Kutner, Luis

▪ 1994

      U.S. human rights activist (b. June 9, 1908, Chicago, Ill.—d. March 1, 1993, Chicago), achieved international prominence as a cofounder (1961), with Peter Benenson, of Amnesty International, an organization devoted to making human rights abuses public; as founder of World Habeas Corpus, dedicated to protecting people from false imprisonment; and as creator of the living will, a document that provides instructions about the use of extraordinary medical procedures to prolong human life. Kutner, who graduated (1929) from the University of Chicago, worked as a clerk for defense lawyer Clarence Darrow before setting up a law practice in 1930, specializing in human rights. He handled such highly publicized international cases as the post-World War II release of poet Ezra Pound from a mental ward and negotiations, at the behest of Pope Pius XII, for improved conditions for Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty, who was imprisoned in Hungary. With Kutner's aid Mindszenty was later released from house arrest. In 1975 Kutner also secured the release of 730 Irish prisoners from Northern Ireland's Long Kesh prison. Nationally he gained recognition in 1949 when he won freedom for a black mechanic who had served 26 years of a life term for raping an itinerant woman, who, it was later discovered, had never been raped (a prosecutor had suppressed the vital testimony of the examining doctor). Kutner was also the author of numerous works about the law, some volumes of poetry, a novel, and a biography of Adm. George Dewey, The Admiral (1944; with Laurin Healy).

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