4.2.12 WC: 191694
My most ungrateful homicide client: Angela Davis
Clients whose cases I have helped to win generally respond in one of two ways: some express great, sometimes excessive, gratitude. They offer to do anything in exchange for you having saved their lives. Others behave as if the case had never happened and you don’t exist. I have seen former clients purposely cross the street to avoid even “seeing” me. They don’t want to be reminded of the dark period in their lives during which they required a criminal lawyer. In only one case did a former client show absolute ungratefulness for my role in helping her avoid a murder conviction.
During the year that I was a visiting scholar at the Center For Advanced Studies and Behavioral Science at Stanford, I was asked to consult on several aspects of the Angela Davis murder case. Davis, who was one of the leaders of the American Communist Party, was accused of murder in connection with a shootout that had occurred at the Marran County Courthouse as part of an attempted escape of radical prisoners. Davis was accused of purchasing and providing the shotgun that was used in the crime. She was also suspected of having engineered the attempt to take hostages is order to barter them for the release of a prisoner she loved.
I worked on jury selection as well as on some constitutional issues. Davis was claiming that she could not get a fair trial in any American court because she was black, female and a Communist. Part of the reason I took the case was to help assure that she did get a fair trial. After several grueling months, she was acquitted and set free. I don’t know whether she now believes she received a fair trial. I do know that shortly thereafter I read that she was hired to become a professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz.
Shortly thereafter, I read that she was going to Moscow to receive the Lenin human rights prize from the Soviet Union. She said that she was pleased to receive the prize and that she would spend the rest of her life helping to free political prisoners around the world. I called her office and gave them a list of prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union—mostly Jews who had been imprisoned because they wanted to emigrate to Israel or to learn about their heritage. (Sharansky was not yet among these prisoners, but he would soon join them.) I asked if she would be willing to speak up on behalf of these political prisoners. Several days later, I received a call back from Ms. Davis’s secretary informing me that Davis had looked into the people on my list and none of them were political prisoners. “They are all Zionist fascists opponents of socialism.” Davis refused to speak up on behalf of the Soviet dissidents.
Recently, I ran into an older and somewhat more reserved Angela Davis on the porch of the Chilmark Store on Martha’s Vineyard. She was wearing a bicycle outfit and was cycling around the island with some mutual friends, including her trial lawyer in the murder case. It was a
strange scene in this bastion of bourgeois affluence to see these former radicals enjoying the comforts of capitalism in so relaxed a way. I reminded Davis of my participation in her case and she expressed appreciation. I also reminded her of her refusal to speak up on behalf of Soviet dissidents. In her mellow response, she said, “well so many other people were speaking up for them, that I didn’t think it was necessary for me to add my voice.” It’s interesting how time changes people’s memories. I did not press her as to whether she would today speak up on behalf
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