foreign policy stance toward Israel after the United States abstained from voting on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israel for building Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.[79] He has said, "I will not be a member of a party that represents itself through a chairman like Keith Ellison and through policies like that espoused by John Kerry and Barack Obama."[80]
Dershowitz had a contract to provide advice to Joey Allaham, a lobbyist working for the Qatari government. In January 2018, Dershowitz questioned claims that Qatar funds terrorist groups, including Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by several countries, including Israel, the United States, and the European Union.[81] Dershowitz wrote that "Qatar is quickly becoming the Israel of the Gulf States, surrounded by enemies, subject to boycotts and unrealistic demands, and struggling for its survival."[82]
Dershowitz has engaged in highly publicized debates with several other commentators, including Meir Kahane,[83] Noam Chomsky, and Norman Finkelstein. When former U.S. President Jimmy Carter had his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006) published – in which he argues that Israel's control of Palestinian land is the primary obstacle to peace – Dershowitz challenged Carter to a debate at Brandeis University. Carter declined, saying, "I don't want to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz. There is no need to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."[84] Carter did address Brandeis in January 2007, but only Brandeis students and staff were allowed to attend. Dershowitz was invited to respond on the same stage only after Carter had left.[85][86] He authored an editorial in the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post accusing Alice Walker of bigotry for refusing to have her novel The Color Purple published by an Israeli firm.[87]
He took part in the Doha Debates at Georgetown University in April 2009, where he spoke against the motion "this House believes it's time for the US to get tough on Israel", with Dore Gold, President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Speakers for the motion were Avraham Burg, former Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and former Speaker of the Knesset; and Michael Scheuer, former Chief of the CIA Bin Laden Issue Station. Dershowitz's side lost the debate, with 63 percent of the audience voting for the motion.[88]
In 2006, Dershowitz argued for the prosecution of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad for incitement to genocide based on his threat of "wiping Israel off the map".[89][90] His 2015 book, The Case Against the Iran Deal, Dershowitz argues that the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, has urged the Iranian military "to have two nuclear bombs ready to go off in January 2005 or you're not Muslims".[91] On February 29, 2012, Dershowitz filed an amicus brief in support of delisting the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) from the State Department list of foreign terrorist organization.[92][93]
On civilian casualties, he has said, "In the age of terrorism, when militants don't wear uniforms, don't belong to regular armies, and easily blend into civilian populations," civilian casualties should be re-examined in terms of a "continuum of civilianality." In one example, he writes: "There is a vast difference – both moral and legal – between a 2-year-old who is killed by an enemy rocket and a 30-year-old civilian who has allowed his house to be used to store Katyusha rockets."[94]
Harvard-MIT divestment petition
Randall Adams of The Harvard Crimson writes that, in the spring of 2002, a petition within Harvard calling for Harvard and MIT to divest from Israeli and American companies that sell arms to Israel gathered over 600 signatures, including 74 from the Harvard faculty and 56 from the MIT faculty. Among the signatories was Harvard's Winthrop House Master Paul D. Hanson, in response to which Dershowitz staged a debate for 200 students in the Winthrop Junior Common Room. He called the petition's signatories anti-Semitic, bigots, and said they knew nothing about the Middle East. "Your House master is a bigot", he told the students, "and you ought to know that." Adams writes that Dershowitz cited examples of human rights violations in countries that the United States supports, such as the execution of homosexuals in Egypt and the repression of women in Saudi Arabia, and said he would sue any professor who voted against the tenure of another academic because of the candidate's position toward Israel, calling them "ignoramuses with PhDs".[95]
New Response to Palestinian Terrorism (2002) suggestion
