Honoring Allan Brotsky

60 Pages·2016·17.93 MB·English

National Lawyers Quild
San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
Testimonial Dinner 1991
Honoring
Allan Brotsky
National Lawyers Quild Bay Area Chapter
Executive Board Members
Linda Fullerton, President
Stan Zaks, Vice President
Barrie Becker, Student Vice President
Emily Graham, Co-Treasurer
Andy Krakoff, Co-Treasurer
Steve Collier
Dan Feinberg
Bob Feinglass
Cindi Fox
Terry Koch
Hillary Kramer
Rachel Lederman
Toby Lieberman
Celia McGumness
Bob Meola
Tom Meyer
Christopher Miller
Ann Noel
Antonio Salazar-Hobson
Steve Sherman
Bobbie Stein
John True
Terri Waller
School Representatives
Erica Etelson, Book Hall Law School
Steve Greenwood, San Francisco Law School
David Hershey-Webb, Golden Gate University
Chet Hewitt, New College School of Law
Cindi Mishkin, University of San Francisco
Beth Morrow, Hastings College of Law
Peter Omarzu, New College School of Law
Brett Reid Parker, University of San Francisco
Theresa Swanick, Golden Gate University
Quild Staff
Lora Dierker, Membership Coordinator
Riva Enteen, Demonstrations Coordinator
Cover photo by Susan Ehmer
I would like to congratulate you on honoring Allan Brotsky. He was
my teacher, and an inspiring one he was! His classroom delivery had
the smoothness of fine wine, and a hidden punch. It's been ten years
and the memory lingers.
- Nancy M* Doctor
✓
Allan Brotsky and Who Owns
Port Chicago
John Fleming, 21, a student, was arrested late
Wednesday afternoon as he placed a Bible and
a sign citing the articles of the Nuremburg war
crimes trials against the windshield of a truck-
load of napalm bombs whose path he’d just
blocked. He is among 32 anti-war demonstra­
tors arrested since early Monday morning for
attempting to stop delivery of napalm and other
explosives to the Naval Weapons Station just
outside the town of Port Chicago [Port Chicago
Defendants1 Statement: August, 1966].
In August, 1966, the United States was busy dropping
bombs on a small Third World country which it had
branded as an aggressor (sound familiar?). The country was
North Vietnam and the bombs were napalm. Outraged by thatwar
and the use of napalm bombs, protestors held vigils and demonstra­
tions at the North Contra Costa County Naval Base of Port
Chicago (the same base at which Brian Wilson lost his legs 20 years
later). Thirty-two people were arrested for placing themselves in
front of trucks bringing napalm onto the Port Chicago Naval Base
for shipment to Vietnam. Protestors sat on the road and in the two
entrance gates to the Port Chicago base. Those sitting in the
entrance gates were arrested by military police and charged with
trespassing on a federal reservation (the Port Chicago Naval Base).
Peter Franck, a young lawyer who had just three years
earlier begun practicing law in Berkeley, was coordinating a legal
defense organization made up of Guild attorneys called ‘The
Council for Justice.” Funded by a Santa Barbara millionaire
concerned that the young civil rights and anti-war protestors of the
time were not getting adequate legal representation, and guided by
Francis Heisler, a World War II pacifist and conscientious objec­
tors* lawyer originally from Chicago, The Council for Justice had
taken on the j ob of providing legal counsel in a broad range of anti­
war, civil rights and civil liberties cases for the activists of the Bay
Area; its representation extended as far as Cesar Chavez and his
(then) new farmworker movement in Delano.
The case of the Port Chicago demonstrators who were
accused of trespassing on a federal reserve was to be tried in federal
court, which “upped the ante”, in terms of potential penalties and
the seriousness of the trial. Knowing this, Franck went to the ex­
perienced and highly regarded Guild attorney Allan Brotsky and
asked him to handle the federal case. After looking into the case,
Brotsky agreed to take it. His assessment was that it would have to
go to jury trial. He had one condition, which was that Franck try
the case with him.
What Allan knew was that I had been so busy organizing
and coordinating that I had had little experience in the courtroom.
Not admitting that I was scared of trial, I told him that I was much
too busy to take on a jury trial and that he should handle the case
himself.
Allan, in his stubborn way, single-mindedly insisted that
there was only one way he would take on the case, and that was with
my help. I knew, and he knew I knew, that he thought that it was
time for me to get out from behind the coordination desk and into
the trenches of actual movement trial work. This was the best and
most generous type of mentoring of the next generation.
The teaching had only begun. The case went to trial
before United States District Court Judge Lloyd Burke on January
11th, 1967. Burke was a crusty Nixon appointee who had neither
sympathy nor patience with anti-war demonstrators.
After some preliminary motions, a jury was seated and the
government asked the defense to stipulate to a number of routine
matters. The stipulations would speed the trial and avoid boring
the jury. Among the proposed stipulations was that the U.S.
government owned the land on which the Port Chicago Naval
Base sat. Since the offense was trespassing on a federal reserve, a
key element of the prosecution was that the land in question
belonged to the federal government.
