Legal Gladiator: The Life of Alan Dershowitz by Solomon Schmidt; New York: Skyhorse Publishing; © 2024; ISBN 9781510-780644; 449 pages including epilogue, appendices, notes and index; $32.99.
SAN DIEGO – Biographer Solomon Schmidt is a Christian who includes in his book’s acknowledgments his thanks to Jesus for being able to complete this recitation of the many highlights in attorney Alan Dershowitz’s life. It was noteworthy that for basic knowledge of his subject’s Jewish religion, he turned to Living Judaism, a 1995 book written by Rabbi Wayne Dosick, the longest-serving active rabbi in San Diego County and current spiritual leader of the Elijah Minyan.
Forrest Gump, the 1994 movie starring Tom Hanks, tells the story of a dim-witted fictional character who turns up and influences many significant moments in late 20th century history. In contrast, Dershowitz was a brilliant Harvard law professor and controversial litigator. However, he, like the fictional Gump, seemed to turn up everywhere.
Dershowitz was involved as a defense and appeals court attorney in so many memorable cases – those that filled our newspapers and nightly television news – that in attempting to enumerate them all, biographer Schmidt could devote only a few pages to any one of them. This resulted in the biography providing broad coverage of Dershowitz’s life and career but with only limited depth.
The liberal Dershowitz defending President Donald Trump against impeachment was more fully probed. So too was Dershowitz, himself, being falsely accused of having sex with a minor trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein.
Prior to his conviction and ultimate jailhouse suicide, Epstein courted the very famous, among them Dershowitz, Bill Clinton, Britain’s Prince Andrew, and many others. Virginia Giuffre said she was still a minor when Epstein arranged for her to have sex with some of his friends, naming Dershowitz as one of her statutory rapists. Dershowitz responded that she was lying. After protracted litigation, Giuffre issued a statement saying, “I now recognize I may have made a mistake in identifying Mr. Dershowitz.” For his part, Dershowitz said that he has “come to believe that at the time she accused me she believed what she said…. She has suffered much at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and I commend her work combatting the evil of sex trafficking…”
Although Dershowitz maintained that he is a Democrat and votes for Democrats, he contended that Constitutional law was on Trump’s side in the impeachment battle. He argued that offenses serious enough to remove a President from office need to be enumerated in law before they are committed, not after. He approvingly quoted Benjamin Curtis, who resigned from the U.S. Supreme Court and served as counsel to President Andrew Johnson during the 17th President’s impeachment trial: “There can be no crime, there can be no misdemeanor without a law, written or unwritten, express or implied.”
Trump, the 45th U.S. President, had been accused in his first impeachment trial of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress,” two charges for which there were no standards, Dershowitz argued. A president might be accused of such charges by disapproving opponents, yet the same action by a president of a different political party might be met with indifference or even approval, he contended.
Although the prosecutors for the House of Representatives were unable to persuade two-thirds of the U.S. Senate membership that Trump had in fact committed offenses meriting removal from office, Dershowitz paid a heavy price for helping to save Trump’s presidency. Many of his “friends” thereafter avoided him and customary speaking invitations were denied to him.
Nevertheless, Dershowitz had a remarkable career. As a rule, defense attorneys have unpopular clients, but in Dershowitz’s opinion guaranteeing that proper procedures are followed by police and prosecutors strengthens America’s legal system.
Here are just a few of the principals in memorable cases in which Dershowitz was involved: Sen. Edward Kennedy in the drowning death of Mary Jo Kopechne; those who faced pornography charges for the movies I Am Curious Yellow and Deep Throat; and defendants Claus von Bulow; Leona Helmsley; Jim and Tammy Bakker; Mike Tyson; O.J. Simpson, President Bill Clinton, and Julian Assange. Dershowitz also advised Mia Farrow in her case against estranged husband Woody Allen.
The list of his law school students during his half century on the Harvard Law School faculty includes Elana Kagan, Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz, Natalie Portman, and Mitt Romney. Friends and former friends at his Martha’s Vineyard home included Larry David, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Geraldo Rivera.
Dershowitz attended Yale Law School, where he edited the law review; then clerked with Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg; and when hired by Harvard became the youngest member of its faculty.
He was involved in international Jewish affairs, providing a voice for Soviet Refuseniks and friendship and political counsel for various Israeli leaders, including Ehud Olmert and Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World