Martin Garbus is one of the country's leading trial lawyers. Mr. Garbus aggressively represents his clients in the courts and in the media. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court as well as the highest state and federal courts in the nation. His devotion to ethics, justice and the law has earned him respect among the legal community and beyond as well as prominent awards. Time Magazine has named him "legendary . . . one of the best trial lawyers in the country," while Newsweek , the National Law Journal and other media agree that Mr. Garbus is America's "most prominent First Amendment lawyer," with an "extraordinarily diverse practice." The National Law Journal named him one of the country's top ten litigators.


At present, Mr. Garbus is preparing to appear in Federal Court before a jury in 2005 in a copyright infringement suit against hip-hop and rap star, Eminem (also known as Marshall Mathers). Mr. Garbus represents a composer whose music was copied without authorization and used in the song Kill You , the first track on The Marshall Mathers LP. That album, Eminem's second, enjoyed sales of over 16,000,000 CDs, making it number one in CD sales in 2001.


Currently, Mr. Garbus is also representing employees in a class action employment discrimination suit challenging President Bush's "faith based" initiative and flight attendants in a labor dispute against their union and American Airlines. Both cases are to be tried in Federal Court before the end of 2005. Mr. Garbus will try another jury case in New York State Court in early 2005 that involves damage to a $20,000,000 painting by one of America's greatest artists. In a recent personal injury suit against American Airlines, Mr. Garbus won a jury award of $26,000,000, one of the largest awards at that time.


Mr. Garbus is also presently representing individuals who appeared before the San Francisco Grand Jury looking into steroid use in organized sports. He also defended murder cases in Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota and New York, and white collar cases, including defending one of America's leading scientists against a claim by IBM that he stole their secret computer codes. "On behalf of Miramax, he brought a suit to declare unconstitutional the MPAA ratings system."


Mr. Garbus most recently was confronted by yet another challenge from a then-unfamiliar source, the Internet. Pioneering the legal future of the digital age, Mr. Garbus represented Eric Corley, The Electronic Frontier Foundation in the Open Source Movement in the first copyright case to be tried under the new Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That landmark case, involving the Motion Picture Association of America, became a battle where First Amendment and copyright values clashed, permanently affecting the art, movie, music and DVD industry, including the rights of MP3 and IPOD owners.


Mr. Garbus has represented Lenny Bruce against obscenity charges, best-selling writer Robert Sam Anson in a lawsuit claiming Michael Eisner and Walt Disney tried to stop the publication of a book critical of them, and Penguin Books against attempts by Lawrence Walsh, Special Council to Iran-Contra, to stop the publication of Jeffrey Tobin's book on Iran-Contra, and in a case which was tried in Illinois, he successfully stopped the unauthorized publication of the short stories of author John Cheever.


Mr. Garbus has earned his distinguished reputation as a result of his unique and aggressive approach in the courtroom. He is a master at every aspect of trial, from jury selection to cross-examination to closing arguments. His cases have established new legal precedents in the United States Supreme Court and Appellate Courts throughout the country. "He was also counsel in Ashton v. Kentucky, a Supreme Court that struck down all criminal libel laws, and Jacobellis v. Ohio, where the Supreme Court for the first time defined "national community standards."


Arguing before the United States Supreme Court after a trial in Alabama, he won a unanimous 9-0 decision striking down laws in 14 states that had disenfranchised 1,000,000 people. He filed in New York federal court Goldberg v. Kelly , a 5-4 decision of the United States Supreme Court that is arguably the most important due process case of the 20 th century.


He won a four-month class action securities fraud suit, successfully representing plaintiffs against one of America's largest corporations. He also won a jury trial in a Mississippi Federal Court on behalf of Britain's Channel 4 and the Public Broadcasting System involving claims that they used obscene photographs.


Mr. Garbus' passion for protecting the interests of his clients has been widely recognized. He was appointed to serve as the lawyer and/or executor and/or trustee of numerous estates, including those of Marilyn Monroe, Igor Stravinsky, John Cheever and Margaret Mitchell. Assuming an active role as guardian, he represented the Stravinsky Estate in a precedent-setting suit contesting the late author's will and the Mitchell Estate in a case involving a parody of "Gone With the Wind."


