Irving Kanarek

Irving Allan Kanarek (born May 12, 1920) is a former criminal defense attorney best known for representing Charles Manson and "Onion Field" killer Jimmy Lee Smith.

Kanarek's first career was as an aerospace engineer working for North American Aviation (NAA), where he invented a corrosion inhibitor for Inhibited Red Fuming Nitric Acid for the Army's Project Nike.

On July 12, 1954, while employed as a research engineer for North American Aviation, Kanarek lost his security clearance when the United States Air Force revoked it. On September 21, 1955 it was restored. He was dismissed from NAA.

Kanarek attended the University of Washington as an undergraduate and Loyola Law School. He was admitted to the California Bar in 1957.

According to Tate-LaBianca prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, Kanarek was legendary in Los Angeles courts for his dilatory, obstructionist tactics. In his book, Helter Skelter, Bugliosi claimed Kanarek, in a different case, had once objected to a witness identifying himself: Kanarek claimed that the witness’s name was hearsay because the witness had first heard it from his mother.

In the Tate-LaBianca trial, Kanarek objected nine times during opening statements, despite continuous censure by Judge Charles Older. During a later objection, he called witness Linda Kasabian insane, and by the third day of the trial, he had objected more than 200 times. According to author Jeff Guinn, jurors requested "NoDoz to ward off sleepiness" during his presentations, and he "infuriated his client so much" that Manson physically "attacked him in the courtroom." During the course of the trial he was jailed twice by Judge Older for contempt of court. In his summation, Bugliosi dubbed Kanarek "the Toscanini of Tedium."

Kanarek was admitted to the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in November 1989 for psychiatric help and received treatment for several years after that in a rest home. While he was in treatment, the State Bar of California paid claims adding up to $40,500 to former clients. Kanarek lost his law license in 1990 after he was unable to repay the $40,500 to the state.

Several movies have been made of the Manson Family in which Irving Kanarek is portrayed. In November 2008, a stage play premiered at Caltech in Pasadena, California, entitled Rocket Girl, about the life of Mary Sherman Morgan, a former co-worker of Kanarek at North American Aviation. The play was written by her son, George D. Morgan. The character of Kanarek appears throughout most of the play. The play was later turned into a book by the same title.