Elmer Gertz

Elmer Gertz (September 14, 1906 – April 27, 2000) was an American lawyer, writer, law professor, and civil rights activist. During his lengthy legal career he won some high-profile cases, most notably parole for notorious killer Nathan Leopold and the obscenity trial of Henry Miller's novel Tropic of Cancer, a book published in France but banned in the United States because of its "candid sexuality" in describing the author's life in Paris. In addition to accounts of his cases and career, he also reviewed books and edited a collection of works by Frank Harris, whom he represented as literary agent for a while.

He is best remembered in the legal world, however, for a case in which he was not an advocate but a plaintiff: Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., a libel action he brought against the John Birch Society in 1969 after it accused him of being part of a Communist conspiracy to discredit local police departments. He prevailed, but only after a 14-year battle that saw the case go before the Supreme Court, which ruled that as a private figure Gertz did not have to prove actual malice on the defendants' part. When the case finally went to trial, the jury found in favor of Elmer Gertz and awarded him compensatory damages of $100,000 and punitive damages of $300,000. The award was upheld on appeal.

A Jew of Lithuanian descent, Gertz was born to Morris and Grace Gertz in Chicago's Maxwell Street neighborhood. He attended elementary school with future Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg. At the age of ten, his mother dead and his father unable to care for his children, he spent the remainder of his childhood in orphanages in Chicago and Cleveland.

...
Wikipedia