Jonathan Turley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jonathan Turley is a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School where he holds the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law. He frequently appears in the national media as a commentator on a multitude of subjects ranging from the 2000 Presidential Election Controversy to the Terri Schiavo case in 2005.
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[edit] Background
[edit] Career
Some of Turley’s most notable non-academic work is his representation of the Area 51 workers at a secret air base in Nevada; the nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Rocky Flats grand jury in Colorado; Dr. Eric Foretich, the husband in the famous Elizabeth Morgan custody controversy. He challenged Black Bag Operations authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in espionage cases against former CIA officer Harold Nicholson and former FBI agent Earl Pitts; and four former United States Attorneys General during the Clinton impeachment litigation. The conceptual thread running through many of the cases taken on by Turley is that they involve claims of Executive Privilege and national security exceptions to fundamental constitutional rights.
Prior to joining the George Washington University, he was one of the youngest professors to be offered tenure at Tulane University Law School. Turley teaches torts, criminal procedure and environmental law and runs the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS), the Environmental Law Clinic and the Environmental Legislation Project [1]. In the classroom, he is known for his self-deprecating humor, playing practical jokes on his students, and for his engaging teaching style in which he uses entertaining stories drawn from his real-world experiences.
Turley received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law.
Turley, in his capacity as a constitutional scholar, testified in favor of the Clinton impeachment [1]. In October 2006, in an interview by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, he expressed strong disapproval of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [2].
Jonathan Turley was a White House page from 1977 to 1978.
