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Daniel
Sheehan is a 1967 Honors Graduate of Harvard College. He took his Bachelor's
Degree in the field of Government Studies and United
States Foreign Policy studying under Dr. Henry Kissinger; James
Schleshinger; David Riesman and Edwin Reischauer at Harvard.
Mr.
Sheehan wrote his Harvard Undergraduate Honors Thesis in the field of
American Constitutional Law predicting, in terms of the history of the
origins of Fifth Amendment, the United States Supreme Court decision
in Miranda v. State of Arizona (mandating "warnings"
as to one's constitutional rights upon one's arrest).
His thesis advisors were Paul Freund and Arthur Sutherland.
Mr. Sheehan
was Harvard College's Nominee for
the Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University from
New York State in 1967. Mr. Sheehan is a 1970
graduate of Harvard School of Law where he studied Constitutional
Law under Lawrence Tribe;
International Law under Louis Sohn; Jurisprudence under Lon Fuller;
Property Law under W. Barton Leach; Anti-Trust Law under David Turner;
Urban Policy under Adam Yarmolinski (Robert Kennedy's then prospective
Secretary of Defense) and International Policy under Abe Chayes (Robert Kennedy's
then prospective Secretary of State.) Mr. Sheehan
served as an Editor of The Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law
Review and wrote Law Review notes and articles on such cases as Shuttlesworth
v. The City of Birmingham and others.
At Harvard Law
School, Mr. Sheehan served as the Chief
Research Assistant to Professor Jerome Cohen,
the Chairman of the Department
of International Law, in the preparation of Professor
Cohen's book on The Illegality of The American
War in Viet Nam.
Mr. Sheehan served under Prof. Milton Katz (then
the President of the Association of International Jurists) as the Director
of The Nigerian-Biafran Relief Commission which airlifted emergency
food supplies into Nigeria.
Mr. Sheehan was selected by Professor Abe Chayes to serve as the
Point Briefer to the United States Senate on The Cooper-Church Amendment
authored by Professor Chayes to terminate all U.S. Congressional funding
for the War in Viet Nam.
While still a law student at Harvard, Mr. Sheehan initiated, filed and
litigated the cases of Eisenstadt v. Baird (winning the
declaration of unconstitutionality against the Massachusetts State Anti-Birth
Control Law for the Massachusetts Planned Parenthood League before the
1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston - this decision being cited in
the United States Supreme Court Case of Roe v. Wade as
one of the foundations of the reasoning in that case recognizing the
right of women to freedom of choice) and In re: Pappas (asserting,
for the first time in American jurisprudence, the First Amendment Right
of Professional News Journalists to Protect The Identity of Confidential
News Sources Against Compelled Government Disclosure before the Massachusetts
State Supreme Court - winning the issuance of a Writ of Certiorari to
the United States Supreme Court on this issue.)
Upon graduating from Harvard Law School, Mr. Sheehan was retained as
Associate Litigation Counsel at the Wall Street law firm of First Amendment
Attorney Floyd Abrams (Cahill, Gordon, Sonnett, Reindle & Ohl, Chief
Litigation Counsel to NBC News and the #1 litigation law firm in America).
As Associate First Amendment Counsel at Cahill-Gordon under Floyd Abrams,
Mr. Sheehan briefed the case, before the United States Supreme Court,
of In re: Pappas (which Mr. Sheehan had originated) and participated
in the drafting of the Amicus Curiae briefs to the United States
Supreme Court for The New York Times in the companion cases of
Caldwell v. United States and In re: The Kentucky Currier-Journal
(asserting,
before the United States Supreme Court for The New York Times in the
companion cases of Caldwell v. United States and In re: The Kentuky
Currier-Journal (asserting, before the United States Supreme Court,
the First Amendment Right of Professional Journalists to Protect THe
Identity of Confidential News Sources Against Compelled Government Disclosure.)
In that case, Mr. Sheehan served as Associate Counsel before the United
States Supreme Court with Flloyd Abrams and Yale Law School Constitutional
Law Professor Alexander Bickle.
At
the Cahill-Gordon firm, Mr. Sheehan served as Co-Counsel, before the
United States Supreme Court, with New York Times General Counsel
James Goodall, Floyd Abrams and Professor Bickle, to The New York
Times in "The Pentagon Papers Case" (United
States v. The New York Times) against the Richard Nixon Administration
(winning the right of The New York Times to publish the 47 volumes
of the classified Pentagon Study revealing the secret history of
the Viet Nam War.)
Attorney Sheehan served as Counsel for The New York Times
in The Jewish Defense League v. The New York Times against
Attorney Roy Cohen (successfully defending the First Amendment Right
of The Times to refuse to publish a paid political advertisement
submitted to The Times by the Jewish Defense League Director
Rabbi Meir Kahani condemning New York Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor
Leonard Bernstein for contributing to The Black Panther Legal Defense
Fund.) Mr.
