Daniel Sheehan - The Eighth Paradigm Worldview

Daniel Sheehan - The Eighth Paradigm World View (from the 13th Annual International UFO Congress Convention & Film Festival <2004>)

Daniel Sheehan is an attorney, educated at Harvard Law and Divinity Schools. Sheehan founded and was the Chief Counsel for the Christic Institute, a public interest litigation and policy center that won the first case against the KKK,
exposed the Nicaraguan/Contra Affair, prosecuted the Kerr-McGee Nuclear Power Company, which stopped the building and proliferation of new nuclear power plants in the USA, and stopped the Three Mile Island Company from contaminating the public.

He served as Legal Counsel to the New York Times in The Pentagon Papers case and currently serves as President and Chief Counsel for the New Paradigm Institute in Santa Cruz, CA. and Cambridge, MA.

The New Paradigm Institute (NPI) is a new alternative public policy think-tank which has just been established in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while our Public Education Center is located in Santa Cruz, California. The research and information compiled in Cambridge is being disseminated through an aggressive public education campaign which will include a book and ensuing book tour, speaking tours, a New Paradigm Academy and many other outreach and education programs.

We are generating local Action Committees, and national and global alliances as we help generate a New Paradigm Movement inspiring vision and actions that will usher in a new era of peace, fairness and sustainability.

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Daniel Sheehan is a 1967 Honors Graduate of Harvard College. He took his Bachelor's Degree in the field of Government Studies and United States Foreign Policy studying under Dr. Henry Kissinger; James Schleshinger; David Riesman and Edwin Reischauer at Harvard. Mr. Sheehan wrote his Harvard Undergraduate Honors Thesis in the field of American Constitutional Law predicting, in terms of the history of the origins of Fifth Amendment, the United States Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. State of Arizona (mandating "warnings" as to one's constitutional rights upon one's arrest).

His thesis advisors were Paul Freund and Arthur Sutherland. Mr. Sheehan was Harvard College's Nominee for the Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University from New York State in 1967. Mr. Sheehan is a 1970 graduate of Harvard School of Law where he studied Constitutional Law under Lawrence Tribe; International Law under Louis Sohn; Jurisprudence under Lon Fuller; Property Law under W. Barton Leach; Anti-Trust Law under David Turner; Urban Policy under Adam Yarmolinski (Robert Kennedy's then prospective Secretary of Defense) and International Policy under Abe Chayes (Robert Kennedy's then prospective Secretary of State.) Mr. Sheehan served as an Editor of The Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review and wrote Law Review notes and articles on such cases as Shuttlesworth v. The City of Birmingham and others. At Harvard Law School, Mr. Sheehan served as the Chief Research Assistant to Professor Jerome Cohen, the Chairman of the Department of International Law, in the preparation of Professor Cohen's book on The Illegality of The American War in Viet Nam.

Mr. Sheehan served under Prof. Milton Katz (then the President of the Association of International Jurists) as the Director of The Nigerian-Biafran Relief Commission which airlifted emergency food supplies into Nigeria.

Mr. Sheehan was selected by Professor Abe Chayes to serve as the Point Briefer to the United States Senate on The Cooper-Church Amendment authored by Professor Chayes to terminate all U.S. Congressional funding for the War in Viet Nam.

While still a law student at Harvard, Mr. Sheehan initiated, filed and litigated the cases of Eisenstadt v. Baird (winning the declaration of unconstitutionality against the Massachusetts State Anti-Birth Control Law for the Massachusetts Planned Parenthood League before the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston - this decision being cited in the United States Supreme Court Case of Roe v. Wade as one of the foundations of the reasoning in that case recognizing the right of women to freedom of choice) and In re: Pappas (asserting, for the first time in American jurisprudence, the First Amendment Right of Professional News Journalists to Protect The Identity of Confidential News Sources Against Compelled Government Disclosure before the Massachusetts State Supreme Court - winning the issuance of a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Supreme Court on this issue.)

