University of Michigan law professor remembered as titan in legal world and classrooms - MLive.com

ANN ARBOR, MI - The essence of Yale Kamisar is that he fought “for the little guy,” said his son David.

For Kamisar, the titan of legal scholarship who died in Ann Arbor on Jan. 30, that applied in ways big and small. At one end, his writings provided the backbone for landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions that led to the development of Miranda Rights and the guarantee for criminal defendants to have a lawyer.

The “fight for the little guy” ethos applied even with his family. His son John remembered a time when his dad was his baseball coach and took his brother Gordon out as starting pitcher to give a lesser player some time to shine.

“He was always a fair and equitable person...and he said he’s not going to show favoritism just because dad is the coach,” said John Kamisar.

Family, friends and legal understudies remember Yale Kamisar not just for his contributions to U.S. law, but also for his gregarious personality, constant humility and his longtime love of UM and Ann Arbor.

Kamisar, who retired in 2004 and was an emeritus professor at the UM Law School, was cited in more than two dozen U.S. Supreme Court decisions over a half a century of scholarship work. He was known as “the father of Miranda” due to his writings that helped decide the Miranda v. Arizona case that guaranteed that law enforcement officers must tell citizens of their rights to remain silent and retain an attorney.

“The courtroom is a splendid place where defense attorneys bellow and strut and prosecuting attorneys are hemmed in at many turns,” Kamisar wrote in a passage cited by Chief Justice Earl Warren. “But what happens before an accused reaches the safety and enjoys the comfort of this veritable mansion? Ah, there’s the rub. Typically he must first pass through a much less pretentious edifice, a police station with bare back rooms and locked doors.

His writing also provided backbone for the Gideon v. Wainwright decision that guaranteed criminal defendants lawyers even if they cannot afford them.

Those two major decisions alone are proof of Kamisar’s influence on American culture, as the reading of Miranda Rights is a staple of police procedural shows and movies, while famed actor Henry Fonda starred in the 1980 movie Gideon’s Trumpet which depicted that case.

None of his three sons would learn about their father’s larger influence until they were older. Two of his sons Gordon and Jon became lawyers, while David is a tennis coach based out of Novi. Their father was a humble man, David Kamisar said.

“He never told us anything,” he said. “He would just work and all we knew was he was a law professor.”

Kamisar was born in New York City on Aug. 29, 1929 to his father, a baker, and his mother, a homemaker. Growing up in the Bronx, he developed an accent that mixed with a Michigan accent over his decades at the university, Gordon Kamisar said.

“His students got a kick out of his accent,” Gordon Kamisar said. “Ironically, his (relatives) thought his accent was Michigan, because it had gotten less since leaving New York...We all thought that was very funny, because everyone thought he had a very heavy Bronx accent.”

Another example of their father’s humility was an aversion to mentioning an early highlight of his life: his time in the Korean War. After Kamisar graduated from Columbia University Law School in the early 1950s, he served as a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Infantry and earned a Purple Heart at T-Bone Hill in 1952.

“I recently read this article about how he was a big war hero,” David Kamisar said. “He never even mentioned it!”

After the war and working at a private firm, Kamisar taught at University of Minnesota Law School from 1957 to 1964. He started at Michigan a year later and lasted nearly four decades in Ann Arbor.

His passion for law was apparent to anyone who took a class with him, said Eve Primus, now the Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law at UM.

“One minute I was introducing myself, and the next minute I was backed into a corner, and he was standing five inches in front of me yelling about the Supreme Court’s latest criminal procedure decision,” she said in a Michigan Law Review article on his 2004 retirement. “Like most students, I was intimidated by his gruff demeanor, lack of respect for personal space, and apparent need to shout about everything.”

“In time, however, I learned that he yells, not to intimidate or control, but because he is so excited and passionate about the law that he is incapable of expressing himself in any other way,” she said.

In that same article, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg praised Kamisar’s writing as “more than occasionally devastating,” thought it “never extends beyond the realm of the fair.”

Multiple students reached out to MLive/The Ann Arbor News to honor Kamisar, praising his intolerance of hypocrisy, accessibility to students and his exuberance in lecturers. One story from Myint Zan, a retired law professor based in Myanmar, told of Kamisar receiving a standing ovation from students in 1982.

“All the students stood up and clapped as he left the Lecture dais, walked the stairs between the benches where students sat to exit the Lecture hall,” Zan said. “I also clapped enthusiastically. As he walked past just beside me he looked straight ahead as the students were clapping and his face might –just might- be a little flushed.”

Kamisar is survived by his three sons and his wife Joan Russell of Ann Arbor. Despite many offers to become a dean at other law schools, Kamisar opted to stay in Ann Arbor due to a love of legal scholarship, said Gordon Kamisar.

“It’s prestigious to be a dean, but he knew his principles were as a scholar first,” he said. “He knew it would take away from the impact he had on state and federal law.”

While not one to drink at the bevy of local Ann Arbor bars, Kamisar enjoyed Dominick’s across the street from the Law Quad, Gordon Kamisar said. His favorite order was pizza, Jon Kamisar said, or as their father would say in the Bronx accent “pizzer.”

After decades of life in Ann Arbor, Kamisar is now buried at Forest Hill Cemetery. Though his love for law inspired him to stay at UM, the long stay in Ann Arbor was fueled by his greatest love: his family.

“He loved it as a great college town to raise kids,” Gordon Kamisar said. “That was attractive to him.”

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source: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2022/02/university-of-michigan-law-professor-remembered-as-titan-in-legal-world-and-classrooms.html

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