Sheehan then served as pro bono Associate Trial Counsel
to The Black Panther Defendants in State v. Bird ("The
Panther 21 Bombing Conspiracy Trial" in New York City) assisting
Attorneys Gerald Leftcourt, Robert Bloom and Fred Cohen in obtaining
a 15-minute jury acquittal, on all 115 state criminal charges filed
against the top 21 leaders of the New York State Black Panther Party
after an 18-week criminal trial. Attorney
Sheehan served as Trial Counsel in the case of Cortrite v.Resor
(successfully defending the First Amendment Right of enlisted United
States Army personnel to publish a political ad in The New York Times
protesting the Viet Nam War -without being disciplined by the United
States Army - specifically being shipped to front line combat units
in Viet Nam.)
Mr. Sheehan served as Chief Counsel in the case of Jeness v.
The New York State Board of Elections (winning the right of Ms.
Linda Jeness to have her name printed on the New York State Election
Ballot as a candidate for the United States Senate for the Socialist
Party of America).
Attorney Sheehan served as the Assistant New York State Campaign Director
for the National Democratic Party in the
1972 Presidential Campaign of Senator George McGovern under Pierre Salinger
and Robert Wagner and also served under Ann Wexler, Gary Hart and frank
Mankiewicz as the New York State Director of Voter Registration for
the National Democratic Party in New York State in 1972.
Mr. Sheehan served as Legal Counsel to the Attica Prison Inmates in
the Federal Civil Action before Judge Curtain of the Western District
of New York to place attorneys inside Attica Prison on the day before
the Attica Prison killings, was present at Attica State Prison on the
night the hostages were killed and then served as Chief Counsel in the
case which reversed the official New York State Coroner's Report falsely
certifying the deaths of all 41 Attica Prison hostages as having been
caused by having had their throats cut by inmates - whereas each had,
in fact, been killed by gunfire from New York State Police while retaking
the prison.
Mr. Sheehan was appointed by New York City Republican Mayor John Lindsey
as the pro bono attorney for the inmates at the Manhattan
House of Correction for Men ("The Tombs") in New York City.
Mr. Sheehan served under William vanden Heuvel as Special Counsel to
The Rockefeller Commission which oversaw the work of The Knapp Commission
Investigation of the New York City Police Department (which conducted
the Hearings into New York City Police Department Corruption featuring
the testimony of Frank Serpico.)
Mr. Sheehan served as Chief Counsel to the United States Native American
Rights Committee of the National Office of the American Civil Liberties
Union and as Amicus Curiae Counsel to the American Indian Movement
at The Wounded Knee Trials in South Dakota.
Mr. Sheehan served as Chief Trial Counsel to the National Office of
the American Civil Liberties Union for the Ten Rocky Mountain States,
serving as Trial Counsel in such cases as:
In re: "The Last Tango in Paris" (successfully
defending United Artists' "Last Tango in Paris" against state
criminal obscenity charges in the State of Idaho);
University of Wyoming Student Body v. University of Wyoming
(successfully defending the First Amendment Right of the University
of Wyoming Student Body To Select Motion Pictures for Student Events
Free From Faculty Censorship);
In re: Dr. Rufus Lyman (successfully representing the Chairman
of the Life Sciences Department of the University of Idaho in a Federal
Civil Rights Act action for reinstatement of tenure after being dismissed
for "insubordination" for speaking out publicly against the
institution of an ad hoc committee to investigate public opponents
of the President of Idaho State University);
In re: Starr (successfully
defending 12 University of Colorado students against federal criminal
charges filed by the United States Attorney in Nebraska under The Rap
Brown Act [Interstate Travel To Aid & Abet a Civil Disturbance]
for attempting to attend the funeral of a member of the American Indian
Movement killed by F.B.I. officials at Wounded Knee);
In re: Slaughterhouse Five (successfully representing, in a Federal
Civil Rights Act action, a North Dakota senior high school English teacher
in his demand for reinstatement to his public high school teaching post
after being dismissed for assigning Slaughterhouse Five to his
Senior English Class; and
Mr. Sheehan was the principle author of the Legal Briefs filed before
the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the National American Civil
Liberties Union in Mancari v. Morton (successfully asserting
the right of the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to engage in racially-preferential
hiring of Native Americans.)
Mr. Sheehan then served as Trial Counsel in the Boston
law firm of Bailey & Alch (the law firm of Attorney F. Lee Bailey).
There, Mr. Sheehan successfully participated in defending Attorney F.
Lee Bailey against federal criminal charges in the case of United
States v. Glenn W. Turner & F. Lee Bailey in Florida
and served as Special Counsel in the case of United States v.
McCord et.al ("The Watergate Burglary Case") before
the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Attorney Sheehan then returned to Harvard University to study for his
Masters Degree and his Ph.D. Degree in Judeo-Christian Social Ethics
at Harvard Divinity School.
However, before completing his Ph.D.Thesis in Judeo-Christian Social
Ethics, Mr. Sheehan was recruited to become General Counsel to The United
States Jesuit Headquarters in Washington, D.C. and became a Candidate
for the Jesuit Priesthood.
