Talks about becoming a lawyer and the cases hes handled the past 50 years. This program is next on book tv. [applause] welcome, everybody. Its delightful in a remarkable way for the two of us to be here. I feel as if you ought to be tutoring me for one of our final exams which you used to do. We have known each other for over 50 years as you have just heard and i dont know how that came to be, but you said in your book that you were a dreadful student until you went to college and in secondary school you were a disaster. What turned it around . I dont know it. I wish i knew. I was a scene and the student. I have in my book an actual photograph of my senior semester report card with a 60 in physics with a red circle, math a red circle, 65 in history and i managed to squeeze 80 in english so i had a 67 average and i was actually suspended from the four City Basketball Team of four athletic deficiencies but for athletic deficiencies and i went to the jewish Parochial School and my principal called me in one day and said dershowitz, you have a big mouth but not much of the brain get he said you have to figure out something you can do with your life where you talk a lot that dont have to think a lot. He said you could be a conservative rabbi or you could be a lawyer. I wasnt smart enough to be a rabbi sali khanna lawyer to be a rabbi so i became a lawyer. I was a failure and by age 17 and a half, i was at the top of my class in Brooklyn College with straight as. I never got a b and i think the reason was i didnt change as much as the school changed. I went to college where anything went. You could ask any question and raise any issue whereas the high school i went to your punished essentially for raising questions that were critical so i think Brooklyn College saved me. If i had better grades we would have been classmates because i would have tried to get into columbia. Why is decision based on my grades and i was so lucky the Brooklyn College was a free school and had an exam you could take to get into that is what turned me around. I said i just have a good memory for. It tells about the case of the category. I do have of the cases for free represent First Responders and police officers, people in my view have a service that are underpaid so i have a policy of representing them free in my books and i talked about representing colonel steel, the hero of black hawk down on mogadishu when he was being investigated for creating an atmosphere around which some of the soldiers may have acted irresponsibly. We have got the charges dropped. I represented a woman years ago who was locked up in a Mental Hospital and was a case where her family was trying to get rid of a nuisance rather than a true case of Mental Illness and just the other day she came up to me at a book signing and reminded me that i had saved her life. Two young boys on death row who were innocent. Their father committed murders for which they were sentenced to death and i represented them and that case took me nine years and i represented him. Somebody once asked me what my biggest thing was and they said we didnt know if you have any money and i said he didnt, but when i was able to help him get free and return to his wife and family and he whispered in my ear that hebrew blessing blessed are those that help free the imprisoned there was the biggest that i will never get. In terms of the outrageous piece might not if im representing billionaires why not charge of the going rate is . I used my cases to fund my court cases and it worked out. You said that the greatest wonder of the 20th century was committed by president clinton in the paula jones case. Could you explain that a little bit . I cannot imagine why the president of the United States had a choice of any lawyer in the country in the paula jones case they had to be felt the case but to go to the clerks office, deposit the check for 750,000 which was the amount of a lawsuit and the case was over but he never told the president that he had that option. He only told them he could settle the case or he would have to litigate and when i told the present act, he was shocked and he didnt know he had the option so i called robert on the phone and i said is it true you didnt tell the president of this option and he said absolutely. He said it would have been a stupid idea for him to default the case and i said is and that his decision to make, not your decision . , that is what robert didnt tell the president and that was the greatest blunder it almost got him indicted and the idea that a president had to testify about his sex life is beneath the dignity of the presidency it doesnt mean the president should have done it. He wouldnt have had to testify if he did in deutsch but if he didnt testify and he simply said the dignity doesnt permit me to talk about anything private, i think that he would have survived but that is his decision to make. A lawyers job is to tell the client for the options are. Taking the stand, your new book you talk about the crime that you ever committed. Do you want to tell that story . Actually, since i wrote that book i may have committed another one so let me be very clear. My son was 10yearsold and he had a very serious brain surgery, very serious brain surgery when he was 10yearsold and he recovered very well and went back to work and always worked selling newspapers in Harvard Square and one day to funds beat him up and robbed him for his money and beat him in the head and knocked a2 out and when they met in court again the two kids came over to my son and said unless you drop the charges the next time we are going to throw you in front of the training and so i saw these kids and i walked up to then and i mentioned the name of a man i was representing at that time. He was a notorious hit man for the mob and in a particularly brutal ways all i did is mentioned the name of my