Stephen Yagman

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Stephen Yagman
Brooklyn, New York
EducationLong Island University (BA)

New York University (MA)

Constitutional Law

Stephen Yagman (born December 19, 1944) is an American federal civil rights lawyer, and general advocate, including criminal defense and habeas corpus. He has a reputation for being an exceptionally zealous advocate in cases regarding allegations of police brutality.[1][2][3] He has argued hundreds of federal civil rights cases before a jury, and has been involved in over a hundred and fifty federal appeals and certiorari petitions before the United States Supreme Court.

Youth, education and early career

Stephen Yagman was born in 1944 in

State University of New York at Buffalo, he then graduated from Long Island University in Brooklyn.[citation needed
]

Yagman received a B.A. in American History, with co-majors in philosophy and political science. He later earned an M.A. in philosophy from

Bedford Stuyvesant, in Title I (lower socioeconomic) schools, from 1967-74. From 1967 until their divorce in 1994, he was married to Marion R. Yagman, with whom he practiced law for many years (1978-2021). [6]

Legal career

Yagman's legal career began before he graduated, as an attorney-intern with the

New York State Attorney General
as a Special Assistant Attorney General, assigned as an Assistant Special Prosecutor for Nursing Homes, in the Manhattan office of the Special State Prosecutor for Nursing Homes.

In 1986, Yagman successfully challenged a proposed nationwide suspension of federal jury trials due to budget shortfalls, in Armster v. U.S. Dist. Ct., 792 F.2d 1423 (9th Cir. 1986). In a unanimous opinion in a related proceeding, Armster v. U.S. Dist. Ct, 817 F.2d 480 (9th Cir. 1987), Judge

Stephen R. Reinhardt
said, "Yagman's vigilance in the protection of his clients' constitutional rights served all citizens. His fortitude and tenacity in the service of his civil rights clients exemplifies the highest traditions of the bar."

In January 2002, Yagman brought the first case seeking habeas corpus relief for Guantanamo Bay detainees, Coalition of Clergy, Lawyers & Professors v. George Walker Bush & Donald Rumsfeld, 310 F.3d 1153 (9th Cir. 2002).

On December 18, 2003, Yagman won the first case in which it was declared that

United States courts. Gherebi v. Bush & Rumsfeld, 374 F.3d 727 (9th Cir. 2004).[2][4]

On November 12, 1997, Yagman was sworn in by U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi as Special Prosecutor for the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declaring that federal law enforcement agents did not enjoy sovereign immunity and could be prosecuted criminally for state law homicide. Idaho v. Horiuchi, 253 F.3d 359 (9th Cir. 2001) (en banc
).

In County of Los Angeles v. U.S. Dist. Ct. (Forsyth v. Block), 223 F.3d 990 (9th Cir. 2000), federal Ninth Circuit Chief

Judge Alex Kozinski noted that Yagman "has a formidable reputation as a plaintiff's advocate in police misconduct cases; defendants in such cases may find it advantageous to remove him as an opponent." Some of his most notorious cases involved the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.[7][8]

Yagman lodged complaints of

Manuel Lawrence Real which, according to one commentator, "were at the center of the controversy over the effectiveness of the federal judicial disciplinary system and exerted a uniquely powerful influence on subsequent attempts at reform."[8] The United States Judicial Conference cited the Yagman disciplinary case in adopting its 2008 nationwide procedures for handling complaints of misconduct against federal judges. In his 2011 book, Lawyers on Trial, UCLA School of Law Professor of Law Emeritus Richard L. Abel rated Yagman as a "highly competent, dedicated lawyer who is a champion of unpopular causes".[9]

Yagman has tried over 200 federal civil rights actions to jury verdict and has argued over 150 federal appeals and certiorari petitions to the United States Supreme Court.

Criminal conviction

Yagman was convicted of one count of tax evasion, one count of bankruptcy fraud, and 17 counts of money laundering, six of which later were dismissed by the judge, on the basis that no rational jury could have found guilt based on them, on August 23, 2007. Yagman was convicted of "attempting to avoid payment of more than $100,000 in federal taxes", and he was sentenced to three years in federal prison. Yagman also failed to pay "significant amounts of federal payroll taxes" by his then-law firm, Yagman & Yagman, P.C. Although Yagman claimed he was singled out as retaliation, an appeals court upheld his conviction. Yagman was disbarred by the State Bar of California on December 22, 2010.[10]

Yagman served 29 months in federal prison and then worked as a paralegal and UCLA lecturer for 11 years before, at age 76, passing the California bar exam again and winning decisions from both the California State Bar Court and the California Supreme Court (unanimous) that reinstated his license to practice law, in 2021. He also was reinstated to the Bar of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by its chief judge, in 2021. He currently practices federal civil rights law and prosecutes cases for homeless clients, as well as for victims of police brutality, jail and prison abuses, and racial profiling.[11]

Yagman, now 79, has resumed taking cases against police and the government. As class counsel, Yagman represents all of the homeless people in the City of Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles, the City of Santa Barbara, and the County of Santa Barbara, in five, different, putative class actions.[11]

UCLA

In 2007, after Yagman's convictions, he was invited to co-teach and taught courses at UCLA Law School on law, morality, and social justice and on police brutality, with professor Frances Olsen.[12]

Writings

Yagman has written two national legal practice books, Section 1983 Federal Jury Practice and Instructions (West Publishing, 1998,

ISBN 0-314-10293-0), a play, Guantanamo, Act IV (Beyond Baroque, 2004), and hundreds of newspaper columns.[citation needed
]

Sources

  • Los Angeles Reader, “L.A.P.D. Death Squad”, April 10, 1992, cover
  • Los Angeles New Times, “Cop Cruncher”, October 2, 1997, cover
  • Los Angeles Times Magazine, “One Angry Man”, June 28, 1998, cover
  • California LawBusiness, “Sympathy for the Devil”, November 6, 2000, cover
  • Jerome Herbert Skolnick
    and James J. Fyfe, Above the Law, Police and the Excessive Use of Force (Free Press, 1993), pp. 17–18, 146-64, 203.

References

  1. ^ National Law Journal, pg. 1, February 28, 2011, "Yagman unbowed, but getting on with life"
  2. ^
    Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
    , “Attorney Tops Cops’ Most Wanted List”, December 19, 1988, p. 1
  3. ^ a b Los Angeles Daily Journal, October 26, 1987, pg. 1.
  4. ^ a b Yagman, Police Misconduct and Civil Rights, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions (Thomson West Publishing, 2002), XLVII-LV
  5. ^ Fordham Univ. transcript, govt. exhibit 27 in U.S. v. Yagman, 06-00227-SVW (C.D. Cal.)
  6. ^ Yagman official site; accessed April 18, 2014.
  7. ^ Jessica Garrison, "L.A. Officials Know To Expect Attorney's Call", L.A. Times, March 22, 2006, p. B1
  8. ^ a b Lara Bazelon, "Putting the Mice in Charge of the Cheese: Why Federal Judges Cannot Always be Trusted to Police Themselves and What Congress Can do about It", 97 Kentucky Law Journal pp. 439, 455 & n. 103, 2008-2009.
  9. ^ Lawyers on Trial, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 380-83, 456, 457.
  10. ^ "Pugnacious civil rights lawyer Stephen Yagman is summarily disbarred". www.calbarjournal.com. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  11. ^ a b "A fraud conviction ended his battles for civil rights. 14 years later, Stephen Yagman is back". Los Angeles Times. 2021-10-08. Retrieved 2023-11-15.
  12. ^ Yagman invited to teach an undergrad course on morality at UCLA, dailynews.com; accessed June 23, 2015.
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