Upon graduating from Harvard Law School, Mr. Sheehan was retained as Associate Litigation Counsel at the Wall Street law firm of First Amendment Attorney Floyd Abrams (Cahill, Gordon, Sonnett, Reindle & Ohl, Chief Litigation Counsel to NBC News and the #1 litigation law firm in America). As Associate First Amendment Counsel at Cahill-Gordon under Floyd Abrams, Mr. Sheehan briefed the case, before the United States Supreme Court, of In re: Pappas (which Mr. Sheehan had originated) and participated in the drafting of the Amicus Curiae briefs to the United States Supreme Court for The New York Times in the companion cases of Caldwell v. United States and In re: The Kentucky Currier-Journal (asserting, before the United States Supreme Court for The New York Times in the companion cases of Caldwell v. United States and In re: The Kentuky Currier-Journal (asserting, before the United States Supreme Court, the First Amendment Right of Professional Journalists to Protect THe Identity of Confidential News Sources Against Compelled Government Disclosure.) In that case, Mr. Sheehan served as Associate Counsel before the United States Supreme Court with Flloyd Abrams and Yale Law School Constitutional Law Professor Alexander Bickle.

At the Cahill-Gordon firm, Mr. Sheehan served as Co-Counsel, before the United States Supreme Court, with New York Times General Counsel James Goodall, Floyd Abrams and Professor Bickle, to The New York Times in "The Pentagon Papers Case" (United States v. The New York Times) against the Richard Nixon Administration (winning the right of The New York Times to publish the 47 volumes of the classified Pentagon Study revealing the secret history of the Viet Nam War.)

Attorney Sheehan served as Counsel for The New York Times
in The Jewish Defense League v. The New York Times against Attorney Roy Cohen (successfully defending the First Amendment Right of The Times to refuse to publish a paid political advertisement submitted to The Times by the Jewish Defense League Director Rabbi Meir Kahani condemning New York Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor Leonard Bernstein for contributing to The Black Panther Legal Defense Fund.) Mr. Sheehan then served as pro bono Associate Trial Counsel to The Black Panther Defendants in State v. Bird ("The Panther 21 Bombing Conspiracy Trial" in New York City) assisting Attorneys Gerald Leftcourt, Robert Bloom and Fred Cohen in obtaining a 15-minute jury acquittal, on all 115 state criminal charges filed against the top 21 leaders of the New York State Black Panther Party after an 18-week criminal trial. Attorney Sheehan served as Trial Counsel in the case of Cortrite v.Resor (successfully defending the First Amendment Right of enlisted United States Army personnel to publish a political ad in The New York Times protesting the Viet Nam War -without being disciplined by the United States Army - specifically being shipped to front line combat units in Viet Nam.)

Mr. Sheehan served as Chief Counsel in the case of Jeness v.
The New York State Board of Elections (winning the right of Ms. Linda Jeness to have her name printed on the New York State Election Ballot as a candidate for the United States Senate for the Socialist Party of America).

Attorney Sheehan served as the Assistant New York State Campaign Director for the National Democratic Party in the
1972 Presidential Campaign of Senator George McGovern under Pierre Salinger and Robert Wagner and also served under Ann Wexler, Gary Hart and frank Mankiewicz as the New York State Director of Voter Registration for the National Democratic Party in New York State in 1972.

Mr. Sheehan served as Legal Counsel to the Attica Prison Inmates in the Federal Civil Action before Judge Curtain of the Western District of New York to place attorneys inside Attica Prison on the day before the Attica Prison killings, was present at Attica State Prison on the night the hostages were killed and then served as Chief Counsel in the case which reversed the official New York State Coroner's Report falsely certifying the deaths of all 41 Attica Prison hostages as having been caused by having had their throats cut by inmates - whereas each had, in fact, been killed by gunfire from New York State Police while retaking the prison.