Mr. Garbus also represented Public Enemy No. 1, a hip-hop and rap group, for whom he won a copyright suit against the Coors Beer Company that wrongfully sampled its work in beer advertisements. He represented Miramax when the Motion Picture Association tried to give several of its films an "R" rating, tried and won before a federal jury, the Isley Brothers' accounting and infringement suit against Motown Records, and defended Terry McMillan in a libel suit. In addition, Mr. Garbus defended Peter Matthiessen and Penguin Books in libel suits filed in South Dakota and Minnesota by South Dakota Governor and Senator William Janklow and the FBI over allegations that the FBI wrongfully coerced testimony through physical abuse and that the Governor had raped an Indian woman.


In a civil antitrust action he successfully represented independent movie houses that sued the motion picture studios because of preferential treatment given to movie chains.


He also successfully represented Pia Pera, author of "Lo's Diary," in a suit brought by the Estate of Vladimir Nabokov to block publication of her novel and, through his former law firm, defended Scholastic Books, the publisher of the "Harry Potter" series, and NBA and Major League Baseball players seeking arbitration of their contracts.


He also defended murder cases in Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota and New York, and white collar cases, including defending one of America's leading scientists against a claim by IBM that he stole their secret computer codes.


Mr. Garbus has won freedom of speech suits against the U.S. government and defended numerous authors and publishers charged with defamation and libel. He defended an injunction suit filed in California against Spike Lee to prevent the release of "Malcolm X," and defended a suit against a trustee of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance involving copyright infringement of choreographed work.


During his legal career, Mr. Garbus has also represented and advocated on behalf of political dissidents such as Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Daniel Ellsberg and Andrei Sakharov. On behalf of Sakharov, and other Russian dissidents, he smuggled a list of political prisoners and their awful jail conditions out of the Soviet Union , personally delivering it in January 1980, two weeks before the inauguration, to then-President Jimmy Carter, who acknowledged this document as the beginning of his new American human rights policy.

Blog Entries by Martin Garbus

Breaking the 'Golden Shield'

2 Comments | Posted July 20, 2009 | 10:25 AM (EST)


The torture started with Bush, Cheney and their lawyers. The prosecutions must start with the lawyers who gave the legal cover, the "Golden Shield," to both the Bush officials and the line of command that led to those who performed the horrendous act on the ground. At the present time,...

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Murder Threats and the First Amendment

162 Comments | Posted July 7, 2009 | 11:16 AM (EST)


A very important First Amendment case, one that may soon reach the Supreme Court, is beginning its legal path.

Here's how it started. On June 2, 2009, Hal Turner, a radio talk show host considered by civil rights organizations to be a white supremacist, wrote on his blog that three...

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Obama Falsely Shouts Fire

104 Comments | Posted June 29, 2009 | 12:18 PM (EST)


It is more than coincidence that an HBO film on free speech, Shouting Fire, dealing with the Bush attempt to stop free speech is on tonight.

Obama's campaign promise was for a transparent government, yet this past Friday, after 3pm, hoping to avoid the weekend news cycle, his administration...

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The Lesson of Sonia Sotomayor for Barack Obama

5 Comments | Posted June 1, 2009 | 11:07 AM (EST)


It took Nixon to go to China. If any Democratic president prior to Nixon had tried that, he would have been vilified. Obama has just made a wonderful Supreme Court nomination.

Obama varies between being a pragmatist and a man of principle. Sonia Sotomayor is a slam dunk. He...

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Releasing All the Torture Photos Immediately Will Probably Save American Lives

183 Comments | Posted May 28, 2009 | 12:02 PM (EST)


Major General Taguba, who retired in January 2007 who supports the President's decision not to release the photographs, today said, "These pictures show torture, rape and every indecency."

He described the pictures more specifically. Journalists who saw the classified photographs are also starting to tell us more.

Obama should...

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Warren, Black, Marshall, Douglas -- Obama Got It Right. Hooray.

19 Comments | Posted May 26, 2009 | 04:35 PM (EST)


Some of the criticism being leveled against Sonia Sotomayor is that her opinions aren't intellectual enough, that she is not intellectual enough in her legal approaches, that she's written no legal decisions that will live forever, and that her scholarship, writing and books are second-rate.

The law, notwithstanding what academics...

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Obama is Right Not to Trust Us: All the Torture Photos Should Be Immediately Released

11 Comments | Posted May 21, 2009 | 03:39 PM (EST)


Obama is wrong again to change track on the torture photos.

First of all, they are going to come out anyway, one way or another. We know that. Material like this that is suppressed will come out. It may take weeks or months, but it always gets out. There are...

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There is No Need for Wretched Un-American Military Commissions

7 Comments | Posted May 19, 2009 | 02:47 PM (EST)


The changes that Obama is suggesting are little more than giving the defendants an aspirin.
The main reason urged for the continuance of the military courts is that they will permit hearsay testimony that a federal court will not, and that they will be more sensitive to classified information....