Mr. Sheehan then served for ten years as Chief Legal Counsel to the
United States Jesuit Headquarters' in the National Office of Social
Ministry in Washington, D.C. where he directed and formulated the national
and international public policy positions of the United States Jesuit
Order on behalf of the ten Jesuit Provincials of the United States.
While in Washington, D.C., Mr. Sheehan also served as:
Chairman of the National Inter-Religious Task Force on Civil Liberties
and Criminal Justice of the National Council of Churches; Chief
Counsel in the case of Karen Silkwood v. The Kerr-McGee
Nuclear Corporation (winning a $10.5 million judgment for the Estate
of Karen Silkwood and a Federal Court Order declaring unconstitutional
the federal financial "cap" imposed upon private civil tort
recoveries for contamination damages caused by private nuclear facilities
- thus ending the construction of all new private nuclear facilities
in the United States);
Chief Counsel in The Three-Mile Island Litigation in Pennsylvania
(winning a Federal Court Order stopping the release of radioactive effluents
from the damaged Three-Mile Island Nuclear Facility into the Susquehanna
River which had been already authorized by the Federal Atomic Energy
Commission);
Chief Legal Counsel on The American Sanctuary Movement Case (winning
a Federal Court Order declaring unconstitutional the secret Reagan/Bush
Administration executive order banning the granting
of Political Asylum Status to political refugees from El Salvador and
Guatemala);
Chief Counsel in The Greensboro Civil Rights Case against the
North Carolina Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party (winning a federal
civil judgment against the North Carolina Ku Klux Klan, the American
Nazi Party and the Greensboro Police Department under the Federal Civil
Rights Act after the acquittal of 12 members of the Ku Klux Klan and
the American Nazi Party for First Degree Murder of public anti-Klan
demonstrators by an all-white North Carolina state jury);
Mr. Sheehan also served as Chief Legal Counsel for such Peace Activists
as: Father Daniel Berrigan; Father Phillip Berrigan; Dick Gregory; Dr.
Benjamin Spock and Southern Christian Leadership Council President David
Abernathy; and as Chief Counsel on The Iran/Contra Civil Case
against the Reagan-Bush Administration (forcing the appointment of Iran/Contra
Special Counsel Lawrence Walsh - but failing to obtain any civil judgment
against the Iran/Contra conspirators when George Bush, Sr. granted Presidential
Pardons to the main conspirators and this case was dismissed by Miami's
Chief Federal Judge).
Attorney Sheehan has been the Presenter of Advanced Seminars in Constitutional
Law and American Politics at Harvard University; at Yale Law School
and at Notre Dame School of Law.
He has taught Constitutional Law at Antioch School of Law in Washington,
D.C.; Constitutional History and Legal Studies, at the undergraduate
level, at the University of California at Santa Barbara as the Caesar
Chavez Visiting Professor in 1994 and Political Philosophy at the University
of California at Santa Cruz as the Adlai Stevenson Visiting Professor
of Politics.
Mr. Sheehan also served as First Amendment Legal Counsel for Dr. John
Mack, the Founder and Chairman of the Department of Clinical Psychology
at Harvard Medical School, before the Harvard Faculty Committee in 1994
when Dr. Mack was called before the Committee to defend his publication
of Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens. Since then, Mr. Sheehan
has been featured as the keynote speaker at the International Convention
of the Mutual UFO Network and the International UFO Congress.
Mr. Sheehan presently serves as General Counsel to The Disclosure Project,
which has presented the sworn testimony to members of the United States
Congress of two-dozen former high-ranking United States Military Officers
and top-level Federal Employees of the Federal Aviation Agency and NASA
attesting to their direct personal knowledge of the conscious cover
up and concealment by United States Government agencies of information
relating to the UFO issue and the potential existence of Extra-terrestrial
Intelligence.
Mr. Sheehan also serves as General Counsel to the Institute or Cooperation
Space, a U.S. citizens group dedicated to the banning of all weapons
from space and to the banning of the development of any and all potentially
offensive weapons to be used against a potential Extra-terrestrial civilization.
Most recently,
Mr. Sheehan served as the Director of The Strategic Initiative To Identify
The New Paradigm of President Mikhail Gorbachev's State of The World
Forum in San Francisco.
Mr. Sheehan
now lives in San Rafael, California with his two sons, Danny-Paul and
Daegan, his adopted nephew Christopher and his wife of 23 years, Sara
M. Nelson, the former National Labor Secretary of the National Organization
for Women in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Sheehan is an active Member of the Bars of the State of New York
and of the District of Columbia and is an active Member of the Federal
Bars of the Southern District of New York and the District of Columbia.
He has been admitted pro hac vicae to the Bars of the
seventeen states in which Mr. Sheehan has conducted trials. These include:
Pennsylvania; Georgia; Ohio; North Carolina; Nebraska; Florida; Idaho;
Colorado; Wyoming; Oklahoma; North Dakota; South Dakota; Virginia; Texas;
Mississippi and California.
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