Despite
some opposition to her admission — an
editorial in Harvard’s law school newspaper likened her to Oliver
North and John Poindexter — Komisaruk thrived at Harvard. Upon
receiving her J.D., she returned to the Bay Area, and, after a struggle
with the California Bar Association about her felony conviction, was
sworn in as a lawyer in 1995. “Within six months I was defending
protestors and indigent people,” she says.
Her biggest legal battle to date was defending WTO
protestors arrested after the Seattle meetings in 1999. Komisaruk remembers
that part of the challenge was steering protestors’ concern into
constructive channels. It was an undertaking that tested everything she
knew about solidarity and persuasion. When she emerged from the Seattle
jailhouse, where she had found evidence that prisoners were being mistreated,
she stood in front of a sea of angry protestors, who had heard rumors
of the abuse. Something had gone wrong with the PA system, so as Komisaruk
spoke, members of the crowd relayed her speech to the rows of protestors
behind them: “I’m going to tell you what’s happened
inside the jail, but I want you to promise me this: you’ll sit
down and meet about it. You won’t get up and go nuts. If you decide
at that point to do an action, I’ll stand by you. But choose to
do it, don’t just react.” The protestors complied, and in
the end Komisaruk and her fellow lawyers met with impressive success:
of the 600 protesters arrested, only six cases went to trial, and only
one person was convicted.
Since then, Komisaruk’s politics have changed little. She defended protestors of the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles, wrote a book of legal advice for sex workers, and traveled the country offering advice to radical protestors and leading workshops on civil disobedience tactics.
She’s just finished a second book, called Beat the Heat: How to Handle Encounters With Law Enforcement, which uses prose and cartoon sequences to instruct readers on how to retain their rights under arrest, spot an invalid search warrant, and stay calm under prolonged police interrogation.
