Jason Scott "Jay" Leiderman
(April 12, 1971 - September 7, 2021)
was an American criminal defense lawyer based in
Ventura, California
Ventura, officially named San Buenaventura (Spanish for "Saint Bonaventure"), is a city on the Southern Coast of California and the county seat of Ventura County. The population was 110,763 at the 2020 census. Ventura is a popular tourist des ...
. ''
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' Magazine called Leiderman the "Hacktivist's Advocate"
for his work defending hacker-activists accused of computer crimes, or so-called "
Hacktivism
In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of ''hack'' and ''activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hac ...
"
especially people associated with
Anonymous.
BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...
called Leiderman "The Maserati-Driving Deadhead Lawyer Who Stands Between Hackers And Prison" and stated he was "A medical marijuana and criminal defense lawyer from Southern California
hohas made himself into the country's leading defender of hackers."
He was named to the top 100 criminal defense lawyers by the National Trial Lawyers. Leiderman was also featured in a video about his life and work on CNN's
Great Big Story
Great Big Story was a media company producing micro-documentaries based in New York with offices in London. Launched in October 2015 by CNN, the company created 2,600 videos, being published on various websites such as Facebook and YouTube. Vid ...
and appeared in the movie "The Hacker Wars." Leiderman was certified as a criminal law specialist by the California Board of Legal Specialization in 2006.
Leiderman spends much of his time defending the kinds of clients Matlock might turn down on a good day and keeping Ventura's marijuana professionals out of trouble.
Other noteworthy cases Leiderman defended include
People v. Diaz
''People v. Diaz'', 51 Cal. 4th 84, 244 P.3d 501, 119 Cal. Rptr. 3d 105 (Cal. January 3, 2011) was a Supreme Court of California case, which held that police are not required to obtain a warrant to search information contained within a cell pho ...
, which went to the California Supreme Court and made law on the ability of police to search a cell phone,
Louis Gonzalez, who was falsely accused of rape, attempted murder and torture by the mother of his child
and was jailed for 83 days before he was released and ultimately found factually innocent,
the
Andrew Luster
Andrew Stuart Luster (born December 15, 1963) is heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune and a convicted sex offender. He is the great-grandson of cosmetics giant Max Factor Sr. In 2003 he was convicted of multiple sexual assaults using the da ...
or so-called
Max Factor
Max Factor is a line of cosmetics from Coty, Inc. It was founded in 1909 as Max Factor & Company by Maksymilian Faktorowicz.
Max Factor specialized in movie make-up. Until its 1973 sale for US$500 million (approximately $ billion in 2017 dolla ...
heir
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
proceeding, wherein his sentence was reduced by 74 years
the first-ever trial of medical marijuana defendants in
San Luis Obispo County, California
San Luis Obispo County (), officially the County of San Luis Obispo, is a County (United States), county on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 282, ...
County,
and Leiderman represented the lead defendant in
Ventura County, California
Ventura County () is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, and the county seat is the city of Ventura.
Ventura County comprises the Oxn ...
's first concentrated
Mexican Mafia
The Mexican Mafia (Spanish: ''Mafia Mexicana''), also known as ''La eMe'' (Spanish for "the M"), is a Mexican American criminal organization in the United States. Despite its name, the Mexican Mafia did not originate in Mexico, and is entirely a ...
prosecution.
Leiderman represented journalist Matthew Keys who was found guilty on all charges against him in 2015. Leiderman was the lead trial attorney for Jonathan Koppenhaver, also known as
War Machine, who was convicted of savagely beating and raping his girlfriend, porn star
Christy Mack.
Within a year at the Ventura County Public Defender's Office, Leiderman had graduated from misdemeanors to murders and three-strike cases. He sought out a series of cases defending the homeless, successfully challenging an open-container law that was frequently used to round up Ventura's large indigent population and getting a raft of misdemeanor illegal camping charges — also used as a weapon against the homeless — thrown out so decisively it led to an internal city review. "It pissed me off, it was a horrific injustice, and it was the right thing to do," Leiderman said."
"Leiderman's years at the VCPDO coincided with the passage of California's medical marijuana statute, and the young lawyer started taking possession for sales and illegal cultivation cases. By the time he opened a private practice, in 2007, Leiderman had become something of an expert in state and county compliance laws. In addition to defending clients from marijuana-related criminal charges, Leiderman also advises medical marijuana collectives, teaching them the law, writing up their contracts and articles of association, and waiting on retainer for run-ins with the police."
Leiderman co-authored a book on the legal defense of California medical marijuana crimes, which was published by
NORML
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML ) is a social welfare organization based in Washington, D.C., that advocates for the reform of marijuana laws in the United States regarding both medical and non-medical use. Acc ...
, the National Organization For the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Leiderman has "some pretty deep connections with Ventura County's medicinal cannabis community".
Leiderman is also a founding member of the Whistleblower's Defense League, "formed to combat what they describe as the FBI and Justice Department's use of harassment and over-prosecution to chill and silence those who engage in journalism, Internet activism or dissent." Leiderman used the phrase "tin foil as reality" when describing the ever encroaching
surveillance state. Leiderman frequently comments in diverse areas of the media about criminal and social justice issues. He also lectures around the state and nation on various criminal defense topics.
According to
Tor Ekeland, another prominent hacker attorney and sometimes co-counsel to Leiderman, Leiderman is "a "street-smart trial lawyer" who was "extraordinarily quick on his feet."
"Leiderman is very much a defense attorney's defense attorney. "It is my duty under the constitution to represent these clients," he wrote in an email, continuing on to say, "I am what stands between the police state and the tyranny of ever encroaching government. If we abandon the ugliest of the cases, before we know it we're back to sending people to prison for a joint.""
Leiderman graduated from the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
in 1993 and
University of San Francisco School of Law
The University of San Francisco School of Law (USF Law) is the law school of the private University of San Francisco. Established in 1912, it received American Bar Association accreditation in 1935 and joined the Association of American Law Sc ...
in 1999. "He showed up for classes at the University of San Francisco Law School ... with hair halfway down his back, and left in 1999 as the class president. He applied to public defender jobs around the country, and picked Ventura because of the weather."
Leiderman died aged 50 from a heart attack.
He is survived by his son Lydon.
References
External links
Jay Leiderman official siteJay Leiderman BlogWhistleblower Defense League
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leiderman, Jay
1971 births
2021 deaths
Criminal defense lawyers
American civil rights lawyers
California lawyers
University of San Francisco School of Law alumni
University of Michigan alumni
People from Ventura, California
Activists from California
People from Queens, New York
New York (state) lawyers
Activists from New York (state)
21st-century American lawyers