El Sayyid Nosair Trial: 1991

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El Sayyid Nosair Trial: 1991

Defendant: El Sayyid A. Nosair
Crime Charged: Murder, attempted murder, and assault
Chief Defense Lawyers: William M. Kunstler and Michael Warren
Chief Prosecutor: William Greenbaum
Judge: Alvin Schlesinger
Place: New York, New York
Dates of Trial: November 4-December 21, 1991
Verdict: Not guilty, murder, and attempted murder; Guilty, assault with a deadly weapon
Sentence: 7-22 years imprisonment

SIGNIFICANCE: Never has the unpredictability of juries been more idly demonstrated than in this case of such seeming straight forwardness.

Just minutes after delivering a speech at a New York City hotel in November 1990, Meir Kahane, militant conservative rabbi and former Jewish Defense League head, was shot down by a gunman. As the assassin fled, he wounded a Kahane supporter. Outside the building, El Sayyid Nosair, a 36-year-old Arab, was tackled by an armed U.S. Postal Service officer. Shots were exchanged, and both men were hit. Following treatment for his wound, Nosair was charged with murder.

Violent clashes between extremist Jews and Arabs on the steps of the courthouse marred the trial's opening day, November 4, 1991. Judge Alvin Schlesinger, plagued by death threats, commented sadly, "I have never seen so much hate. It's beyond reason, principle, and cause."

When lead prosecutor William Greenbaum led off for the state he contended that Nosair alone had fired the deadly bullets. Contrary to several pretrial statements in which he called Kahane's murder "a planned political assassination," Greenbaum neglected to attribute any motive to the accused, apparently feeling that the sheer weight of evidence obviated this customary bulwark of most prosecution cases.

Chief defense attorney William Kunstler argued that the reason for this omission was simple: his client was innocent, just someone who had fled the hotel fearing for his own life. According to Kunstler, Kahane had been murdered by a disgruntled supporter in a dispute over money. "You'll have to decide who shot Meir Kahane," he told the jury. "This case is not cut and dried."

Michael Djunaedi, a student, placed Nosair with a gun in his hand just moments after the shooting. "I heard some guys yelling, 'He's got a gun!'" Seconds later, Djunaedi said, postal worker Carlos Acosta and Nosair began firing at each other.

Positive Identification Introduced

Corroboration came from Acosta, who, without being asked, stood up from the witness chair, pointed at the defendant, and shouted, "This man shot me!" Kunstler's suggestion that Nosair Chad actually had been fleeing from armed pursuers drew a scoffing response. "My focus was on him, he had the gun."

Another spectator, Ari Gottesman, told of standing between Kahane and "a dark-skinned, dark-haired man," who fired two shots at point-blank range. Asked whether he saw the gunman in court, Gottesman picked out Nosair.

When Dr. Steven Stowe, who had attended Kahane immediately after he was shot, took the stand, Kunstler seized the chance to expand on his conspiracy theory. "Didn't you do everything in your power that night to see that Meir Kahane never reached Bellevue (Hospital)?"

"No, sir," the doctor replied. Later, though, he did concede that he and paramedics had argued over what treatment to give.

Kunstler brushed aside the testimony of a forensic expert, Detective Robert Cotter, positively identifying the Magnum found next to Nosair as the murder weapon. Kunstler claimed it had been "planted" by the real killers of Kahane.

In all, the prosecution presented 51 witnesses. By contrast Kunstler called just six, none of whom supported his vague contention that Kahane had been shot by his own followers. Nosair, exercising his right to silence, heard Kunstler depict him as a tragic victim of circumstances.

Kunstler's eloquence found a ready audience. On December 21, 1991, the jury acquitted Nosair of murder or attempted murder and convicted him only on assault and weapons charges.

Sentencing Nosair to a maximum sentence of 7-22 years, Judge Schlesinger denounced the jury's verdict as "against the overwhelming weight of evidence … devoid of common sense and logic." Bemoaning his inability to impose a stiffer sentence, Judge Schlesinger said: "I believe the defendant conducted a rape of this country, of our Constitution and of our laws."

The extraordinary outcome of this case provided compelling proof that the human content in a trial can never be ignored or taken for granted.

—Colin Evans