Mr. Sheehan was appointed by New York City Republican Mayor John Lindsey as the pro bono attorney for the inmates at the Manhattan House of Correction for Men ("The Tombs") in New York City.
Mr. Sheehan served under William vanden Heuvel as Special Counsel to The Rockefeller Commission which oversaw the work of The Knapp Commission Investigation of the New York City Police Department (which conducted the Hearings into New York City Police Department Corruption featuring the testimony of Frank Serpico.)

Mr. Sheehan served as Chief Counsel to the United States Native American Rights Committee of the National Office of the American Civil Liberties Union and as Amicus Curiae Counsel to the American Indian Movement at The Wounded Knee Trials in South Dakota.
Mr. Sheehan served as Chief Trial Counsel to the National Office of the American Civil Liberties Union for the Ten Rocky Mountain States, serving as Trial Counsel in such cases as:

In re: "The Last Tango in Paris" (successfully defending United Artists' "Last Tango in Paris" against state criminal obscenity charges in the State of Idaho);

University of Wyoming Student Body v. University of Wyoming (successfully defending the First Amendment Right of the University of Wyoming Student Body To Select Motion Pictures for Student Events Free From Faculty Censorship);

In re: Dr. Rufus Lyman (successfully representing the Chairman of the Life Sciences Department of the University of Idaho in a Federal Civil Rights Act action for reinstatement of tenure after being dismissed for "insubordination" for speaking out publicly against the institution of an ad hoc committee to investigate public opponents of the President of Idaho State University);

In re: Starr (successfully defending 12 University of Colorado students against federal criminal charges filed by the United States Attorney in Nebraska under The Rap Brown Act [Interstate Travel To Aid & Abet a Civil Disturbance] for attempting to attend the funeral of a member of the American Indian Movement killed by F.B.I. officials at Wounded Knee);

In re: Slaughterhouse Five (successfully representing, in a Federal Civil Rights Act action, a North Dakota senior high school English teacher in his demand for reinstatement to his public high school teaching post after being dismissed for assigning Slaughterhouse Five to his Senior English Class; and

Mr. Sheehan was the principle author of the Legal Briefs filed before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the National American Civil Liberties Union in Mancari v. Morton (successfully asserting the right of the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to engage in racially-preferential hiring of Native Americans.)

Mr. Sheehan then served as Trial Counsel in the Boston law firm of Bailey & Alch (the law firm of Attorney F. Lee Bailey). There, Mr. Sheehan successfully participated in defending Attorney F. Lee Bailey against federal criminal charges in the case of United States v. Glenn W. Turner & F. Lee Bailey in Florida and served as Special Counsel in the case of United States v. McCord et.al ("The Watergate Burglary Case") before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Attorney Sheehan then returned to Harvard University to study for his Masters Degree and his Ph.D. Degree in Judeo-Christian Social Ethics at Harvard Divinity School.

However, before completing his Ph.D.Thesis in Judeo-Christian Social Ethics, Mr. Sheehan was recruited to become General Counsel to The United States Jesuit Headquarters in Washington, D.C. and became a Candidate for the Jesuit Priesthood.

Mr. Sheehan then served for ten years as Chief Legal Counsel to the United States Jesuit Headquarters' in the National Office of Social Ministry in Washington, D.C. where he directed and formulated the national and international public policy positions of the United States Jesuit Order on behalf of the ten Jesuit Provincials of the United States.

