C. Vernon Mason is a former lawyer and civil rights advocate from

Tucker, Arkansas Tucker is an Unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson County, Arkansas. It has an elevation of 226 ft (69 m) and is located southeast of Little Rock. It was first listed as a CDP in the 2020 census with a po ...

. Best known for his involvement in several high-profile

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

cases in the 1980s, including the

Bernhard Goetz On December 22, 1984, Bernhard Goetz () shot four young men on a New York City Subway train in Manhattan after they allegedly tried to rob him. Goetz surrendered to police nine days later and was charged with attempted murder, assault, reckles ...

Howard Beach Howard Beach is a neighborhood in the southwestern portion of the New York City borough of Queens. It is bordered to the north by the Belt Parkway and Conduit Avenue in Ozone Park, to the south by Jamaica Bay in Broad Channel, to the east by 1 ...

, and Tawana Brawley incidents, Mason has not practiced law since his 1995 disbarment. He then served as the CEO of a non-profit organization. He is also an ordained minister.

Education

Mason graduated from Morehouse College and earned a Master's in Business Administration from

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

. He then graduated from

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...

earning a Juris Doctor and, later, earned the Master of Divinity, and the Doctor of Ministry degree from

New York Theological Seminary The New York Theological Seminary (NYTS) is a private non-denominational Christian seminary in New York City. It was founded in 1900 as the Bible Teacher's College. In 2019, Rev. LaKeesha Walrond was appointed as the first woman and the first Af ...

Notable cases

In 1983 Mason and

William Kunstler William Moses Kunstler (July 7, 1919 – September 4, 1995) was an American lawyer and civil rights activist, known for defending the Chicago Seven. Kunstler was an active member of the National Lawyers Guild, a board member of the American Civil ...

represented serial killer

Lemuel Smith Lemuel Warren Smith (born July 23, 1941), is an American convicted serial killer who was the first convict to kill an on-duty female corrections officer. Smith was already in prison for the murders of at least five people when he murdered priso ...

at his trial for the murder of

Donna Payant Donna Payant née Collins (March 22, 1950 – May 15, 1981) was a New York state corrections officer who was murdered while on duty at Green Haven Correctional Facility. She was one of 50 women serving as a Correction Officer at Green Haven Cor ...

. Mason was co-counsel for Darrell Cabey, one of the four men shot by

in the famous 1984 " subway vigilante" case. Mason was one of the lawyers retained by the family of Michael Griffith, manslaughter victim in the

Howard Beach incident Michael Griffith (March 2, 1963 – December 20, 1986) was a 23-year-old black man who was killed on December 20, 1986, in Howard Beach, in Queens, New York City, in a racially motivated attack. Griffith and two other black men were set upon by a ...

. In 1987 Mason, along with

Alton H. Maddox Alton Henry Maddox Jr. (July 21, 1945 – April 23, 2023) was an American lawyer who was involved in several high-profile civil rights cases in the 1980s. Education Maddox was born on July 21, 1945, in Inkster, Michigan, and grew up in Newnan, ...

and

Al Sharpton Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. (born October 3, 1954) is an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, talk show host and politician. Sharpton is the founder of the National Action Network. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democrati ...

, were advisors to Tawana Brawley, an African-American teenager who claimed to have been abducted and sexually assaulted by at least three white men, including at least one police officer and assistant district attorney Steven Pagones. However, a grand jury investigation into Brawley's allegations determined that she "had not been abducted, assaulted, raped and sodomized as had been claimed" and that "the 'unsworn public allegations against Dutchess County Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones' were false and had no basis in fact." Pagones filed a $385 million lawsuit against Brawley and her advisors for 22 purported defamatory statements; Mason was found liable of making one defamatory statement and ordered to pay $185,000.

Disbarment

Mason was disbarred by the New York State Appellate Division, First Department, in 1995. The court cited 66 instances of professional misconduct with 20 clients over the course of 6 years as its rationale for the action, including "repeated neglect of client matters, many of which concerned criminal cases where a client's liberty was at stake; misrepresentations to clients ndrefusal to refund the unearned portion of fees". Though Mason's involvement in the Brawley case was not specifically cited, Mason would allege that the ruling was intended to punish him for the Brawley case.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, C. Vernon Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Disbarred American lawyers African-American lawyers African-American Christian clergy American Christian clergy Morehouse College alumni Indiana University alumni Columbia Law School alumni New York Theological Seminary alumni New York (state) lawyers People from Jefferson County, Arkansas 21st-century African-American people