client and tell them how much mike clay and admired me and made it clear to them if they touched my son again my client would find out about it. They did me not to do it. I probably committed a crime, but the next one was just recently a few months ago he had a problem, went to the hospital, and when he got out he was opening a door and i was with him and a woman was sitting in the count and she dropped her bottle of wine and it broke and my son immediately set let me pay for that. I apologize, but the man came around and started to plunge my son and here i am a 75yearold guy and i reached back and i punched him in the jaw, mocked his glasses off and he ran away and probably the was assault, not with a Deadly Weapon but was hustled and i would do it again in a minute if anybody attacks my children, my loved ones matter how old i am. I grew up in brooklyn, we were street kids and learn how to fight back. What has been the strangest or perhaps the single funniest moment that you have had in court . I won a case once by telling a joke. I was representing the movie i am curious yellow. Remember that . You probably watched it on general television today needy in our reading or gp. But the man that showed the film sentenced to a year in jail for an of seen film and never succeeded. The government had no stake in the inside of the theater and only had rights to protect the public about what was outside of the theater for the judge didnt seem to be getting the argument and in chambers we had a little confidence maybe this will make the point he saw a store with watches and clocks in the window she said can you fix the watch and he said fix your watch. He said i perform circumcisions. Then why did you have watches and clocks in the window he said what you want me to put in the window . [laughter] i told the joke and he laughed and said it really depends on what is in the window and their rules in our favor. And the arguments that you made an ibm curious yellow that youre father had learned something from seeing the film. Generally when i represent the films i presented my share of them live with every single kind of knew that he generally i dont watch the film and after i am curious yellow, i watched and i represented the film and i represented the actor and if to this day i have not seen the film because i want to make the point to the judge this is not about the film. This is about twice. Ive never seen an abortion. Ive never witnessed gay sex but i favor for people to do what they want in the privacy of their own home and i have to Say Something that the state has no right to control it so ive never seen the film deep throat and have no interest and you dont have to see if you dont want to, but you can if you choose to so that is the argument i make when it comes to films maybe somebody will learn something and maybe they will learn the wrong things from reading marks ordered the bible but that isnt a limit on the First Amendment that he might learn the wrong thing. You are a young man compared to you. You have six months on me. I do. After only 50 years teaching at Harvard Law School this is your last semester. Right. What is your future hold . Who knows. I dont think of this as retirement but as a career change. Ive had the same job since for 20 years that may be a world record considering the presidencies. By the way, the new book on presidency the rail is a brilliant book and its not only about presidencys but its about leadership failure, success and i think that when you get to be our age, you do think about what you would like to do that you havent done. People ask me is their anything you havent done . And i still have problems and i dont want to miss anything. So im going to write more books and im going to litigate more cases. The only thing im not going to do is put 10,000 students and they have ranged from ten accrues on the right to Eliot Spitzer. Dont blame me i will take responsibility for Eliot Spitzer and i will tell you why, he worked for me as a Research Assistant and he was one of the best idea for had and he worked so hard. One day i said to him you are working so hard go out and have fun. [laughter] but i take no responsibility for his political views. My job as a professor isnt to turn conservatives and liberals or liberals and conservatives it is to make them better analytic thinkers. I dont want you to leave as a smarter conservative and the same is true as a liberal. Your introduction and the dhaka sets the scene with an autobiography presented as a witness taking the stand to extend the metaphor who do you see as the judge and who do you see as the jury . Its a great question and in america of course the ultimate jury of the American People, the legal system is deutsch turned more by what the American People think than what nine judges think no matter what the Supreme Court has set about obscenity, clearly turn on your cable television, go to any video store, go to the internet and we see that the public has prevailed you can see anything and watch anything. Hockley not obviously not the child pornography that exploits Young Children that is an ongoing crime, but what we are dealing with adults, anything goes and so the people that govern in the end my ultimate jury are the people. But the judges, maybe my students particularly wall students. I want the students to read this book. I want them to learn about not only fill all but how to live the passion of your times, how not to compromise and look back after the end of your career and say i miss this and that and Oliver Holmes to live the passion of their times. I tried to do that and i want to convey those lessons to my judge and jury. If i were running a screenplay team and one thing i would establish is the critical moment in which he became infatuated with fidel lot you dont mention that in the dhaka. Know that is why dont mention it. I