While in Washington, D.C., Mr. Sheehan also served as:

Chairman of the National Inter-Religious Task Force on Civil Liberties and Criminal Justice of the National Council of Churches; Chief Counsel in the case of Karen Silkwood v. The Kerr-McGee Nuclear Corporation (winning a $10.5 million judgment for the Estate of Karen Silkwood and a Federal Court Order declaring unconstitutional the federal financial "cap" imposed upon private civil tort recoveries for contamination damages caused by private nuclear facilities - thus ending the construction of all new private nuclear facilities in the United States);

Chief Counsel in The Three-Mile Island Litigation in Pennsylvania (winning a Federal Court Order stopping the release of radioactive effluents from the damaged Three-Mile Island Nuclear Facility into the Susquehanna River which had been already authorized by the Federal Atomic Energy Commission);
Chief Legal Counsel on The American Sanctuary Movement Case (winning a Federal Court Order declaring unconstitutional the secret Reagan/Bush Administration executive order banning the granting of Political Asylum Status to political refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala);

Chief Counsel in The Greensboro Civil Rights Case against the North Carolina Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party (winning a federal civil judgment against the North Carolina Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party and the Greensboro Police Department under the Federal Civil Rights Act after the acquittal of 12 members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party for First Degree Murder of public anti-Klan demonstrators by an all-white North Carolina state jury);

Mr. Sheehan also served as Chief Legal Counsel for such Peace Activists as: Father Daniel Berrigan; Father Phillip Berrigan; Dick Gregory; Dr. Benjamin Spock and Southern Christian Leadership Council President David Abernathy; and as Chief Counsel on The Iran/Contra Civil Case against the Reagan-Bush Administration (forcing the appointment of Iran/Contra Special Counsel Lawrence Walsh - but failing to obtain any civil judgment against the Iran/Contra conspirators when George Bush, Sr. granted Presidential Pardons to the main conspirators and this case was dismissed by Miami's Chief Federal Judge).

Attorney Sheehan has been the Presenter of Advanced Seminars in Constitutional Law and American Politics at Harvard University; at Yale Law School and at Notre Dame School of Law.

He has taught Constitutional Law at Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C.; Constitutional History and Legal Studies, at the undergraduate level, at the University of California at Santa Barbara as the Caesar Chavez Visiting Professor in 1994 and Political Philosophy at the University of California at Santa Cruz as the Adlai Stevenson Visiting Professor of Politics.

Mr. Sheehan also served as First Amendment Legal Counsel for Dr. John Mack, the Founder and Chairman of the Department of Clinical Psychology at Harvard Medical School, before the Harvard Faculty Committee in 1994 when Dr. Mack was called before the Committee to defend his publication of Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens. Since then, Mr. Sheehan has been featured as the keynote speaker at the International Convention of the Mutual UFO Network and the International UFO Congress.
Mr. Sheehan presently serves as General Counsel to The Disclosure Project, which has presented the sworn testimony to members of the United States Congress of two-dozen former high-ranking United States Military Officers and top-level Federal Employees of the Federal Aviation Agency and NASA attesting to their direct personal knowledge of the conscious cover up and concealment by United States Government agencies of information relating to the UFO issue and the potential existence of Extra-terrestrial Intelligence.

Mr. Sheehan also serves as General Counsel to the Institute or Cooperation Space, a U.S. citizens group dedicated to the banning of all weapons from space and to the banning of the development of any and all potentially offensive weapons to be used against a potential Extra-terrestrial civilization.

Most recently, Mr. Sheehan served as the Director of The Strategic Initiative To Identify The New Paradigm of President Mikhail Gorbachev's State of The World Forum in San Francisco.

Mr. Sheehan now lives in San Rafael, California with his two sons, Danny-Paul and Daegan, his adopted nephew Christopher and his wife of 23 years, Sara M. Nelson, the former National Labor Secretary of the National Organization for Women in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Sheehan is an active Member of the Bars of the State of New York and of the District of Columbia and is an active Member of the Federal Bars of the Southern District of New York and the District of Columbia. He has been admitted pro hac vicae to the Bars of the seventeen states in which Mr. Sheehan has conducted trials. These include: Pennsylvania; Georgia; Ohio; North Carolina; Nebraska; Florida; Idaho; Colorado; Wyoming; Oklahoma; North Dakota; South Dakota; Virginia; Texas; Mississippi and California.

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