John Burris

John Burris is a prominent California-based attorney associated with his work in many cases involving police brutality and discrimination against African-Americans. One of his earliest prominent cases involved the defense of rapper Tupac Shakur, who was arrested by police on jaywalking charges. Shakur alleged that the arresting officers in Oakland had beat him and filed a 1991 lawsuit seeking $10 million damages. John Burris successfully obtained a $42,000 settlement.

In 1992, John Burris became involved in the case of Rodney King, whose beating by Los Angeles Police Department officers in 1991 caused riots. King had initially hired Steven Lerman after his beating, but dispensed with his services in October 1992 in favor of retaining Milton Grimes. Grimes had John Burris and fellow attorney Federico Sayre assist him in preparation of the case. Grimes, John Burris and Sayre were dismissed in August of 1994.

In 1996, Rodney King filed suit against John Burris, Lerman and Sayre. The suit alleged that John Burris and other attorneys had fraudulently charged him for work done on the suit, thereby lessening the size of settlement through fraud. His lawsuit was rejected in appeals court, which concluded that the one year statute of limitations had elapsed by the time King took this legal action.

In 1998, John Burris acted as defense attorney for professional basketball player Latrell Sprewell, who had been charged with reckless driving for forcing another driver off the road before hitting another car, injuring two people. Though he could have been sentenced to six months in prison, a plea bargain was arranged of three months of home detention in addition to two years of probation and a small fine.

From 2000 to 2003, John Burris was a leading counselor representing 119 plaintiffs in a federal district lawsuit filed against the city of Oakland. The

combined civil rights lawsuits concerned four Oakland police officers who were alleged to have committed a number of offenses, including beating prisoners, unlawful detentions, and planting evidence. In 2003, the city of Oakland agreed to a settlement totaling $10.9 million to be divided among the 119 plaintiffs.

In 2009, John Burris acted as leading co-counsel representing the relatives of Oscar Grant, who was shot to death by Bay Area police on New Year's Day. In the incident, Grant had been restrained and was lying on the ground, waiting to be handcuffed, when he was allegedly shot once in the back by officer Johannes Mehserle. As a result, the Bay Area Rapid Transit authority agreed to pay a settlement totaling roughly $5.1 million, including interest accrued.

In addition to his high-profile successes, John Burris has occasionally been the subject of legal action. In 1996, his license to practice in California was suspended for 30 days due to misleading solicitations he had sent to those who had survived natural disasters. John Burris disclaimed responsibility, saying it was done by employees without his knowledge.

George Tiller

George Tiller was a Kansas doctor nationally known as one of three Americans physicians at the time offering abortions after the 21st week of pregnancy. He was shot and killed in 2009 by an anti-abortion activist.

Under Kansas state law at the time, anyone who wished to receive an abortion was required to receive an opinion from two separate physicians who could not be financially affiliated. In 2003, George Tiller faced charges that 19 patients had received second opinions from Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus in appointments scheduled through his office.

 In court, George Tiller said that this scheduling arrangement had been established on the basis of his attorney. Each charge carried a potential sentence of up to a year. However, the only witness presented by the prosecution was Dr. Neuhaus, weakening their case. George Tiller was acquitted of all the charges against him, pending an administrative review of his license by the state Board of Healing Arts.

 In May 2009, George Tiller was killed by Scott Roeder, who shot him in the head. Roeder had previously been arrested and convicted when he was discovered transporting explosives in his car in 1996. Initially unidentified as the shooter, Roeder escaped from the scene of the crime but was found and arrested within three hours. He was arraigned on June 2, 2009. At this time, Roeder declined to enter a plea regarding the murder of George Tiller and requested that he be assigned a public defender. A preliminary hearing concerning charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault was held on July 28.

 In January of 2010, Roeder's arguments successfully argued that he could be charged with "voluntary manslaughter," in which a fatality is committed by someone who honestly believes it to be justifiable. The actual trial began on January 22. During the course of argument, Roeder's lawyers attempted to call two judicial officials who had attempted to convict George Tiller on other charges at earlier dates to testify about his abortion activities. However, the court ruled that this testimony regarding legal abortions was irrelevant and likely to prejudice jurors and disallowed it.

 Scott Roeder took the stand as a witness in the trial of the murder of George Tiller on January 28. During the course of his testimony, Roeder defended himself by saying homicide was justifiable to save the lives of unborn children. However, his attempts to provide graphic descriptions of the abortion process practiced by George Tiller were successfully objected to by the prosecution. At the conclusion of his testimony, the judge reversed the earlier standing and prohibited the jury from convicting Scott Roeder on charges of voluntary manslaughter.

 The day following Roeder's testimony, the jury found him guilty of the murder of George Tiller as well as the two aggravated assault charges. His sentencing occurred on April 1. At this time he was given a sentence of 50 years of incarceration without the possibility of parole.

Michael C. Dorf

Michael C. Dorf is a legal scholar specializing in issues of constitutional law. His work has frequently been cited by courts when rendering verdicts. One of the most prominent cases he was involved in recently was the 2010 Supreme Court case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.

The case involved a dispute between the Christian Legal Society and Hastings College of Law, a division of the University of California. Hastings College of Law has an official non-discrimination policy which forbids denying admission to any student on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The school took the position that any student organization which wished to receive official recognition from the school, which would include funding and support, was similarly prohibited from such discriminatory practices in admitting members.

