The Vietnam War. Medical marijuana. O.J. Simpson. Almost everyone has a heated opinion on each of these topics. But those same people may be surprised to hear that a professor at Santa Clara U. has been involved in legal cases concerning all three.
Law professor Gerald Uelmen served on O.J. Simpson’s defense team, fought for the legalization of medical marijuana, worked to reduce the number of innocent people sentenced to death, and prepared Daniel Ellsberg – the man who leaked the classified Pentagon Papers and further stymied President Nixon’s war efforts in Vietnam – for cross-examination. And yet, with so many prominent cases under his belt, Uelmen remains quietly and inconspicuously at Santa Clara, where he has taught for the past 24 years.
Uelmen was first inspired to practice law when he was in high school. He was influenced by the work of Clarence Darrow, best known as a defense lawyer in the Scopes Monkey Trial and famously fictionalized in the movie “Inherit the Wind.”
Uelman attended Georgetown Law School–another Jesuit institution–where he met his wife, a nursing student who later became a lawyer herself. He traveled across the country to work as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, where he took part in his first monumental case. Ellsberg was set to be tried in the federal court in Los Angeles, and Uelmen ended up prepping him for the cross-examination he would receive from his former boss in the federal prosecution department.
It was also around this time that Uelmen began teaching at Loyola Marymount U. (1970-1986). “I’ve always wanted to have a foot in the courtroom and a foot in the classroom,” he said.
That “foot in the classroom” eventually led him to Santa Clara, where he was invited to serve as Dean of the Law school in 1986, a position he would hold for the next eight years. When asked why he chose Santa Clara in the first place, Uelmen described the law school as terrific and praised the faculty and setting.
He also cited Santa Clara’s strong presence in the international law arena and its global reputation, which allows him to travel and take students around the world. In one such trip, Uelmen takes groups of students to The Hague in the Netherlands, where they observe trials in the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice. He said that many Santa Clara alums are now involved in prosecuting cases in that court.
Uelmen also served on the defense team for Christian Brando, son of Marlon Brando, in a manslaughter trial in 1990 after writing much of the literature on an initiative that would be newly applied in that case. His work there gained him a strong relationship with Bob Shapiro, who would later make Uelmen one of the first people he called to serve on the defense team for the most recent “Trial of the Century,” the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
Uelmen called the timing of the O.J. case “perfect” because he was already planning to resign his deanship and take a sabbatical from teaching at Santa Clara. Over the course of the trial, Uelmen wrote many of the defense briefs handed to the judge while specifically arguing pre-trial motions to suppress certain pieces of evidence. He did not work on the trial in a manner similar to Johnnie Cochran, but instead worked mostly behind the scenes. In fact, Uelmen never actually argued to the jury in the Simpson case, and said that he didn’t think they even knew he was there; however, his role writing defense briefs and working with the rest of the “Dream Team” was still pivotal to the case.
Despite all of these high profile cases, Uelmen said that his motivation was not one of an attraction to fame or fortune. Instead, he mentioned the chance to work with a group of very good lawyers and his interest in the issues of the trial. The case did have its drawbacks, however, as Uelmen’s wife disliked the notoriety and the work was so demanding he was forced to shut out almost everything else.
Professor Uelmen also incorporates the O.J. trial into his classroom environment. He chuckled when it was mentioned that his old students used to hold a betting pool around on how long it would take him to first mention the O.J. trial, but he replied that the very public trial covered so many aspects of law that it was a good teaching tool.
When asked about which case he was proudest of, Uelmen again showed that his primary motivation was issue-based and rooted in a will to help others. He cited his work defending Gordon Castillo Hall, a 16-year-old boy convicted of murder in a drive-by shooting. Uelmen was convinced of Hall’s innocence, calling it a case of mistaken identification, and succeeded in getting the guilty verdict thrown out.
In recent years, Uelmen has also argued for the legalization of medical marijuana, saying that, as a medicinal drug, “it should be treated like any other medicine.” However, he disagrees with the legalization of it as a recreational drug, fearing the creation of another class of addicts to add to the millions of alcoholics and tobacco smokers.
Uelmen also served for four intense years on the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.
The commission studied death penalty laws and issued recommendations to cut down on the number of incorrect convictions, which often result from mistaken eyewitnesses, false confessions or bad science, among other things.
Aside from his work in the classroom and the courtroom, Uelmen also has an eclectic history. He has released a book on the O.J. case (“Lessons from the Trial: The People vs. O.J. Simpson”) as well as textbooks used in classrooms.
His collaboration with other lawyers on two compendiums of amusing and interesting excerpts from actual cases, entitled “Disorderly Conduct” and “Supreme Folly,” betrays Uelmen’s more humorous side. He was also very proud to speak about his “wonderful” family, his wife and three grown children – one of whom has become a lawyer herself – and his two grandsons Oliver and Thomas, who Uelmen called “the light of my life.”
Besides the law school’s glowing reputation, one still may wonder why a lawyer with such a clearly prominent background would choose a small Jesuit school in Santa Clara, instead of one of the more famous Ivy League schools or our cardinal-colored neighbors to the north. But Uelmen cited the freedom of Santa Clara as a key reason he has stayed for so long. “Teaching…provides the freedom to pursue scholarly interests and pro bono work, if you’re interested. You can pursue your own agenda.” He continued praising the university, saying that “I don’t want to retire; I really enjoy teaching.”
But the biggest reason that Uelmen wishes to remain a professor here at Santa Clara is similar to the reasons many students, faculty and staff choose to stay. When I asked him why he wasn’t inclined to retire, he smiled before responding: “I love this place.”