Peter Rindskopf

Peter Eric Rindskopf (July 25, 1942 – October 9, 1971) was an American civil rights lawyer.

Early life

The only son of Rear Admiral Maurice H. Rindskopf and Sylvia Lubow Rindskopf, he was born in 1942 in Connecticut. His father, then a lieutenant commander, was serving on the USS ''Drum'' in the Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II and did not learn of his birth until three weeks later. He attended New London High School, where he was elected senior class president for the 1959–1960 school year, and graduated as valedictorian. He would go on to Yale University, where he was a member of the Yale Bulldogs swimming and diving team under captain Mike Austin. He completed his bachelor's degree in 1964 and then entered Yale Law School. There, he began his work in civil rights law, through which he met the woman who would become his wife, University of Michigan Law School student Elizabeth Roediger, when they were both on a summer volunteer program in the Southern United States with the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council in 1965; Roediger would later describe it as "love at first sight", and she would frequently travel between Ann Arbor, Michigan, and New Haven, Connecticut, to visit him during the remainder of her time in law school. The two married in 1968.

Career

After his law school graduation, Rindskopf moved to Atlanta, Georgia to join the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (the "Inc. Fund") as cooperating council, while his wife worked at an Emory University-connected legal organization; the two quickly began making their mark in the civil rights movement. In his short career, Rindskopf represented clients in a number of notable cases, including several before the Supreme Court. One of his appearances before the Supreme Court was for Socialist Workers Party presidential candidate Linda Jenness in ''Jenness v. Fortson''
403 U.S. 431 (1971)
in an unsuccessful challenge to Georgia's ballot access standards.

Rindskopf also took on some cases relating to the military. In April 1969 he represented Pfc. Dennis Davis, who received an undesirable discharge two weeks before the end of his two-year tour in response to his publication of a clandestine newspaper known as ''The Last Harass''. Later that year he defended Jack K. Riley, an African American soldier stationed at Fort Bragg convicted of distribution of anti-war literature in what he referred to as a "frame-up". In 1970 he defended four more soldiers on similar charges of promoting disloyalty. He represented Vietnam War protester Thomas Jolley before the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
441 F.2d 1245 (1971)
, unsuccessfully arguing that Jolley, who had renounced U.S. citizenship in Canada after receiving a draft notice and then returned to the United States, should not be subject to deportation.

Death and legacy

Rindskopf was driving on Georgia State Route 197 west of Clayton on October 9, 1971 when his car ran off the road and overturned, killing him. He was survived by his parents, his wife, and their nine-month-old daughter Amy Kathryn Rindskopf. His wife bequeathed ''The Lady with Blue Face'', a collage by African American artist Romare Bearden, to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia in his memory. She also took over her husband's caseload of more than 100 cases with the Inc. Fund. One of the more notable of these was ''Gooding v. Wilson''
405 U.S. 518 (1972)
, a case about fighting words for which Rindskopf had successfully obtained ''certiorari'' before his death and which his wife would bring to a successful conclusion. She would go on to remarry and become dean of the McGeorge School of Law in 2002, while daughter Amy followed her parents into legal practice in Boston.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rindskopf, Peter
1942 births
1971 deaths
American civil rights lawyers
20th-century American Jews
People from New London, Connecticut
Road incident deaths in Georgia (U.S. state)
Yale Bulldogs men's swimmers
Yale Law School alumni

Your article has a number of errors or omissions about the life and career of Peter E. Rindskof.

First, he began his legal career with the law firm of Hollowell, Ward, Moore and Alexander in Atlanta, Georgia. He was selected from a list of northern law students who wanted work in the Civil Rights Movement. He was selected after completion of his first year studies at Yale School of Law.
After his graduation from Yale, two years later, he returned to Atlanta and joined the firm.
Hollowell,Ward, Moore and Alexander was not connected to Emory University. It was a private law firm which specialized in civil rights litigation and also offered general legal services in criminal and civil matters, including taxes.
Second, Peter and Elizabeth did not commute between New Haven and Michigan, after they met at a conference in Mississippi. At the time, Peter was a partner in the Atlanta law firm of Moore, Alexander and Rindskof, which succeeded Hollowell, Ward, Moore and Alexander, until his death in October of 1971. He commuted between Atlanta and Ann Harbor, Michigan, until Elizabeth graduated from law school and moved to Atlanta.
Your omission relates to failure to mention Peter was an associate with Attorney Howard Moore, Jr. in the founding and operation until his death of the Southern Legal Assistance Project (SLAP), to defend peace activists, war resisters, and others in opposition to the War in Vietnam. SLAP was supported by various religious organizations, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other private individuals. Peter represented with Howard Moore Jr. members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Muslims and members of the Nation of Islams who refused induction into the Armed Forces of the United States and others. SLAP practiced throughout the South, as far North as Grand Rapids Michigan, as far West as Omaha, Nebraska.
Peter was deeply committed to the Civil Rights Movement, women's rights, and the fair and even-handed administration of both the criminal and civil law. He represented one man on Georgia's death row, whose conviction was overturned by the US Supreme Court for noncompliance with its decision in Miranda v. Arizona.
I considered Peter the younger brother I never had. When my mother needed a blood transfusion, without being asked, Peter volunteered to give blood and, indeed, did so.