(Entertainment-NewsWire.com, May 21, 2015 ) San Francisco CA -- For people interested in the history of law, retired Superior Court Judge Harvey Giss has just released a video interview in which he discusses his involvement in the landmark case Miranda v. Arizona (1966).
Harvey Giss is a retired judge for the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California. As a Deputy District Attorney, he was nominated by the L.A. County District Attorney's Association as L.A. County Prosecutor of the Year in 1988 and by the CA District Attorney's Association as California Prosecutor of the Year in 1990.
Harvey recounts his days as a law clerk for the Arizona Supreme Court in 1964 in order to take advantage of the opportunity to write appellate decisions for the state Supreme Court, where he says the painstaking research he performed as a law clerk laid the foundation for his career as an attorney and later a Superior Court Judge.
During his clerkship, he worked on a case involving Ernesto Miranda, who was charged with, confessed to, and was convicted of both rape and kidnapping and sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison. The Arizona Supreme Court's 5-0 decision was then overturned by the US Supreme Court, which determined that police had failed to first inform Miranda of his right to an attorney and against self-incrimination.
He spent 15 years in the Los Angeles death penalty prosecution unit and came to be referred to as "Mad Dog," "Energizer Bunny" and "Bulldog" in the Los Angeles legal community according to a Los Angeles Daily Journal article entitled "D.A. Sheds Gladiator Image for Bench" (February 19, 2002). He was also referenced in Mark Geragos' book entitled "Mistrial: An Inside Look at How the Criminal Justice System Works...and Sometimes Doesn't" (published October 1, 2013) as a "tough-as-nails, take-no-prisoners D.A." whom many believed "should have been the prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson trial."
About Harvey Giss: Harvey's law career spans 50 years. He retired from the court on July 16, 2014.