In March 2002, Dershowitz published an article in The Jerusalem Post entitled "New Response to Palestinian Terrorism". In it, he wrote that Israel should announce a unilateral cessation in retaliation, at the end of which it would "announce precisely what it will do in response to the next act of terrorism. For example, it could announce the first act of terrorism following the moratorium will result in the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then, troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings." The list of targets would be made public in advance.[96] The proposal attracted criticism from within Harvard University and beyond.[97] James Bamford argued in The Washington Post that it would violate international law.[98] Norman Finkelstein wrote that "it is hard to make out any difference between the policy Dershowitz advocates and the Nazi destruction of Lidice, for which he expresses abhorrence – except that Jews, not Germans, would be implementing it".[99]
2006 Israel–Lebanon conflict
In July 2006, Dershowitz wrote a series of articles defending the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces during the 2006 Israel–Lebanon conflict. There was an international outcry at the time regarding escalating Lebanese civilian deaths and the destruction of civilian infrastructure resulting from Israel's stated attempt to weaken or destroy Hezbollah. After the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour indicated that Israeli officials might be investigated and indicted for possible war crimes, Dershowitz labeled her statement "bizarre", called for her dismissal, and wrote about what he called the "absurdity and counterproductive nature of current international law".[100] In an op-ed several days later in The Boston Globe, he argued that Israel was not to blame for civilian deaths: "Israel has every self-interest in minimizing civilian casualties, whereas the terrorists have every self-interest in maximizing them – on both sides. Israel should not be condemned for doing what every democracy would and should do: taking every reasonable military step to stop the killing of their own civilians."[101]
2nd Amendment and gun control
Dershowitz is a strong supporter of gun control. He has criticized the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, saying that it has "no place in modern society".[102] Dershowitz supports repealing the amendment, but he vigorously opposes using the judicial system to read it out of the Constitution because it would open the way for further revisions to the Bill of Rights and Constitution by the courts. "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."[103]
Takings Clause, 5th and 14th Amendments (business law)
Dershowitz took on a case of a 1% shareholder of the TransPerfect company and has been arguing that the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, Due Process under both, the 5th and 14th Amendments, apply for individuals even in a corporate issue.[104][105] Dershowitz is an attorney for defendant Shirley Shawe and is looking to take the case of the Delaware Chancery's forced sale of TransPerfect away from its shareholders to the United States Supreme Court.[106][107] Dershowitz has argued, and will argue to the Supreme Court that the Delaware Chancery court violated the personal rights of an individual shareholder when it ordered the public auction on the privately held company.[108]
Torture
Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, Dershowitz published an article in The San Francisco Chronicle entitled "Want to Torture? Get a Warrant", in which he advocated the issuance of warrants permitting the torture of terrorism suspects, if there were an "absolute need to obtain immediate information in order to save lives coupled with probable cause that the suspect had such information and is unwilling to reveal it".[109] He argued that authorities should be permitted to use non-lethal torture in a ticking time bomb scenario, and that it would be less destructive to the rule of law to regulate the process than to leave it to the discretion of individual law-enforcement agents. He favors preventing the government from prosecuting the subject of torture based on information revealed during such an interrogation.[110] A play based on the scenario and written by Robert Fothergill has been named after Dershowitz.[111]
William F. Schulz, executive director of the U.S. section of Amnesty International, found Dershowitz's ticking-bomb scenario unrealistic because, he argued, it would require that "the authorities know that a bomb has been planted somewhere; know it is about to go off; know that the suspect in their custody has the information they need to stop it; know that the suspect will yield that information accurately in a matter of minutes if subjected to torture; and know that there is no other way to obtain it".[112] James Bamford of The Washington Post described one of the practices mentioned by Dershowitz – the "sterilized needle being shoved under the fingernails" – as "chillingly Nazi-like".[98]
Animal rights
Dershowitz is one of several scholars at Harvard Law School who have expressed their support for limited animal rights.[113] In his Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights (2004), he writes that, in order to avoid human beings treating each other the way we treat animals, we have made what he calls the "somewhat arbitrary decision" to single out our own species for different and better treatment. "Does this subject us to the charge of speciesism? Of course it does, and we cannot justify it, except by the fact that in the world in which we live, humans make the rules. That reality imposes on us a special responsibility to be fair and compassionate to those on whom we impose our rules. Hence the argument for animal rights."[114]
