Mark vincent kaplan biography of albert

Alice Kaplan’s Looking for the Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic

Reviewed by Andrew Martino

Albert Camus never considered himself an existentialist. In fact, Camus never exclusively believed in any school of thought. Camus was the consummate outsider, the one who stood apart from those who subscribed to views that forced those subscribers into a narrow ideology, especially when that ideology mixed with violence, something Camus steadfastly resisted. If we had to place Camus into any category it would be that of the humanist caught in the absurd. Camus believed in life over death (without believing in an afterlife), yet this belief did not keep him from contemplating the question of suicide, the only serious philosophical problem confronting us, as he writes in The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus’ humble beginnings in extreme poverty and illiteracy in his native Algeria  testify to the power of the human spirit in the face of an indifferent world. When he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 he expressed reservations and claimed that the prize should have gone to André Malraux, an early influence on his writing. Camus also realized that the Nobel would bring a certain celebrity that would complicate his life, perhaps even sabotaging his art. Add to this his “silence” on the Algerian problem and his very public and acrimonious break with Sartre, and Camus becomes a figure trapped in a world where he is increasingly unable to control his own image. Camus is a problematic figure who is claimed by both the Right and the Left, leaving the man and his writing caught in a political vortex. Focusing on the postcolonial aspect of The Stranger, Edward W. Said writes that Camus “is a moral man in an immoral situation.”[i] When Camus died at the age of 46 in a car accident in 1960, he left the world with the image of the charismatic young man, Bogart-like in his coolness, and still with the promise of great things to come. But

CLIFFORD ELLIS KAPLAN, Petitioner, v. THE SUPERIOR COURT OF ORANGE COUNTY, Respondent; THE PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest

In Bank. Opinion by Mosk, J., with Peters, Tobriner and Sullivan, JJ., concurring. Separate opinion by Burke, J., joined by Wright, C. J., and McComb, J., concurring in the result.

COUNSEL

Frank L. Williams, Jr., Public Defender, John J. Resnick, James R. Goff and David W. Duncan, Deputy Public Defenders, for Petitioner.

Paul N. Halvonik, Charles C. Marson, A. L. Wirin, Fred Okrand, Lawrence R. Sperber, Karlton & Blease, Coleman A. Blease, Sheldon Portman, [6 Cal. 3d 153] Public Defender (Santa Clara), and Rose Elizabeth Bird, Deputy Public Defender, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioner.

Cecil Hicks, District Attorney, Michael R. Capizzi, Assistant District Attorney, and Oretta D. Sears, Deputy District Attorney, for Respondent and for Real Party in Interest.

OPINION

MOSK, J.

The dispositive question in this proceeding for writ of prohibition is whether the enactment of section 351 of the Evidence Code, declaring generally that "Except as otherwise provided by statute, all relevant evidence is admissible," operated as a legislative repeal of the "vicarious exclusionary rule" adopted by this court in People v. Martin (1955) 45 Cal. 2d 755 [290 P.2d 855], which permits a criminal defendant to object to the introduction of evidence illegally seized from a third person. We conclude the Legislature did not intend to repeal the Martin rule, and defendant is therefore entitled to the relief for which he prays.

The facts of the case are essentially undisputed. On June 20, 1970, during daylight hours, Police Officer Briscoe observed a small sports car traveling at 45 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone. The vehicle contained three persons: defendant occupied the passenger seat on the extreme right, and seated between defendant and the

This article is about the law professor. For other uses, see John Kaplan (disambiguation).

John Kaplan (1929 – November 25, 1989) was an American legal scholar, social scientist, social justice advocate, popular law professor, and author. He was a leading authority in the field of criminal law, and was widely known for his legal analyses of some of the deepest social problems in the United States. He was known for his work linking sociological research with legal policies, and limiting academic legal theory with real-world sociological data. He was an advocate for ending criminal prohibitions on private behavior such as drug use, arguing that these laws only made any problems worse.

Education and career

Kaplan received a bachelor of science degree in physics from Harvard University, then worked in a Naval research lab for several years. He returned to Harvard to attend Law School, was a member of the Harvard Law Review, and graduated magna cum laude. In 1954–55, after his law degree, he served as law clerk for US Supreme Court Justice Thomas C. Clark, then studied criminology in Vienna, Austria.

He practiced as a criminal defense attorney then worked in the Department of Justice in Illinois as a Special U.S. Attorney, trying tax fraud cases, commenting "it was my method of squaring things with poor people." He then moved to work as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of California, later commenting on this work, "I tried to discourage guilty pleas then, because I loved to try cases." In 1962, he began teaching law at Northwestern University