never thought of doing anything but being a criminal lawyer. All of my life i wanted to argue with people and i wanted to be contentious and confrontational. Thats who i was. And i think the secret of success if there is any is to know what you are, not what you want to be more what somebody wants to make you. The difference is Justice Goldberg was a Supreme Court justice and wanted to remake me in his image to be a Supreme Court justice i had no interest in a judge. A judge david babylon wanted me to be myself and being myself was always being contentious, confrontational and as you remember from reading the book i say there are two characters, there is this character the when you see on television pointing his finger and over talking the next guy always trying to get the last word and then the last alan whomever wins an argument with his family and is a complete and total pushover and heats confrontation at home or with my friends and i try to live a life that balances the character and the real alan ala. The one who gave the book a good review says that she wishes that more of the book has been written by the real alan rather than the character and that is a fair point i think mostly of the dersh character of the book. So if you want to read a book you really dont want to read about boring al when his children balsam around you really much prefer to read about the character and even more interesting guy. It feels like mall and they face the persuasive. The contrived affidavits married his eldest can you expand on that . I dont think they were over represented as they are underrepresented in professional football and professional basketball. When i was 15 or 16i much preferred to have been point guard for the short start for the brooklyn dodgers but they pointed me in that direction. So they have dominated in many parts of the world of the Legal Profession that was true in england and france and north africa and in the former soviet union and in the United States and i think part of the reason is they are always on trial. Weve always been accused youre at fault in the inquisition, the dreyfus affair, you name it and they have been on trial and we have needed a full years. Abraham argued with god. I dont think it is in our nature. I think it is partly in their religion. Half of jewish law tells you what you cant do and where you can get around it and its like the irs code. Its quite natural. That isnt going to change. I notice now on my glasses that some of the more dominant lawyers now represent the racial minorities, first of all women of course are becoming dominant figures with africanamericans, latino americans and to everything there is a season of jewish influence infil law will continue as it has in the past. Why have you chosen to write the book now . 75yearsold, 50 years of teaching, my 30 if a book, who knows what the future will hold. I had a lot to say. 500 pages i could have written 5,000. I only deal with 5 of my cases. I wanted to write about the First Amendment and my views on National Security being balanced and it came at the perfect time because i anticipate the problems and balancing National Security with privacy and the censorship of National Security. I wanted to write about how science influences law. Almost all of my criminal cases i have had 36 cases dealing with either Death Penalty cases, homicide, attempted homicide, all of those kind of cases. And in most of them i have one by science. Let me give you one quick example many of you know on the o. J. Simpson case this is the last one who allegedly killed her boyfriend much older rich man allegedly killed her older boyfriend by, pressing his chest so his lungs couldnt expand so there wasnt a part on his body that would correspond to the church in the same place and size it seems like a compelling evidence. I am generally in a Political Year i looked at the secretary and i saw something suspicious and i had a blown up. I showed it to a chief dermatologist and sure enough he concluded by a very careful look at the structure of the veins and others in the alleged it wasnt a bruise at all it was a benign tumor that existed well before this incident and therefore it proved nothing and we won the case and we got it reversed and she had a new trial and won an acquittal and is now living happily with her two children and running an art gallery. I want to write about cases like that and write about cases involving the conflict between science on the one hand and public perception. Everybody thought she was guilty. After all she is the woman with the boyfriend, he is the older guy. You would think you know it until you look at the science. And the science sometimes can offset some of the most fundamental feats that people have based on what they think is common sense. How would you characterize the relationship between the lawyers and judges any particular examples . I can tell you this lawyer judges and often contentious relationship there is the joke about the Angel Gabriel called the Sigmund Freud and said we need a consul at for someone having delusions of grandeur. He thinks hes a federal judge. And when you appeared before as many judges as i have, the arrogance that some of them have, some of them are very humble. Jack klemstine is a phenomenal judge in new york who doesnt even like to wear a row and he likes to come down to the same level as the dickens that you have these judges that think they know everything and they think that they are supposed to control for the legal system and they are not the best and the brightest often even the Supreme Court of the United States today i think is mediocre and the Supreme Court. It doesnt have very many firstrate lawyers. The chief justice was an appellate lawyer and he certainly qualified but many of the others are professorial and they are good professors but when you see some of the opinions t