William M. Kunstler Quotes

“No. I believe essential justice can be obtained by pressure of people in the streets, outside courthouses . . . power yields only to power.” The interviewer then asked whether Kunstler saw the justice system “as just one method of bringing about social change.” Kunstler responded that the “ruling class . . . uses the justice system, creates it and uses it for its own perpetuation. So, it’s there. You can exploit it. It has certain exploitable factors and I try to do that. But I don’t really believe in it. . . . I use the law politically. I use courtrooms politically. I think they are very good for that purpose.”
― David Langum, William M. Kunstler: The Most Hated Lawyer in America

“Judges are creatures of the Establishment. They do what’s politically correct for them. The worst of them are mean-spirited, racist bastards. As for defending the Constitution, they probably violate it more than any other branch of government.”
― David Langum, William M. Kunstler: The Most Hated Lawyer in America

“because mob figures often serve as scapegoats for the government and quickly become everyone’s favorite bad guys. This country has a long tradition of bias against Italian-Americans, and we love making villains out of individuals who are linked to organized crime. Defendants accused of such ties are almost always discriminated against, almost always assumed to be guilty. In America, if your last name ends in a vowel, you’re immediately suspect.”
― David Langum, William M. Kunstler: The Most Hated Lawyer in America

“According to his daughter Karin, Kunstler always justified his cases in political terms. Kunstler extended the political nature of representation far beyond blacks. It eventually included American Indians, Muslims, and even mobsters such as John Gotti. Michael Ratner believes that Kunstler was more “flexible” than most New Left lawyers in finding political significance in certain facts and in certain clients, a matter that caused some disagreement with his wife Margie. Nowhere was that flexibility more apparent than in Kunstler’s explanation of why his representation of mob figures had political significance:”
― David Langum, William M. Kunstler: The Most Hated Lawyer in America

“In the 1980s he noted that “my representation of black defendants has been motivated by one of my strongest beliefs: that our society is always racist. Black people rarely get justice in our courts; so for me, cases in which defendants are black are political.” As early as 1970 he told the Playboy interviewer that he found it “hard to conceive of most routine criminal cases not also being political cases. I say that because so often the person accused of a crime is poor or black and poor. He has been subjected to an oppressive system, and the very crime of which he is accused is probably a reaction to that oppressive system.” In 1992 a reporter asked Kunstler the flat question”
― David Langum, William M. Kunstler: The Most Hated Lawyer in America