4.2.12 WC: 191694 My most ungrateful homicide client: Angela Davis Clients whose cases I have helped to win generally respond in one of two ways: some express great, sometimes excessive, gratitude. They offer to do anything in exchange for you having saved their lives. Others behave as if the case had never happened and you don’t exist. I have seen former clients purposely cross the street to avoid even “seeing” me. They don’t want to be reminded of the dark period in their lives during which they required a criminal lawyer. In only one case did a former client show absolute ungratefulness for my role in helping her avoid a murder conviction. During the year that I was a visiting scholar at the Center For Advanced Studies and Behavioral Science at Stanford, I was asked to consult on several aspects of the Angela Davis murder case. Davis, who was one of the leaders of the American Communist Party, was accused of murder in connection with a shootout that had occurred at the Marran County Courthouse as part of an attempted escape of radical prisoners. Davis was accused of purchasing and providing the shotgun that was used in the crime. She was also suspected of having engineered the attempt to take hostages is order to barter them for the release of a prisoner she loved. I worked on jury selection as well as on some constitutional issues. Davis was claiming that she could not get a fair trial in any American court because she was black, female and a Communist. Part of the reason I took the case was to help assure that she did get a fair trial. After several grueling months, she was acquitted and set free. I don’t know whether she now believes she received a fair trial. I do know that shortly thereafter I read that she was hired to become a professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz. Shortly thereafter, I read that she was going to Moscow to receive the Lenin human rights prize from the Soviet Union. She said that she was pleased to receive the prize and th