George Floyd protests
According to Dershowitz, "As usual, anti-Israel extremists, especially some on the hard left, are trying to exploit the tragic and inexcusable death of George Floyd to level their typical baseless charges against Israel. Signs and chants at several protests have ... tried to blame Israel – falsely as it turns out – for training the policemen who are responsible for Floyd’s death."[115]
Disputes
Norman Finkelstein
Shortly after the publication of Dershowitz's The Case for Israel (2003), Norman Finkelstein of DePaul University said the book contained material plagiarised from Joan Peters' book From Time Immemorial.[116][117][9] Dershowitz denied the allegation. Harvard's president, Derek Bok, investigated the allegation and determined that no plagiarism had occurred.[118][119] Los Angeles attorney Frank Menetrez wrote an article in support of Finkelstein's charges.[120] Dershowitz wrote an article replying to Menetrez, characterizing the charges as politically motivated by Dershowitz's support for Israel.[121]
In October 2006, Dershowitz wrote to DePaul University faculty members to lobby against Finkelstein's application for tenure, accusing Finkelstein of academic dishonesty.[122] The university's Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty voted to send a letter of complaint to Harvard University.[123][9] In June 2007, DePaul University denied Finkelstein tenure.[124]
Virginia Roberts Giuffre and related lawsuits
The New York Times reported that Dershowitz and Epstein had been friends since the mid-1990s.[125] Since late 2014, Dershowitz has been accused of participating in Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring by having sex with a minor.[9][126] In a December 30, 2014, Florida court filing, Virginia Giuffre alleged she was sexually trafficked by Epstein, who lent her to “politically connected and financially powerful people” for sex, including Dershowitz and Prince Andrew.[127] The motion claimed that Dershowitz was also an eyewitness to the sexual abuse of other minors.[128][129] Giuffre's affidavit was included in a 2008 lawsuit that was filed on behalf of women who say they were sexually abused by Epstein; the lawsuit accused the Justice Department of violating the Crime Victims Rights Act by entering into a plea agreement with Epstein (one that Dershowitz helped arrange) which allowed Epstein to serve jail time on state charges, but avoid federal prosecution.[130][125]
In the week that followed the release of Giuffre's affidavit, Dershowitz denied the allegations and sought disbarment of the lawyers filing the suit.[131][132][130] That same week of January 2015, Giuffre's lawyers, Bradley Edwards and Paul G. Cassell, sued Dershowitz for defamation.[126][133] By early April 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Marra had the allegations against Dershowitz and Prince Andrew removed from the record as having no bearing on the 2008 lawsuit seeking to re-open the Epstein case.[134]
Dershowitz countersued Edwards and Cassell in 2015,[11] and the two parties settled for an undisclosed financial sum by April 2016.[135]
In February 2019, Judge Marra ruled that prosecutors for Epstein had violated the Crime Victims Rights Act.[136] Giuffre filed a defamation lawsuit against Dershowitz, in April 2019, alleging he made "false and malicious defamatory statements" against her, such as accusing her of perjury. The lawsuit sought punitive damages and included the previous claims that Giuffre was sex trafficked to Dershowitz by Epstein.[137] Dershowitz stated that he would "prove without any doubt that she is lying about me. She is going to end up in prison."[138] In June 2019, he filed a motion to dismiss Giuffre's suit (which was later denied)[13] and a motion to disqualify David Boies' firm from representing her (which was later approved).[11][139] Giuffre stated in September 2019 that she continues to stand by her claims.[139] Dershowitz accused Boies of pressuring Giuffre to provide false testimony, in response to which Boies sued Dershowitz in November 2019 for defamation.[140]
Giuffre repeated her allegations on camera as part of the May 2020 Netflix series Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, by stating that Epstein had trafficked her Dershowitz for sex at least six times.[141][142]
Mearsheimer and Walt
