The civil rights and criminal defense attorney Martin R. Stolar has died. Over a legal career spanning more than half a century, Stolar represented anti-Vietnam war protesters, Black Panthers, Attica prisoners and members of Occupy Wall Street. In 2015, Martin Stolar spoke on Democracy Now! after he won acquittal for activists arrested during Flood Wall Street protests against the climate crisis.

Martin Stolar: “The court found all 10 defendants not guilty, releasing them and basically endorsing the position that they took, that climate change is a serious, urgent problem requiring attention, and basically complimenting the defendants for being out there and protesting. And then, because the police department made a mistake in the way they ordered people to leave the demonstration area, the judge said the order to leave was impermissible under the Constitution, and therefore he found all the defendants not guilty for violating an unlawful order.”

Martin Stolar was 81 years old.