Sherman Skolnick
{{short description|American journalist}}
{{Infobox person
| name =Sherman H. Skolnick
| image =
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| birth_date =July 13, 1930
| birth_place =Chicago, Illinois, US
| death_date =May 21, 2006 (aged 75)
| death_place =Chicago, Illinois, US
| occupation =Author and investigative journalist
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| parents =
| children =
}}
Sherman H. Skolnick (July 13, 1930 – May 21, 2006) was a Chicago-based activist and conspiracy theorist.{{cite book |last=Fenster |first=Mark |date=1999 |title=Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SR-mmN746KQC&pg=PA84 |location=Minneapolis, Minnesota |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |page=84 |isbn=9780816632428 |access-date=April 2, 2015}}{{cite book |last=Kellner |first=Douglas |author-link=Douglas Kellner |date=2003 |title=Media Spectacle |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UNfU40F0zY8C |location=London |publisher=Routledge |page=120 |isbn=9781134493951 |access-date=April 2, 2015}}{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Christopher E. |chapter=John Paul Stevens: A Liberal Leader & His Roles on the Court |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UeWGAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA123 |editor1-last=Smith |editor1-first=Christopher E. |editor2-last=DeJong |editor2-first=Christina |editor3-last=McCall |editor3-first=Michael A. |title=The Rehnquist Court and Criminal Justice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UeWGAwAAQBAJ |location=Lanham, Maryland |publisher=Lexington Books |date=2011 |page=128 |isbn=9780739140826 |access-date=April 2, 2015}}
Early life
Born in Chicago in 1930, at the age of six, Skolnick was paralyzed by polio, and he used a wheelchair for the rest of his life.{{cite news |url= https://www.chicagotribune.com/2006/05/23/sherman-skolnick-2/ |newspaper= Chicago Tribune |title= Sherman Skolnick |date= May 23, 2006 |last= Noel |first= Josh |access-date= March 8, 2014}} His parents, a homemaker and a tailor, were Jewish European immigrants. Skolnick's father was from Russia.{{cite magazine |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901306,00.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071025034329/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901306,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= October 25, 2007 |title= Judges: Skolnick's Guerrilla War |date= August 29, 1969 |magazine= Time}}
Career
Skolnick was founder and chairman of the Citizens' Committee to Clean Up the Courts, which he started in 1963. He used the local press to distribute his reports, later establishing a telephone hotline–"Hotline News", a public-access television show on cable TV, and a web site.
Skolnick's investigations put Otto Kerner Jr. in prison for three years; and led to the resignation of two Illinois Supreme Court justices, Roy J. Solfisburg, Jr. and Ray Klingbiel, who, as Skolnick reported, had accepted bribes of stock from a defendant in a case on which they ruled. The scandal catapulted John Paul Stevens, special counsel to an investigating commission, to fame as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.{{cite journal |url= http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/old-indices/vol10is3/patten.pdf |journal= Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture |title= Review of Illinois Justice: The Scandal of 1969 and the Rise of John Paul Stevens |last= Patten |first= Joseph N. |year= 2003–2004 |volume= 10 |issue= 3 |pages= 233–237 |access-date= 2014-03-09 |archive-date= 2014-04-25 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140425205906/http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/old-indices/vol10is3/patten.pdf |url-status= dead }} In 2001, the story became the subject of a book, Illinois Justice, by Kenneth A. Manaster. His investigations also revealed corruption at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).
Skolnick's final written works include an 81-part series entitled "The Overthrow of the American Republic," and a 16-part series entitled "Coca-Cola, the CIA, and the Courts."
Later life and death
Publications
=Articles=
- [https://rense.com/general12/grand.htm "The Late Grand Dragon of the Washington Post."] Skolnick's Report (July 23, 2001).
=Books=
- Ahead of the Parade: A Who's Who of Treason and High Crimes – Exclusive Details of Fraud and Corruption of the Monopoly Press, the Banks, the Bench and the Bar, and the Secret Political Police. Dandelion Books (2003). {{ISBN|9781893302327}}.
- [https://archive.org/download/shermanh.skolnickoverthrowoftheamericanrepublicthewritingsofshermanskolnickdandelionenterprises2007/Sherman%2C%20H.%20Skolnick%20-%20Overthrow%20of%20the%20American%20Republic_%20The%20Writings%20of%20Sherman%20Skolnick-Dandelion%20Enterprises%20%282007%29.pdf Overthrow of the American Republic: Writings of Sherman H. Skolnick.] Dandelion Books (2007). {{ISBN|1893302229|978-1893302228}}.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.apfn.org/skolnicksreport/index.html Official website archive] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140220102211/http://www.apfn.org/SkolnicksReport/index.html |date=2014-02-20 }}
- Sherman Skolnick file at the FBI (via Internet Archive)
- Sherman Skolnick collection at the Harold Weisberg Archive (via Internet Archive)
- Sherman Skolnick Suit collection at the Harold Weisberg Archive (via Internet Archive)
- [https://www.doubleuoglobebrand.com/skolnickpasses.html "Sherman Skolnick Sounds Off!"] Interview by Kenn Thomas.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Skolnick, Sherman}}
Category:20th-century American Jews
Category:20th-century American journalists
Category:20th-century American male writers
Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers
Category:Activists from Chicago
Category:American anti-corruption activists
Category:American conspiracy theorists
Category:American investigative journalists
Category:American male journalists
Category:American male non-fiction writers
Category:Critics of the Catholic Church
Category:Jewish American activists
Category:Jewish American journalists