Author: Ardor
"An autobiographer is like a defendant standing in the dock. We all have the right to be silent, both in life and in law. ”
Allan. With this sentence, Deshowitz opened the curtain on his new book, "A Debate to the End," but everyone knows that when a lawyer stands in the dock, he will defend himself.
- "One Argument to the End" is by Alan M. Deshowitz's autobiography, a review of his wonderful life, is also, as the last sentence in the book says, that he "stood in the dock for the last time and defended himself."
1
As a tenured professor at Harvard Law School and the most influential and controversial criminal defense lawyer in the United States today, Alan A. Kelly has spent the past fifty years in his legal career. Deshowitz can be said to be constantly defending people. He has intervened in the Pentagon Papers case and the Nixon wilderness, served as a lawyer in the Clinton impeachment case and bush v. Gore, and has been called a "star lawyer" for defending Tyson, Simpson and other stars.
In a number of death penalty cases he has handled, most of the parties have made requests to him on appeal or when the application for habeas corpus is hopeless, none of them have been executed since he did so. As a criminal defense lawyer, this should have been a great success and honor, but he was also known as the "devil's spokesman", because of "helping the guilty to exonerate the guilty" and was often forced to question his conscience, cursed and even threatened with his life.
For example, after the Simpson case he published Reasonable Doubt, which is a legal monograph, but it cannot be described as a defense, defending the Simpson case, but also defending himself. His legal and moral position is very convincing. This was not due to cowardice in public opinion, he insisted on himself and never compromised.
In "One Argument to the End", his defense for himself is not so specific and subtle. Two of the short stories mentioned in the book are impressive, one of which is with Jeffrey. Tu Bin's.
As an American legal journalist and best-selling author, his "Nine People" and "Peak Showdown in Court" are a window for us to understand American law and politics. That day, on the CNN program, Tu Bin said something to him:
"Alan, I don't know what's wrong with you, what's going on?" Has been to Donald. Trump expressed his support, this is not the previous you, what is wrong with you? ”
Tu Bin obviously said this with deep disappointment, and Alan who heard this. Deshowitz was no less disappointed than Tu Bin, and what he felt in his words was not only that he did not understand, but also that he accused and even attacked. And this attack came from his students.
The confrontation began with Trump, who repeatedly defended Trump when he was impeached, and he even published a book called "Reasons against Trump's Impeachment." Tu Bin obviously can't look at it, or even can't bear it anymore, he is a typical democrat and has always taken a clear stand.
Faced with Tubin's accusations, Deshowitz recalled an argument he had with his mother in the 1970s. Deshowitz objected to a group of people marching in Illinois and spreading hate speech as neo-Nazis, whose voice was questioned by his mother, who asked him, "Which side do you support, the Nazis, or the Jews?" He replied: "I support the constitutional amendment." The mother drank flatly: "Don't tell me that, I am your mother, choose one of the two, don't stand on the other side." ”
Deshowitz was a little aggrieved, he felt that his mother did not understand him, she did not have higher education, but Tubin should not be like this, he is from Harvard, he studied law. He argues that he has not changed, that he is adhering to his usual principles,
• Supporting constitutional amendments and defending civil liberties.
2
Deshowitz said: "I have always wanted to be a lawyer who defends the First Amendment.
A Jewitz who moved with his parents to the Jewish immigrant-populated Boro Park area at the age of four, de Schowitz developed a habit of arguing, and he was always the dissident in the crowd.
This habit is related to his personal upbringing. Throughout Deshowitz's life, his academic achievements are unmatched: he ranked first among the 170 students in his class at Yale Law School, and was elected editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal in his second year. His paper published in the journal caught the attention of Harvard Law School, and as soon as he graduated, he was invited to become a faculty member, becoming the youngest tenured professor in Harvard's history.
