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Curriculum Vitae for Robert R. Bryan, lawyer for Mumia Abu-Jamal San Francisco attorney Robert R. Bryan has appeared as chief counsel in numerous murder cases and specializes in death-penalty litigation. He is a member of the bar of Supreme Court of the United States, California, New York, Alabama, various federal courts, a Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers, and the former Chair of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Washington, DC. Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is on Pennsylvania's death row, first began writing Mr. Bryan in 1986 and in 1991 formally asked him to take his case. The attorney had to decline at that time due to a full schedule of other capital case commitments. In 2003 Mr. Bryan was again approached, and finally agreed to be-come lead counsel for Mr. Abu-Jamal. They are in post-conviction litigation at both the federal and state level. Mr. Bryan is counsel in capital cases at the federal and state level, and has defended many people against whom the death penalty was sought. His first murder case at the age of 26 resulted in the acquittal in the Ammons case in Birmingham, Alabama. The lawyer represented Jerry D. Bigelow who had spent years on California's death row before being granted a new trial. Even though the evidence included the client's 10 confessions to an execution-style murder, in the 1988 retrial a Monterey County jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Mr. Bryan successfully defended a prominent woman in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who was accused of murdering her husband as he slept. Another client was Larry Layton, the only person ever charged in the Peoples Temple case which concerned the death of Congressman Leo Ryan and over 900 people in Jonestown, Guyana, at the direction of Rev. Jim Jones. For 15 years Mr. Bryan represented Anna Hauptmann who died at the age of 95 in 1994 in Pennsylvania. She was the widow of Richard Hauptmann, executed in 1936 in New Jersey for the kidnap-murder of Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr. The attorney uncovered evidence from government files establishing that the authorities knowingly prosecuted an innocent person and that the Trial of the Century was the greatest fraud in US legal history. He pursued litigation in New Jersey against the FBI and those who prosecuted the case to expose the injustice. His findings are the subject of The Airman and The Carpenter by the British writer Ludovic Kennedy (Viking 1985, Penguin 1986), other books, documentaries and a movie. A section of Murders Die by Denis Brian (St. Martin's Press 1986) is an interview with the attorney on the Hauptmann case and the death penalty. Mr. Bryan is working on a book concerning the case. Mr. Bryan has also been counsel to members of the American Indian Movement. He won a dismissal of the murder charges again Jimmy Eagle who had been indicted in the US District Court for the June 26, 1975 killing of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota. Leonard Peltier, represented by other attorneys, was later convicted for the killings even though also innocent. Mr. Bryan represented federally Gladys Bissonette, who was one of the leaders of the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee. He was also the attorney for the Menominee Warrior Society during its 1975 armed occupation of the abandoned Alexian Brothers' Novitiate and surrounding estate near Gresham, Wisconsin. He successfully demanded its return to the Native Americans who once owned the land. Since 1994 Mr. Bryan has been the legal commentator for ABC television in San Francisco. He has de-bated and lectured on the death penalty and human rights at universities in the United States and Europe, and has appeared on many television and radio programs regarding humanitarian. A chapter entitled "The Defender" in the book A Punishment In Search Of A Crime by Ian Gray and Moira Stanley (Avon 1989) describes Mr. Bryan's work in fighting capital punishment. His work is also featured in Modern Trials by Melvin Belli (West 1982). The attorney has appeared as an expert witness regarding the minimum standards of lawyer competence in death penalty cases. Mr. Bryan has written articles on the death penalty and human rights, e.g., Taking A Stand, Verdict (Jan. 1998); What Price Justice?, Parliamentary Review (England, Oct. 1997); Waco: Inferno of Rights, San Francisco Attorney magazine (SF Bar Assoc., Sept., 1993), Death Penalty Trials: The Innocence of Jerry Bigelow and Defense Creativity, Champion magazine (National Assoc. of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Dec. 1993), Death Penalty Trials: Lawyers Need Help, Forum (Calif. Attorneys for Criminal Justice magazine, May-June, 1989), Champion (Aug., 1988); In Trial By Fury: The Lindbergh Case, SF Examiner (Apr. 3, 1996), he discussed the wrongfulness of the death penalty on the 60th anniversary of the execution of Richard Hauptmann in New Jersey for the Lindbergh kidnap-murder. A longer version of the article appears in the book Frontiers of Justice, Volume 1: The Death Penalty (Biddle 1997). He demonstrated that innocent people are unavoidably put to death in any capital punishment system regardless of precautions to ensure fairness, in law review article The Execution of the Innocent: The Tragedy of the Hauptmann-Lindbergh and Bigelow Cases, 18 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 831 (1991). Dedicated Defender, Verdict magazine (July 1998) also contains an interview with the attorney. The activities of Mr. Bryan have included: Chopin Council (Board of Directors 2004-present); National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (Chair 1987-90; Vice-Chair 1991-93; Board of Directors 1983-1993); National Coalition of Concerned Legal Prof. (Board of Directors 2000-present); Lycée Français La Pérouse (Board of Directors 1997-98); Amer. Indians and the Death Penalty (Advisory Council 1985-92); No. Calif. Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (Board of Directors, Chair 1985-1992); National Law-ers Guild; NY State Defenders Assn.; NY State Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers; Fla. Assn. for Prof. Hypnosis (Advisory Board); International Soc'ty for Prof. Hypnosis (Legal Advisory Board); Crim. Trial Law. Assn.; ACLU; NAACP; AFTRA; Int'l Churchill Soc'ty; Amnesty International.; Sierra Club; Glenn Gould Fdn. Mr. Bryan is married to Nicole Bryan, a French citizen, who is also working on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal and other death-row clients. Their young daughter, Auda Mai, is an outstanding pianist. They live in San Francisco, and also spend time at the family home in France. Contact: |