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Obama's Next Appointee -- Part II

3 Comments | Posted May 18, 2009 | 10:37 AM (EST)


Many facts are overlooked in the Supreme Court nominating process. There are always some unexpected divisions on the Court. For example, in the free speech area, Justice Scalia's positions are often more protective of First Amendment values than Democratic moderates. For example, in last week's Supreme Court FCC case involving...

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How Can You Not Have Bush, Cheney and Gonzales Prosecuted?

100 Comments | Posted May 13, 2009 | 01:09 PM (EST)


The roles of Bush, Cheney and Gonzales in the torture process was always less clear than the roles of the lawyers who justified it -- Jay Bybee, John Yoo and David Addington. No longer.

The question is no longer, should you, or can you, prosecute Bush, Cheney and Gonzales for...

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Obama's Next Appointee

Posted May 12, 2009 | 11:31 AM (EST)


Part I
President Barack Obama, because of Justice Souter's anticipated resignation, has a wonderful chance to begin to shape the next few decades in this country. It would be a tragic mistake for him to raise the illusion of bipartisanship as an excuse not to fight for the best...

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Obama's Greatest Mistake

35 Comments | Posted May 4, 2009 | 11:06 AM (EST)


President Barack Obama has a wonderful chance to begin to shape the next few decades in this country.

As Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush before him, he has an opportunity to shape the Supreme Court in a new, dramatic way. He may have as many as three appointments this...

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The Times May Be Changing

Posted April 3, 2009 | 03:13 PM (EST)



Now six years after Iraq started, nearly one hundred days into the new presidency, more and more information is coming out about the involvement of the Bush people in Iraq-related criminal acts. The legal memos and the statements of tortured detainees are only the beginning of what will...

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Newt Gingrich Got It Right: The Battle Over the Courts

Posted March 18, 2009 | 03:58 PM (EST)


President Barack Obama's team is continuing the mistakes of prior domestic presidents in his federal judicial selections. He is seeking, as President Clinton did, in the name (and the illusion) of bipartisanship, to nominate experienced moderate judges.

This is a disaster. The Republicans know better and have known better for...

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The Bush Lawbreakers Should be Criminally Prosecuted -- Commissions Don't Do It

Posted March 9, 2009 | 03:33 PM (EST)


It's really quite simple. Truth and Reconciliation commissions, Congressional committees and blue ribbon commissions like the 9/11 Commission, are not deterrents to torture, illegal surveillance or lawyers on the Justice Department who attempted to justify the torture. They have a very limited function.

But they don't punish anyone; don't...

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Twice Wrong on Obama

Posted July 27, 2008 | 07:41 PM (EST)


Earlier, I wrote in these pages that Obama's election along with a solid Democratic majority in the Senate could lead to a dramatic change in the Supreme Court. I envisioned him appointing men and women whose political and legal views would echo those of former Chief Justice Earl Warren's, a...

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Death in the Afternoon

Posted June 30, 2008 | 04:28 PM (EST)


Charles Black linking future terrorist attacks to McCain's chances of winning, like Hillary, who spoke of Robert Kennedy's assassination in the context of this election were both speaking self-serving truths.

While we can condemn their words, we should not think that those words give assassins or terrorists ideas that...

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Hey, There, Pay Attention -- The Supreme Court May Be Up For Grabs

Posted June 17, 2008 | 03:03 PM (EST)


The winner of the next election will pick the next members of the Supreme Court. If Barack Obama is elected with a powerful Senate majority, we may see a political slicing of the now dominant five-man conservative majority. Absent an untimely death, it is unlikely that Obama and a powerful...

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Mukasey's Confirmation Will be a Disaster

Posted November 5, 2007 | 11:41 AM (EST)


Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein's endorsement of Michael Mukasey is stunning.

There are more reasons to reject Michael Mukasey's nomination than his evasive answers on waterboarding and unconstitutional expansive views of federal power. Years ago, Michael Mukasey defended the indefensible when his friend, Rudolph Giuliani, then a prosecutor, began subpoenaing...

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Dishonoring Martin Luther King

Posted January 15, 2007 | 04:48 PM (EST)


The new Roberts-Alito Supreme Court has now quietly began finishing its new complete term. We shall see, in this term, as well as the many terms to follow, that this court is in the very serious business of dramatically changing the law that has existed for the last seventy years.

...
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