In March 2006, John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, co-wrote a paper entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", published in The London Review of Books.[143] Mearsheimer and Walt criticized what they described as "the Israel lobby" for influencing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East in a direction away from U.S. interests, and toward Israel's interests. They referred to Dershowitz specifically as an "apologist" for the Israel lobby. In an interview in March 2006 for The Harvard Crimson, Dershowitz called the article "one-sided", and its authors "liars" and "bigots".[144] The following day on MSNBC's Scarborough Country, he suggested the paper had been taken from various hate sites: "Every paragraph virtually is copied from a neo-Nazi Web site, from a radical Islamic Web site, from David Duke's Web site."[145] Dershowitz subsequently wrote a report challenging the paper, arguing that it contained "three types of major errors: Quotations are wrenched out of context, important facts are misstated or omitted, and embarrassingly weak logic is employed."[146] In a letter in the London Review of Books in May 2006, Mearsheimer and Walt denied that they had used any racist sources for their article, writing that Dershowitz had failed to offer any evidence to support his claim.[147]
Awards and recognitions
Dershowitz was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1979, and in 1983 received the William O. Douglas First Amendment Award from the Anti-Defamation League for his work on civil rights.[148] In November 2007, he was awarded the Soviet Jewry Freedom Award by the Russian Jewish Community Foundation.[149] In December 2011, he was awarded the Menachem Begin Award of Honor by the Menachem Begin Heritage Center at an event co-sponsored by NGO Monitor.[150] He has been awarded honorary doctorates in law from Yeshiva University, the Hebrew Union College, Monmouth University, University of Haifa, Syracuse University, Fitchburg State College, Bar-Ilan University, and Brooklyn College.[4] In addition, he is a member of the International Advisory Board of NGO Monitor.[151]
Dershowitz has appeared as himself in several fictional television series: Picket Fences, Spin City, and First Monday,[152] and in the 2019 documentary No Safe Spaces.[153]
In popular culture
Dershowitz is played by Evan Handler in the 2016 television series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story.[154]
Family and personal life
Dershowitz's first wife was the late Sue Barlach.[155][156] In his book Chutzpah, he described Barlach as an "Orthodox Jewish girl."[155] The two met during high school at a Jewish summer camp in the Catskills.[11] They married in 1959, when Dershowitz was age 20 and Barlach was 18 years old.[155] Barlach and Dershowitz had two sons together: Elon Dershowitz (born 1961), a film producer,[157] and Jamin Dershowitz (born 1963),[11] an attorney.[158] Barlach and Dershowitz separated in 1973 and divorced in 1976.[11] Although Barlach was initially given custody, Dershowitz fought for and was later awarded full custody of their children.[11] The New Yorker reported that Barlach later worked as a research librarian and "drowned in the East River, in an apparent suicide" on New Year's Eve, 1983.[11]
Dershowitz is presently married to Carolyn Cohen, a retired neuropsychologist.[26] Together they had one child, a daughter Ella (born 1990), an actress.[159] Dershowitz and Cohen divide their time between homes in Martha's Vineyard, Miami Beach and Manhattan.[159]
His son Jamin married Barbara, a Roman Catholic, which helped prompt him to write his book The Vanishing American Jew, dedicated to them and their children, whom Dershowitz regards as Jewish.[20] He has two grandchildren from son Jamin: Lori and Lyle.[33]
Dershowitz is related to Los Angeles Conservative rabbi Zvi Dershowitz.[160]
Works
- 1982: The Best Defense. ISBN 978-0-394-50736-1.
- 1985: Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case. ISBN 978-0-394-53903-4.
- 1988: Taking Liberties: A Decade of Hard Cases, Bad Laws, and Bum Raps. ISBN 978-0-8092-4616-8.
- 1991: Chutzpah. ISBN 978-0-316-18137-2.
- 1992: Contrary to Popular Opinion. ISBN 978-0-88687-701-9.
- 1994: The Advocate's Devil (fiction). ISBN 978-0-446-51759-1.
- 1994: The Abuse Excuse: And Other Cop-Outs, Sob Stories, and Evasions of Responsibility. ISBN 978-0-316-18135-8.
- 1996: Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case. ISBN 978-0-684-83021-6.
- 1997: The Vanishing American Jew: In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century. ISBN 978-0-316-18133-4.
- 1998: Sexual McCarthyism: Clinton, Starr, and the Emerging Constitutional Crisis. ISBN 978-0-465-01628-0.
- 1999: Just Revenge (fiction). ISBN 978-0-446-60871-8.
- 2000: The Genesis of Justice: Ten Stories of Biblical Injustice that Led to the Ten Commandments and Modern Law. Warner Books. ISBN 978-0-446-67677-9.
- 2001: Letters to a Young Lawyer. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-01631-0.
- 2001: Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514827-5.
- 2002: Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09766-5.
- 2002: Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age. Little Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-18141-9.
- 2003: The Case for Israel. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-46502-7
- 2003: America Declares Independence. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-26482-8.