Brotsky, being ornery (I thought) and not liking the
government much, said we should refuse to stipulate. I thought this
was silly and would simply waste time, but bowed to Allan's greater
experience.
The government opened its case with an expert on title to
the land. In his tenacious fashion, Brotsky started questioning the
government witness. Taking him through entire documents,
Brotsky insisted on knowing how the federal government had
acquired the land. The expert testified that it was through the
equivalent of federal eminent domain. Where were the eminent
domain documents? The expert did not know. Where were the
references in the records to the particular tract of land on which the
defendants had been arrested? Well, they could only find reference
to one of the two tracts. The other was not actually referred to in
the documents that he had.
It turned out that the federal government had never
properly acquired the land at the section of the Port Chicago Base
on which some of our clients had been arrested. There had
therefore been no trespass, and Judge Burke was forced to dismiss
all charges against those defendants.
Throughout this process, Allan exhibited the combina­
tion of good humor, seriousness, devotion to his clients and distrust
of the government which are his hallmark and the hallmark of all
good people's lawyers. He also exhibited a generosity of sharing his
experience and a commitment to teaching and passing it on which
one young lawyer never forgot.
Allan's argument to the jury, on our clients' peaceful and
Nuremburg intent, was so powerful that Judge Burke stopped him
in the hall two days later and complimented him on it. Inciden­
tally, it led to a hung jury (ten to two for acquittal) and the
subsequent dismissal of all charges by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Allan Brotsky, a lawyer, a teacher, and a role model for all
of us.
by Peter Franck
FIRST YEAR TRIUMPHS:
Allan Brotsky
By Cindy Ossias
The following article was originally written for The Caveat.
the student newspaper of Golden Gate University School of Law, in
1980.
I t was a dark and stormy Monday. I slid into a seat in the
back of the room hoping to be overlooked. Not only had
I not briefed Buckeye Boiler Co. v. Superior Court of Los
Angeles County, I hadn’t even glanced at it. I’d had a good
weekend.
A1 Brotsky leaned against the lectern, his full head of
white hair renewing my awe of older men. If I were male, I’d want
to look just like him when I grew up.
He called for plaintiffs counsel to rise.
“Would Melvin Belli and Bella Abzug please stand?
“And Deborah Halvonik and William Kunstler?”
Attorneys for the defense joined them.
With the timing of George Bums and the gentleness of
Kwang Kai Chang, Professor Brotsky began leading them through
their paces.
“Melvin, whom do you represent?”
I kept an ear open while I suffered with my hangover.
(Too many boilermakers...)
“I represent a California resident and employee of the
California General Electric Company who was injured when a
pressure tank exploded, and who was further injured by a fall in the
hospital.”
What a mouthful, I thought, the right side of my head
pounding. Would I ever be able to speak in sentences that long?
And not forget the first few words by the time I reach the end?
“Bella, do you agree with your colleague?”
At that, I noticed an audible intake of breath from my
own colleagues.
“Yes, I do.”
The woman on my left leaned over and whispered, “Bella
told us she was representing Buckeye Boiler. I’m glad she changed
her mind.”
I opened one eye slowly — the one on the opposite side
of the throbbing — and attempted to follow the proceeding more
closely.
“What did your client tell you he wanted from this
lawsuit?”
“Money...” answered Bella emphatically.
Carefully, with empathy for the plight of the fourth-week
first-year student, the professor said,
“We in the legal community refer to money as 'compen­
sation for damages or injuries/ You’re doing just fine, though. Let’s
go on.”
The throbbing began to subside as I tuned in to the finer
techniques of pedagogy practiced by this distinguished gentleman
in the charcoal gray suit. Uncle Brotsky (as I’d overheard someone
call him ...behind his back) was deliberately, articulately, and with
the skill only years of experience can bring, eradicating my hang­
over. I was one, maybe two, steps away from actually enjoying the
learning process.
The time flew. The moderately Socratic interrogation
continued and the burden shifted from the Belli-Abzug team to the
Halvonik-Kunstler team. All parties involved seemed well pre­
pared. (But what do I know? I am, as a rule, easily impressed...)
It gradually became clear that the “distinct preponder­
ance of relevant evidence in California militates against the
defendant’s avoidance of jurisdiction.” (—A. Brotsky)
“Melvin, how do you feel now that your client can bring
the action in his home state?”
Silence. A pause.
“You’re happy for your client, aren’t you, Melvin?”
Melvin gazed straightfaced at A1 and said, “Yes. I’m happy
for him.”
Still straightfaced, “I’m extemely happy for him.”
A slow sardonic grin creased the wizened face at the
lectern.
‘Wednesday, well discuss Worldwide Volkswagon v.
Woodson.”
I left the room inspired, singing sotto voce:
Hey, can’t you remember? You called me ‘Al\
It was ‘A1’ all the time...
Say, don’t you remember? I’m your pal..
Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Anytime, Al...