J. Tony Serra (born December 30, 1934) is an American civil rights lawyer, activist and tax resister from San Francisco.
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Education
Serra received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Juris Doctor degree from Boalt Hall at the University of California, Berkeley. While at law school, Serra was a contributor to the California Law Review.
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Career
In 1970, Serra successfully defended Black Panther leader Huey Newton in a murder trial.
In 1983, Serra won an acquittal for Chol Soo Lee, a Korean American immigrant in San Francisco who had been convicted of murder in 1973 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
He has also represented individuals from groups as diverse and politically charged as the White Panthers, Hells Angels, Good Earth, and New World Liberation Front (NWLF). Some of these individuals include Brownie Mary, Dennis Peron, Hooty Croy, Ellie Nesler, and Symbionese Liberation Army members Sara Jane Olson, Russell Little and Michael Bortin.
In 2004, Serra won an acquittal during a retrial on murder charges for co-defendant Rick Tabish in the death of casino mogul Ted Binion.
Serra won the Trial Lawyer of the Year award in 2003 (by the organization Trial Lawyers for Public Justice), for his successful litigation of Judi Bari against the FBI.
Legal troubles
Serra has been in trouble with the law several times for failure to pay income taxes. He refused to pay taxes in protest of the War in Iraq, based on his conviction that the Bush administration was leading the country in the wrong direction and that he would therefore not contribute any money to fund what he saw as Bush's corrupt politics. On July 29, 2005, he was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison, to be served at Lompoc, and ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution for a misdemeanor conviction of willful failure to pay taxes. Serra was released from the federal camp in Lompoc, California, in mid-February 2007, reporting immediately to a San Francisco halfway house. He was released from federal custody, and the halfway house, on March 13, 2007, after serving out his sentence [1]. Along with three other attorneys, Serra filed a class-action lawsuit seeking minimum wages for himself and other inmates, citing slave wages as unconstitutional.
Personal life and family
Serra has taken a vow of poverty and is known for living a frugal lifestyle and driving a run-down car. All income from his cases is distributed to other lawyers except for a very small portion that he uses to pay rent and gas. All of his clothes (including suits, briefcases, shoes etc.) are bought secondhand.
Tony has two younger brothers: Richard Serra, a prominent sculptor, and Rudy Serra, also a noted artist. Richard paid for the college educations of Tony's five children.
In popular culture
The 1989 film True Believer was loosely based on the 1982-83 retrial of Chol Soo Lee. The film's main character, Eddie Dodd, played by James Woods, is based on Serra.
The film inspired a spin-off series, Eddie Dodd, which ran for six episodes in 1991 on ABC; Dodd was played by Treat Williams.
A biography of Serra, Lust for Justice: The Radical Life & Law of J. Tony Serra, written by courtroom artist Paulette Frankl with a foreword by criminal defense attorney Gerry Spence, was released in October 2010.
High-profile cases
Awards
- Runner up, "Best Lawyer in America," American Lawyer magazine, 1982
- Drug Policy Foundation Achievement in the Field of Law, 1992
- Boalt Hall "Alumnus of the Year, 1993;
- Charles Garry Award, 1994;
- ACLU Benjamin Dreyfus Civil Liberties Award, 1997;
- California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, 2000, "Ten Best Criminal Defense Attorneys of the Century;"
- McFetridge-American Inn of court, Co-Awardee "2003 Trial Lawyer of the Year";
- Trial Lawyers for Public Justice,"Certificate of Honor, December 1, 2005;"
- Criminal Trial Lawyers Association of Northern California,"2005 Gideon Equal Justice Award;"
- 2008 NORML Lester Grinspoon Award,"For Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Marijuana Law Reform"
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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