- 2004: America on Trial: Inside the Legal Battles That Transformed Our Nation. Warner Books. ISBN 978-0-446-52058-4.
- 2004: Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights. ISBN 978-0-465-01713-3.
- 2005: The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-74317-0; "Chapter 16" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on January 1, 2006.;(111 KB).
- 2006: Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06012-6.
- 2007: Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence. ISBN 978-0-470-08455-7.
- 2007: Finding Jefferson: A Lost Letter, a Remarkable Discovery, and the First Amendment in an Age of Terrorism. ISBN 978-0-470-16711-3.
- 2008: Is There a Right to Remain Silent?: Coercive Interrogation and the Fifth Amendment After 9/11. ISBN 978-0-19-530779-5.
- 2008: The Case Against Israel's Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace. ISBN 978-0-470-37992-9.
- 2009: Mouth of Webster, Head of Clay essay in The Face in the Mirror: Writers Reflect on Their Dreams of Youth and the Reality of Age. ISBN 978-1-59102-752-2.
- 2009: The Case For Moral Clarity: Israel, Hamas and Gaza. ISBN 978-0-9661548-5-6.
- 2010: The Trials of Zion. ISBN 978-0-446-57673-4.
- 2013: Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law. ISBN 978-0307719270.
- 2014: Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel's Just War Against Hamas. ISBN 978-0795344312.
- 2015: Abraham: The World's First (But Certainly Not Last) Jewish Lawyer (Jewish Encounters Series). ISBN 978-0805242935.
- 2018: The Case Against Impeaching Trump. ISBN 978-1510742284.
- 2018: The Case Against BDS: Why Singling Out Israel for Boycott is Anti-Semitic. (self-published), ISBN 978-1984956699.
- 2019: Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo. ISBN 978-1510757561.
See also
- List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
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- Hirsley, Michael (September 5, 1989). "Rabbi to sue Glemp for defamation". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
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- Alan Dershowitz, The Case Against Israel's Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken 2009 pp. 196–203: 'the Palestinian leadership, supported by the Palestinian masses, played a significant role in Hitler's Holocaust'.
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- Gordon, Gregory (January 1, 2008). "From Incitement to Indictment - Prosecuting Iran's President for Advocating Israel's Destruction and Piecing Together Incitement Law's Emerging Analytical Framework". Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 98 (3): 855.
- "Jewish Leaders Threaten to Indict Ahmadinejad for Inciting Genocide". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. December 15, 2006. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
- Dershowitz, Alan. The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Now Stop Iran from Getting Nukes?, RosettaBooks, 2015, p. 37
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- Bamford, James. "Strategic Thinking" Archived April 11, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, The Washington Post'' September 8, 2002, accessed November 20, 2010.
- Finkelstein, Norman. Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. University of California Press, 2005, p. 176.
- Dershowitz, Alan M. "Arbour Must Go," Archived December 6, 2007, at the Wayback Machine National Post July 21, 2006, accessed November 20, 2010.
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- Chiappardi, Matt (January 18, 2017). "Dershowitz Scraps With Justice Strine Over TransPerfect Sale". LexisNexis. Law360. Archived from the original on August 20, 2017. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
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- Also see Hansen, Suzy. "Why Terrorism Works" Archived March 17, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Salon.com, September 12, 2002, accessed November 20, 2010.
- For more information, see Walsh, Colleen, Harvard University Gazette, October 4, 2007, accessed November 20, 2010.
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- Dershowitz, Alan (2004). Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights. Basic Books. pp. 198–199.
- Also see his "Do (Should) Animals Have Rights?". Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age. Little, Brown. 2002. pp. 84–85.
- Dershowitz, Alan (June 8, 2020). "Exploiting the Floyd protests to demonize Israel". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved August 3, 2020.
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- Dershowitz Exposed: What if a Harvard Student Did This? February 8, 2003. Finkelstein, Norman.
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- Frank J. Menetrez (2008). "Dershowitz & Finkelstein — who's right and who's wrong?". In Norman Finkelstein (ed.). Beyond Chutzpah. University of California Press. pp. 363–394.
I don't see how Dershowitz could, purely by coincidence, have precisely reproduced all of Peters' errors [in quoting The Innocents Abroad] if he was working from the original Twain.
