For Immediate Release
May 29, 2004

Contact:
Greg Langlois
Elissa Free
(202) 662-9500

 

Photo by Rhoda Baer

 WASHINGTON, D.C. – With great sadness, Dean Judith Areen of the Georgetown University Law Center informs the Georgetown community of Professor Samuel Dash's death on Saturday, May 29.  

  “He was one of the great figures of the legal profession and a force for good around the world,” Areen said.

  Dash, 79, enjoyed an extraordinarily successful and wide-ranging legal career that spanned more than 50 years. He is probably best known for his service as chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee, whose 1973-74 investigation into the Nixon administration's involvement in the Democratic National Committee break-in riveted the nation, revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and led to President Richard Nixon's resignation.

   “As a member of the House Judiciary Committee that conducted hearings on the impeachment of President Nixon, I and all the members of this group appreciated and built upon the outstanding work of Sam Dash in his role as counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee,” said Robert F. Drinan, S.J., professor of law. “This was a part of Sam Dash's lifelong contributions to the improvement of the administration of criminal justice.”

  In more recent years, Dash made headlines while serving as ethics adviser to independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the Whitewater Investigation (1994-1998). He resigned in protest when Starr testified before the House Judiciary Committee to advocate for the impeachment of President Clinton. Dash, who helped to write the independent counsel law, felt that Starr's testimony went beyond the scope of his legal role as an objective investigator.

  Dash served on a number of other major inquiries as well, including in 1976 as special investigator for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to examine the firing of a special prosecutor investigating police corruption in Philadelphia; in 1985 as chief counsel to the Alaska Senate during its impeachment inquiry against the governor; and from 1983 to 1992 as special counsel to the president of the Senate of Puerto Rico, investigating political murders at Puerto Rico's Cerro Maravilla mountain peak.

  Dash, who joined the Law Center in 1965 and served as director of its Institute of Criminal Law and Procedure, provided students in his criminal law and professional responsibility courses immeasurable insight into the criminal justice system, drawing on his experience as a trial attorney with the appellate section of the U.S. Justice Department's criminal division, as chief of the appeals division for the Philadelphia district attorney's office, and as a partner specializing in trial practice for Philadelphia law firms. Dash also served as chair of the American Bar Association's Criminal Justice Section and as president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

  From the beginning of his legal career, Dash focused much of his energy on promoting justice. While a law student at Harvard, Dash helped found and lead the Harvard Voluntary Defenders, a student clinic providing legal services for poor criminal defendants. In 1951, he conducted an undercover investigation into corruption at the Municipal Court of Chicago, resulting in a seminal work on legal corruption called “Cracks in the Foundation of Criminal Justice.” In 1957, he conducted the first nationwide investigation of wiretapping and published “The Eavesdroppers,” which helped change wiretapping law. His latest book, “The Intruders: Unreasonable Searches and Seizures from King John to John Ashcroft,” criticizes the government's expanded search, seizure and wiretapping powers following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

  As a member of the board of directors for the International League of Human Rights, Dash's pursuit to advance justice took him around the world. He served on human rights missions to Northern Ireland (to investigate the 1972 “Bloody Sunday” incident), the Soviet Union, and Chile, and in 1985 he was the first American permitted by South Africa to visit Nelson Mandela in prison. He was involved in the mediation efforts with the South African government that eventually led to Mandela's release.

  Dash grew up poor in Philadelphia, and began working at age seven. At 18 he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and served as a bombardier navigator flying missions in Italy during World War II. In 1945, after returning to the United States, he met his wife Sara on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J., and the two married the following year.

  When, in 1998, the D.C. Bar magazine asked Dash what he most wanted his Georgetown students to learn, he replied, “To understand their role as lawyers. To be proud of a profession that throughout history has had courageous leaders who stand for unpopular causes. But more important, to enjoy what they do because they'll do it better and won't resent having to go to the office. And above all, be honest and just with themselves and have integrity. Learn to say no in situations where saying no can be difficult, where it could mean getting fired. Say no anyway, because it could lead you to greater opportunities.”

  The Georgetown Law Center Community was very fortunate to have had the benefit of Samuel Dash's wisdom for almost 40 years.

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