It was such a Deshowitz, who could have imagined that he was a notoriously poor student in elementary and secondary school, and he was a C-class student in the eyes of his teachers, and he could only make a living by selling his labor in the future. Occasionally, he got good results on the exams, and the teacher would say that the results were not true, but still gave him a score of 70. He won a grand prize in a speech contest and was not praised by a teacher.
Growing up in such an atmosphere and environment, Deshowitz has long since lost his self-confidence. His life changed thanks to a man named Iz in the summer camp. Greenberg's drama instructor, he told him: You are smart, and you will become a good lawyer. It was the first time he had heard affirmation of himself from an outsider, and he was strongly shaken inside and had confidence in himself.
Because of this teacher, he wanted to go to college. He submitted an application to Brooklyn College, but his grades were far from enough. Fortunately, the school organized an additional examination for the applicant, and he successfully passed and was admitted.
Brooklyn College was an important turning point in his life, and this student who had the lowest grades in his class of more than fifty people in high school became one of the top brooklyn college students, and he entered the honor student association, won the debate championship, and was elected president of the student council and the captain of the debate team. With his honors in Brooklyn, all the law schools he applied to sent acceptance letters, including Harvard, when he chose Yale.
The experience that had the greatest impact on Deshowitz in his formative years was the New York State Scholarship Exam before he entered high school. He offered to take the exam, but the principal flatly refused, saying that he would definitely not pass the exam, and that his participation would only lower the average score of the school. In desperation, Deshowitz made a request to the organizer of the examination, and the principal had no choice but to let him participate, and he actually passed the examination. The principal's first reaction was that he cheated until he checked the seat and found that none of his classmates had passed.
It was the first time in his life that he had advocated power for himself. His personal upbringing made him realize the importance of freedom and the horror of repression, so after becoming a lawyer, he paid special attention to the First Amendment, believing that without the protection of this provision, all rights could not be guaranteed.
3、
Deshowitz said: I always take it as my duty to defend freedom of expression.
Over the past 50 years, he has defended a wide variety of expressions, from films to plays, to books, newspapers, cartoons and faxes, to videos and advertisements, to instigation, defamation, blasphemy, and insulting gestures.
He has defended neo-Nazism and racism, Stalinism, anti-Israel rhetoric, pornography, nude photographs of children, and even bestial footage.
He said that some countries he respected, even if they examined those he despised, had been mercilessly criticized by him, while some attacked the countries he respected, even if he despised them with great contempt, but would defend them.
He strongly opposes government censorship of speech, even those that express his personal disapproval, contempt or perception that it is a dissemination of hatred, harm to others or dangerous.
Controversy over Deshowitz often arises as a result.
Going back to the two short stories mentioned earlier, he said that Tu Bin opposed him only because his defense of the constitutional amendment helped a president they despised. The question is, now that you know he's despicable, isn't his ouster the best outcome everyone expects, why oppose his impeachment?
Even more so is the rejection of the neo-Nazis, who were Jewish and whose fathers and relatives died at the hands of the Nazis. The legal man should first be a man, a man must have a position, how can he be so rational, he is an absolute liberal in the sense of the First Amendment to the Constitution?
H.L. Lincoln said: The trouble in defending human freedom is that you have to spend the precious time of your life on some villains, and the laws that suppress freedom will first target these people, and if you want to completely stop the suppression of freedom, you must first put an end to the suppression of these people's freedom.
Deshowitz defended himself.
4
Looking back, Deshowitz said he had no regrets and was full of gratitude. The law has changed a lot over the past fifty years, and he is honored to have participated in and contributed to these changes through teaching, practice, and book writing, and he has left his mark on the history of the legal system.
The French philosopher Voltaire once said: I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to speak.
This sentence reflects Deshowitz's life of defending the constitutional amendment, and there is also my feelings in this sentence that I have from time to time in the face of his words, I do not fully agree with him, in fact, I am often his dissent, but I sincerely respect him:
He does what he loves and takes his love and talent to the extreme.
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