Cyrus Zal

Cyrus Zal was hired to represent myself and others in a lawsuit in San Diego County regarding a sit-down protest of an abortion mill. Hundreds of protesters showed up on a Saturday, and closed the facility for the day. Consequently, myself and many others were arrested for engaging in a peaceable pro...test, under the pretext of "trespassing". However, California law clearly states that trespassing is, indeed, legal, when done for the purpose of saving a life. For instance, entering your neighbor's home without permission is illegal. But entering your neighbor's home to save their child from a fire is perfectly legal. And yet, because the Judge in the case was a highly partisan Liberal, he not only refused to inform the jury of this law, he even took the unprecedented step of barring my Attorney from telling the Jury why the protesters were there; to save lives. In fact, (and this will shock any fair and reasonable person - regardless of political affiliation), he also banned the word "baby" from even being uttered in his courtroom. You see, if a mother is 6 months pregnant, and she sees her doctor for a sonogram, he will tell her, "Your baby is doing just fine." Even before birth, the child is obviously a baby. But in the courtroom of this Judge, using language and terms that every obstetrician in America uses to describe the infant in the womb, was suddenly verboten. Well, Cyrus Zal refused to accept this blatant trampling of the Civil Rights of his clients. He argued that if this was a civil trial in which a woman alleged that her unborn baby had been injured by negligence, this same Judge would allow the pre-born infant to be called a "baby". So, in a completely selfless and remarkable act of bravery, Cyrus Zal defied this Judge's tyrannical and politically-motivated despotism, and made our case anyway, using the language that he had been barred from saying aloud in Open Court. Needless to say, this Judge was furious, and told Attorney Zal that he would go to jail for Contempt of Court, immediately after the trial, for each and every utterance. Yet, Cyrus Zal was undeterred. He bravely and courageously defended his clients and our legal right to trespass in order to save lives. He was continually shut down by the Judge, and threatened repeatedly. And, yes, the Judge did, indeed, send him to jail after the trial. These were not empty threats. Tyrants mean what they say. But I have never forgotten what Cyrus Zal did for me and my companions. In 56 years, I have never witnessed a single attorney every show this degree of integrity and fearlessness in defending and representing their clients. Name for me a SINGLE attorney on this entire website who was willing to go to jail, (and who DID actually go to jail), in order to make sure that their clients were not railroaded and stripped of their Civil Rights, by a court that wantonly trampled the law? I contend that you could search literally thousands of attorneys here, and this may be the ONLY attorney who possesses that level of integrity. Cyrus Zal is the kind of man about whom movies are made. And just as people like Rosa and Martin had their Civil Rights trampled and abused, and suffered for it by unjustly being sentenced to time in jail, Cyrus Zal belongs in that rare pantheon of people who are willing to suffer for what is right, rather than timidly acquiesce to the whim of tyrants.