Background
Leslie Abramson was born on October 6, 1943 in Flushing, Queens, New York. She was the second of three children. Her father abandoned the family when she was 6.
Leslie Abramson
Queens College 65-30 Kissena Blvd. Flushing, NY 11367
Abramson graduated from Queens College.
UCLA School of Law, 385 Charles E. Young Drive East, 1242 Law Building, Los Angeles, California 90095
In 1969 Abramson received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from UCLA School of Law.
Queens College 65-30 Kissena Blvd. Flushing, NY 11367
Abramson graduated from Queens College.
UCLA School of Law, 385 Charles E. Young Drive East, 1242 Law Building, Los Angeles, California 90095
In 1969 Abramson received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from UCLA School of Law.
(The memoir of the noted defense attorney offers insight i...)
The memoir of the noted defense attorney offers insight into the machinations of the criminal justice system and some of the notorious cases she has been involved in.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/068481403X/?tag=2022091-20
1996
(This product is a short, clear, concise, and substantive ...)
This product is a short, clear, concise, and substantive outline. It is designed to make the study of criminal procedure clear and convenient and to help students prepare for their law school exams. The main text is an outline of the substantive content. The concise format provides a comprehensive overview, allowing students to review the subject quickly prior to final exams.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0314272585/?tag=2022091-20
2012
(This Short and Happy Guide makes the law about police pra...)
This Short and Happy Guide makes the law about police practices and criminal trial proceedings accessible and easy to remember. it helps to learn the key points of search and seizure law, police interrogation, the right to counsel, the exclusionary rule, pretrial release, grand jury investigations, joinder, criminal discovery, plea bargaining, jury trials, pretrial publicity, double jeopardy, appeals, and post-conviction standards.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1683282329/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(This new version of a classic text allows professors to a...)
This new version of a classic text allows professors to assign problems in advance for preparation with case material. To prepare answers for the problems, students must synthesize case material from the entire assignment and frequently incorporate material from earlier assignments. In reviewing the problems in class, the teacher has a greater opportunity to develop rigorous case analysis than the traditional case method affords. The problems challenge the students to apply evolving criminal procedure principles and the nuances of existing case law.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1640208534/?tag=2022091-20
2018
Leslie Abramson was born on October 6, 1943 in Flushing, Queens, New York. She was the second of three children. Her father abandoned the family when she was 6.
Abramson graduated from Queens College, and in 1969 received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from UCLA School of Law.
In 1970 Abramson was accepted as a member to the State Bar of California. Her career started at Los Angeles County Public Defender's office. In 1976 she started private practice as a defense attorney and soon became known for extreeme loyalty to her clients. There was only one client of her's who was sentenced to the death penalty. That was Ricky Sanders, who shot 11 people in in a walk-in freezer in a Bob's Big Boy restaurant, 4 of whom were killed. In 1988 she managed to get a verdict of a manslaughter rather than murder for 17-year old Arnel Salvatierra, who was accused of killing his father. In 1990 she also acheved the acquittal of Dr. Khalid Parwez, "a Pakistani-born gynecologist accused of strangling and dismembering his 11-year-old son". She provided the evidence of his alibi and accused his brother, who had reterned to Pakistan, of possibly being guilty.
Leslie Abramson became one of the most recognizable lawyers in the United States when she took the Menendez brothers, Lyle and Erik, as clients in the early 1990s. The brothers, who had grown up in affluence in Southern California, were accused of the execution-style shotgun slaying of their parents, Jose Menendez, an entertainment executive, and his wife Kitty, on August 20, 1989. Although the killing shocked the public for its apparently coldblooded nature, mitigating evidence came to light when it was revealed that Erik had been sexually abused by his father on a regular basis and that the boys’ mother had remained silent in the face of her knowledge of those acts. As defense counsel, Abramson used the idea of pre-emptive self-defense: in other words, the Menendez brothers were, she claimed, defending themselves against actions which they knew would occur imminently. Two trials ended in hung juries; a third trial resulted in the conviction of both brothers on March 20, 1996. Lyle and Erik Menendez were both sentenced to life terms without the possibility of parole, and were placed in separate prisons within the California correctional system.
A related controversy, more directly involving Abramson, arose after the trial, when expert psychiatric witness William Vicary, M.D., told the court under oath that he had altered his notes at Abramson’s request. He had, he said, removed brief but potentially damaging statements concerning Erik’s hatred of his parents and his desire to kill them. Abramson, in turn, claimed that she had not pressured Vicary to make such changes, and that the psychiatrist was laboring under a faulty recollection. After investigating Vicary’s claims, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office decided in October, 1997, not to press charges against Abramson. The following month, the State Bar of California announced that it would investigate Abramson for misconduct.
Abramson recounted her experience of the Menendez trial and other important points of her career in her 1996 memoir, The Defense is Ready: Life in the Trenches of Criminal Law. Abramson recounted her experience of the Menendez trial and other important points of her career in her 1996 memoir, The Defense is Ready: Life in the Trenches of Criminal Law. In dealing with her cases, Abramson offered “legal insights that are sharp and knowing”, according to a reviewer for Publishers Weekly. However, the Publishers Weekly reviewer expressed doubts about unanswered questions concerning the Menendez killings, such as why the two teenage boys didn’t simply leave home rather than killing their parents, and why Lyle Menendez shot his mother in a particularly gruesome way. The reviewer applied such adjectives as “outspoken, self-promoting,” and “manipulative” to Abramson’s narrative, and commented that the impact of the book was diluted by the author’s “ax-grinding and score-settling”. However, the reviewer praised Abramson’s “conversational style and colorful case histories”.
In 2004 American record producer Phil Spector, who was charged with the murder of actress Lana Clarkson hired Abramson as a defender. But later she resigned from Spector over conflicts between them and in some time he was convicted of murder, under different counsel.
Abramson had previously established herself as a prolific and successful author of casebooks and related works for the law-student audience, publishing with West Publishing Company and other specialized houses. Since the Menendez trial, she has also been visible on television, including her stint as a legal consultant for the network coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial.
Abramson is retired now.
(The memoir of the noted defense attorney offers insight i...)
1996(This Short and Happy Guide makes the law about police pra...)
2016(This new version of a classic text allows professors to a...)
2018(This product is a short, clear, concise, and substantive ...)
2012Abramson in her book, The Defense is Ready: Life in the Trenches of Criminal Law told of her childhood in Queens, New York, and of how her own relationship with her mother convinced her that hatred of a mother on the part of a child could only result from “an almost unimaginable degree of pain”.
Abramson developed a reputation as a fierce advocate for her clients.
Abramson used to be married to a pharmacist with whom she had a daughter, Laine.They divorced in 1969. Later she married Los Angeles Times reporter Tim Rutten, and the couple adopted a son.
Leslie Abramson considered her grandmother, who was a left-leaning organizer for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, a role model for herself. “She believed in women making their own way”, Abramson says. “She was willful and stubborn”.
Tim Rutten is an American journalist with the Los Angeles Daily News.