- "Menetrez's False Allegations". CounterPunch.org. February 26, 2008. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
- Cohen, Patricia (April 12, 2007). "A Bitter Spat Over Ideas, Israel and Tenure". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
- Howard, Jennifer. "Harvard Law Professor Works to Disrupt Tenure Bid of Longtime Nemesis at DePaul U." Archived December 22, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 5, 2007.
- "DePaul denies tenure to controversial professor" Archived March 24, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, The Associated Press, June 10, 2007.
- Meier, Barry (December 12, 2015). "Alan Dershowitz on the Defense (His Own)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 31, 2020.
- "US lawyer in Andrew sex case sued". BBC News. January 7, 2015. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
- Gibson, Megan (January 6, 2015). "U.S. Lawyer Sues in Prince Andrew Sex Claims Case". Time. Retrieved January 9, 2015.
- Wiliams, Timothy (January 6, 2015). "Alan Dershowitz Denies Suit's Allegations of Sex With a Minor". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 7, 2015. Retrieved January 7, 2015.
- "Harvard law professor: Throw out lawsuit by Epstein accuser". The Palm Beach Post. The Associated Press. September 24, 2019. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
- Pierson, Brendan (January 6, 2015). "A Top Criminal Defense Lawyer Is Trying To Disbar Lawyers Representing A Woman Who Accused Him Of Sex Abuse". Business Insider. Reuters. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
- North, Anna (July 30, 2019). "Alan Dershowitz helped sex offender Jeffrey Epstein get a plea deal. Now he's tweeting about age of consent laws". Vox. Archived from the original on August 21, 2019. Retrieved August 22, 2019.
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Cohen is from Boston and in high school became friends with Jamin Dershowitz, the son of Harvard professor and well-known Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz. Cohen and the younger Dershowitz, who is general counsel to the WNBA, are still close.
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Further reading
- Upham, S. Phineas (ed.). Philosophers in Conversation: Interviews from the Harvard Review of Philosophy, Routledge, 2002, pp. 64–70.
- Berkow, Ira. Court Vision: Unexpected Views on the Lure of Basketball, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, pp. 207–216.
- Bruck, Connie, "Devil's Advocate: Alan Dershowitz's long, controversial career – and the accusations against him", The New Yorker, August 5 & 12, 2019, pp. 32–47.
- Dershowitz, Alan (ed.). What Israel Means to Me: By 80 Prominent Writers, Performers, Scholars, Politicians, and Journalists, John Wiley & Sons, 2007, pp. 1–6.
- Goldberg, Elizabeth Swanson. Beyond Terror: Gender, Narrative, Human Rights, Rutgers University Press, 2007, pp. 88–95, 101.
- Louvet, Marie-Violaine (June 28, 2016). Civil Society, Post-Colonialism and Transnational Solidarity: The Irish and the Middle East Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137551092. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
- Dershowitz, Alan. "Echoes of 1938" in Helmreich, William B.; Rosenblum, Mark; Schimel, David. (eds.). The Jewish Condition: Challenges and Responses – 1938–2008, Transaction Publishers, 2008, pp. 39–44.
- Norwood, Stephen H.; Pollack, Eunice G. (eds.). Encyclopedia of American Jewish History (Volume 1), ABC-CLIO, 2008, pp. 53–54.
- Rejali, Darius. Torture and Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2009.
- Ruttman, Larry. "From Avi the Bum and Ballplayer to Alan the Professor, Defender, and Civil Libertarian." In American Jews and America's Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball, University of Nebraska Press, 2013, pp. 79–90. This chapter in Ruttman's history, based on a November 24, 2009, interview with Dershowitz conducted for the book, discusses Dershowitz's American, Jewish, baseball, and life experiences from youth to the present.
- Greenfield, Gloria Z (director) (October 2011). Unmasked Judeophobia: The Threat to Civilization (Motion picture). France. Retrieved December 27, 2016 – via The Hollywood Reporter film review.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alan Dershowitz. |
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- Official website
- Alan Dershowitz's blog at The Huffington Post (June 2005– )
- Alan M. Dershowitz on IMDb
- Alan Dershowitz at Curlie
- Appearances on C-SPAN