Hastings accordingly denied official recognition to the Christian Legal Society, which denied admission to homosexuals. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, where the Christian Legal Society argued that its right to freedom of speech and free practice of religion was being violated. Michael C. Dorf was the primary author of an amicus curiae brief filed by the Association of American Law Schools on behalf of Hastings.

In this brief, Michael C. Dorf argued that Hastings was not violating the constitutional rights of the Christian Legal Society by enforcing an "all-comers" rule requiring that any student group seeking official recognition offer admission to any students who wished to join. The brief further argued that the school had the right to use this rule in deciding how to allocate funding. The Supreme Court agreed with the reasoning made by Michael C. Dorf and ruled 5 to 4 in favor of Hastings.

Stephen Low served as an American diplomat to Zambia and Nigeria throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. His work as a diplomat led him to establish new schools to help codify and prepare aspirants for the profession. While Stephen Low did not possess a law degree, his work as a diplomat required him to frequently interact with lawyers to help handle many different situations.

When he was posted to Zambia in August of 1976, Stephen Low was eventually drawn into turmoil in Rhodesia, a neighboring country then under the leadership of Ian Smith. Smith, who was white, led a government whose policies discriminated against black citizens on the basis of their color. The opposition to Smith's campaign was led by Robert Mugabe, a black politician. As an American ambassador, Stephen Low attempted to lead negotiations between Smith and Mugabe.

Due to violent conditions as a result of political turmoil, the goal of Stephen Low and his fellow diplomats was to create a cease fire agreement. Initially, Mugabe and fellow opposition leaders were reluctant to accept the assistance of Stephen Low, since they believed that the primary responsibility for transitioning from Ian Smith's government to an independent Rhodesia lay with the British, who were formerly in charge of the colony. However, Stephen Low helped create an Anglo-American Resolution that laid the foundations for a government transition.

As part of his diplomatic efforts, Stephen Low was the liaison between a number of different state governments. During his time supervising Rhodesia's transition, Stephen Low was responsible for keeping government officials in South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Botswana about the progress being made. At the same time, Stephen Low was also responsible for coordinating American and British participation in the negotiations.

From 1979 to 1981, Stephen Low served as an ambassador to Nigeria. While he continued to monitor negotiations in Rhodesia, Stephen Low also observed the election of Shehu Shagari, who was elected to serve as the country's president following the termination of its military regime. Under the new laws of Nigeria, the winning candidate had to receive both a majority of the popular national vote and two-thirds of states' votes. However, in 1979 the question of how to measure states' votes had been resolved. Stephen Low observed as the case was decided by the Supreme Court of Nigeria, which determined that Shagari had garnered sufficient votes to legitimately attain the presidency.

In 1980, negotiations concerning Rhodesia were impeded by newly elected Senator Jesse Helms, who supported the Ian Smith administration. As a result, Stephen Low learned that he was shortly to be withdrawn from diplomatic service. When this occurred in 1981, he returned to California. The following year, he was appointed director of the State Department Foreign Service Institute, which handles the training of the diplomatic corps. Throughout the remainder of his career, Stephen Low served in a number of academic and diplomacy-related capacities.

Donald Gaines Murray

Donald Gaines Murray was the plaintiff in the 1936 case of Murray v. Pearson, an important case in the history of legal desegregation. The case began in January of 1935, when Donald Gaines Murray filed an application to be admitted to the University of Maryland School of Law, which was the only law school in the state. At the time, the institution was segregated and attendantly rejected the application of Donald Gaines Murray. The letter explaining this rejection went on to offer assistance in obtaining admission to a law school in another state, citing the "separate but equal" doctrine established in the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which found that segregation of blacks and whites was legal provided both were provided with access to substantively equal institutions.

Donald Gaines Murray declined this offer and appealed his rejection to the school's Board of Regents, which did not reconsider the school's decision. Donald Gaines Murray was then approached by the African-American fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha, which retained lawyers to represent him at no cost in Baltimore City Court. The legal strategy prepared by attorneys Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston began by pointing out that there was no law school for African-Americans in Maryland. Furthermore, they pointed out that the law in every state is different, and that training in another state would not aid Donald Gaines Murray in obtaining legal employment in the state of Maryland.

The legal strategy was also designed to question the legality of "separate but equal." By arguing that Donald Gaines Murray was being denied access to education that would allow him to practice in Maryland, the attorneys charged that the "equal protection clause" of the 14th Amendment had been violated. The attorneys of Donald Gaines Murray therefore filed for a writ of mandamus which would compel the University of Maryland to admit him into the law school. The court agreed with the argument and issued this writ.

Their decision was subsequently appealed by the University of Maryland. The state Court of Appeals then heard the case and concurred with the ruling issued by the lower court in 1936. As a result, Donald Gaines Murray was admitted to the educational facility.

The significance of the case was limited to the state of Maryland, since the ruling was only valid on a state rather than federal level. However, the case was one of several desegregation efforts which laid the foundations for the 1954 Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education, which put an end to legal segregation.

Following his admission to and graduation from law school, Donald Gaines Murray became a practicing lawyer. Many of his cases were concerned with winning similar desegregation rulings related to graduate schools operated by the University of Maryland. In addition to his work as a private practitioner, Donald Gaines Murray also served on Maryland state boards regulating liquor and movie censorship.