Dennis Cunningham, a civil rights lawyer who successfully sued the government on behalf of the Black Panthers, rebellious Attica prisoners and ardent environmentalists who claimed they were victims of official misconduct, died Saturday at his son’s home In Los Angeles. He was 86 years old.
According to his daughter Bernadine Mellis, the cause was cancer.
Mr. Cunningham was not as famous as some of his colleagues, but he represented a wide range of protesters after being inspired by the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington — “the engine of my enlightenment,” as he called it — and he attended law school. at night in the 1960s.
He practiced in Chicago, where he founded the People’s Law Office counter; in upstate New York, where a civil lawsuit was finally settled in 2001 related to the 1971 Attica Correctional Institution riot; and to San Francisco, where he moved in the early 1980s to be closer to his children.
Mr. Cunningham joined a team of lawyers who filed a lawsuit against the authorities after a police raid on the Chicago apartment where Illinois Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clarke were shot dead in 1969.
Hours after the police shooting, Mr. Cunningham called Gerald L. Shargel, an aspiring civil liberties lawyer in New York, for advice. Mr Shargel recommended that Mr Cunningham immediately bring in a medical examiner to inspect the apartment, the first step in establishing a chain of evidence that helped prove their claim that the raid was the result of a government plot to kill Mr Hampton.
After an 18-month litigation, the lawsuit was finally settled for $1.85 million on behalf of the survivors and families of the two victims in 1982.
“It’s all about Dennis’ commitment, which is what you want from a lawyer who is trying to do the right thing,” Mr. Shargel said in a telephone interview. “Dennis has been fighting this fight for years.”
Mr. Cunningham, Michael Deutsch, Elizabeth Fink and Joseph Heath represented 62 prisoners charged in connection with the Attica riots; eight were convicted. In 1974, lawyers filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of the Atticus Brothers Legal Defense Fund, which a quarter of a century later was settled for $12 million, including legal fees.
In 2002, Mr. Cunningham helped persuade a California jury to award $4.4 million to two Earth First environmentalists who alleged their rights had been violated by the local and federal authorities who arrested them.
Authorities said environmentalists Darryl Czerny and Judy Bury were about to organize demonstrations against cutting down ancient redwoods in 1990 when a pipe bomb went off in their car. Ms. Bari’s pelvis was crushed by the explosion, and Mr. Cherny was slightly injured.
Authorities said the bomb accidentally detonated while the couple were transporting it for environmental terrorism. Supporters of Mr Cherny and Ms Bari said the timber industry or the government planted the bomb. Ultimately, the criminal case was dropped for lack of evidence.
After 17 days of deliberations, a federal jury in a civil trial upheld the plaintiffs’ allegation that the FBI and the Oakland police violated their civil and First Amendment rights by slandering the couple.
The car bomb case was the subject of the documentary The Forest for the Trees (2005), directed by Mr Cunningham’s daughter Bernadine Mellis.
Mr. Cunningham acknowledged that “as lawyers, we’ve been taught that we have a duty to represent every client, damn the rest of the world.” But the book Presenting the Radicals (2021) quotes him as saying that many of the cases he handled on behalf of politically motivated defendants need to be approached differently.
In such cases, he says, his responsibility is to “take care not to undermine the values or goals of the client’s activity.”
Dennis Dixon Cunningham was born January 2, 1936, in Glencoe, Illinois, to Robert M. Cunningham, Jr., a writer, editor, and health policy consultant, and Deborah (Libby) Cunningham, a homemaker.
When he was 15 years old, he entered the University of Chicago under the Ford Foundation’s program for students who had completed two years of high school.
After receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1955, he performed with theater companies, including The Second City, where he met and married Mona Mellis. Their marriage ended in divorce.
In addition to his daughter Bernadine, he is survived by his son Joseph Mellis; his daughters Delia Mellis and Miranda Mellis; three grandchildren; his brother Rob; and his partner Mary Ann Walcott.
Mr. Cunningham was in his early 20s when, inspired by the civil rights movement, he received his law degree overnight from Loyola University Chicago in 1967.
He was admitted to the bar just in time to defend demonstrators arrested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. With the help of colleagues from the National Lawyers Guild, he helped establish the People’s Law Office in a converted sausage store to help protesters who were charged with what they saw as their efforts to bring about social and political change.
“We boldly decided to call ourselves the People’s Law Office – at least unofficially – and our goal was easily a commitment to be worthy of the name,” Mr. Cunningham recalled.
He later represented groups opposed to apartheid and dictatorship in Central America, as well as others who advocated greater support for the homeless and the AIDS Coalition to unleash power or act.
After settling in San Francisco, he worked with another lawyer, Ben Rosenfeld, on the Bari case and other lawsuits.