<Begin Segment 9>

FC: What are the alternatives? An obnoxious law comes up. An obnoxious law, I don't like it, you don't like it. You're a lawyer, what can I do to get rid of this obnoxious law?

FO: Well, it depends on what it is. Now, if you're an ACLU chapter or affiliate, or an ACLU lawyer, you go out and get a client. Once in a while -- well, I've been a plaintiff in a lawsuit. Here, I got a call from Carol Sobell, who's one of the lawyers at the affiliate here, and she said, "They're putting up a menorah," you know what a menorah is, a Jewish thing? "And we think it's a violation of the separation of church and state clause of the First Amendment. Will you be a plaintiff?" Well, as a taxpayer, under California law, I could do it. So, so I became a plaintiff. But what you do if you're just an ordinary -- I mean, not ordinary -- if you're not a lawyer and you don't like it, one thing you can do in California is go hire a lawyer and say, "Take my case." But some laws you can't challenge. They may be obnoxious, but they may be legal, and you may go to a lawyer and say, "Hey, I want to challenge it," and they'll say, "You're wasting your money. Don't do that."

FC: By "challenge" you mean break the law?

FO: Well, you can break -- oh, that's, that's an easy way. Sure, if it's, if it has criminal sanctions and you break the law, you'll be charged and you can test it. That's what we tried to do with the Wakayama meeting in the first instance. Yeah, that's, that's one way of challenging. Now, that's a pretty courageous way to challenge the law, because if you lose, you go to jail and you've got a record and all that kind of stuff. That's a, that's a tough decision to make. Some people make it. A lot of the draft resisters, well, the draft resisters did it. They just took that, and fortunately for the them on the criminal side, they had a good lawyer like Al, and they won their case on appeal. But if they'd have lost, they'd have this stigma against them all the time, unless again, the coram nobis would come along, Peter Irons would do his work. [Laughs]

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1995, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.