Martin Garbus

Martin was involved in the following notable cases:

• Argued in the Supreme Court after a trial in Alabama, Martin won, in King v. Smith (392 U.S. 309), a unanimous 9-0 decision striking down laws in 14 states on the grounds they violated the Constitution. These laws had disenfranchised over two million people.
• Served as co-counsel in Ashton v. Kentucky (384 U.S. 195), and won a Supreme Court decision that effectively ended all criminal libel laws in the United States.
• Served as co-counsel in Jacobellis v. Ohio (378 U.S. 184), and won where the Supreme Court held unconstitutional an Ohio statute seeking to regulate motion pictures and, for the first time, defined the term "national community standards" that led to the ending of prosecution of obscenity cases in the United States.
• Served as co-counsel in Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 (1970) New York, an entitlement case in the Supreme Court that Justice William Brennan called, "probably the most important due process case of the Twentieth Century," that he considered "the proudest achievement of his entire service on the Court".
• Unindicted co-conspirator in the criminal prosecution of Daniel Ellsberg.
• Represented Lenny Bruce in a criminal case in New York, successfully asserting a First Amendment defense against an obscenity charge.
• Represented Don Imus when he was fired by CBS by asserting a First Amendment defense.
• Represented Viking Press and Peter Matthiessen in one of the longest and most bitterly fought libel cases in American history that led to the development of libel precedent favoring journalists and publishers. Governor William Janklow filed a libel suit in South Dakota and FBI agents filed suit in Minnesota claiming they were libeled by the book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (see Peter Matthiessen#Crazy Horse lawsuits). The South Dakota court rejected Governor Janklow's attempt to stop Penguin from publishing the book. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the $450 million case and the Supreme Court refused to reverse it.
• Represented sixteen defendants in murder cases, stopping executions, while chairing the Committee to Abolish Capital Punishment.
• Represented Leonard Peltier in a clemency petition to President Obama.
• Represented civil rights leader Cesar Chavez in free speech, commercial and criminal cases and the boycott in California and elsewhere in the United States, all in support of the United Farm Workers.
• Represented criminal defendants in the French Connection criminal cases in New York Federal Court.
• Sued Eminem and Dr. Dre in copyright suit on behalf of French composer Jacques Loussier under New York Federal Court.
• Represented author Pia Pera in a copyright dispute over "Lolita" with the estate of Vladimir Nabokov.
• Represented author Terry McMillan in commercial suit in San Francisco Federal Court to set aside a settlement agreement.
• Garbus represented songwriter and pianist, Oksana Grigorieva against actor Mel Gibson. Grigorieva alleges that Gibson beat her during their relationship and then defamed her in the media.
• Defended Chief Justices of the Indian Supreme Court during "The Emergency."
• Defended the Cuban Five, accused of murder in the Florida Federal Courts before the United Nations and in their application for clemency to President Obama.
• Defended Sikh nationalists before the Punjab Court and in the United Nations.
• Defended media defendants and investors in libel and other commercial cases brought by fraudulent Chinese reverse merger corporations in the New York State courts.
• Defended Chinese dissidents in Beijing and Shanghai.
• Sued by South African government for disbarment due to articles Garbus wrote in The New York Times and The New York Review of Books criticizing South Africa's legal process. The case was dismissed on First Amendment grounds.
• International elections observer with President Jimmy Carter's commission.
• Represented Jane Doe in a libel suit against The New York Daily News and Mike McAlary.
• Represented The Metropolitan Opera against attempts at censorship of The Death of Klinghoffer. Other clients include Nelson Mandela, Andrei Sakharov, Václav Havel, Samuel Beckett, Al Pacino, Daniel Ellsberg, Philip Roth, Michael Moore, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Michael York, Lauren Bacall, Agnes Martin, Pace Gallery, Estate of Mark Rothko, Robert Maplethorpe, Cincinnati Museum of Fine Art, Robert Redford, Spike Lee, Sally Mann, Allen Ginsberg, Kathy Boudin, Garry Marshall, Marilyn Monroe, Igor Stravinsky, Nora Ephron, Salman Rushdie, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Bertelsmann, Penguin Books, Putnam,[2] Grove Press and The Sundance Film Festival.