After earning his law degree at the University of Illinois, he served in the Army during the Vietnam War era as a prosecutor and a defender, later becoming the Army's youngest trial judge. I've always supported law, because usually the police are on the side of the law." More than a decade ago, when asked about his frequent criticism of police, Karlson said he only felt one obligation. "There's only so many mistakes you can make before it starts looking like a plan." "Everything else can be explained away," Karlson said in August. He blasted the mishandling by police of fellow officer David Bisard's blood test following a fatal crash prosecutors dismissed DUI charges against Bisard because they decided the blood test was inadmissible. More recently, Karlson weighed in on another police incident that drew public outrage. Sanders later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter but, with help from Karlson, he won a civil suit against police for violating his civil rights. Sanders had claimed he shot the officer in self-defense after several officers broke into his home and beat him following a complaint about Sanders' dog. He hated seeing injustice," said his daughter, Liz Karlson, 40, who also became an attorney.Įarlier in his career, Henry Karlson received death threats - from police officers, he asserted - after taking the side of Fred Sanders, a parochial school teacher who shot and killed a police officer in 1988. "The thing that would make him most angry is injustice.
His bluntness sometimes put him at odds with police and prosecutors, and he said he never sought a law license in Indiana in part so he could maintain his independence. He said the interviews kept his mind sharp. Even as he fought leukemia, Karlson took reporters' phone calls in his hospital room, up until a few weeks ago. Karlson often helped state lawmakers draft changes to Indiana's criminal laws, and he participated in the writing of the state courts' evidence rules in the 1990s.īut it was his frequent comments to the media that expanded Karlson's profile beyond the legal profession. "Most people in Indianapolis who practice criminal law learned it from Henry Karlson," said Joel Schumm, who also teaches at the law school. He cultivated an expertise in cases involving child abuse and molestation, often serving as an expert witness. He was a fixture at the law school as much for his specialty in criminal law as for his staunch conservativism - both in politics and his view of the law, a rarity in an increasingly left-leaning field. Karlson retired from the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis in 2008 but continued to teach criminal law until his illness sidelined him this year. "He knew what he knew, and he knew it perfectly." Harvey, his longtime friend and a former dean of Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis. "Intellectual trepidation was not a part of Henry Karlson," said William F. His death was announced during a City-County Council meeting less than two hours later - one sign of the respect the outspoken Karlson had earned during three decades of teaching and punditry, despite his take-no-prisoners approach. Karlson, 67, died Monday night of complications from leukemia. The law professor and often-quoted legal analyst second-guessed their decisions, called on elected officials to resign and even drew death threats.Īlong the way, he also schooled countless budding lawyers on criminal law and left his fingerprints all over Indiana's criminal code. Henry Karlson didn't curry favor with police or prosecutors. I've never had a horror villain make me cry before, but Ben not only had me all weepy at the end but I was rooting for him pretty much the whole movie.Jon Murray has a story in the Star today paying tribute to the life of Professor Henry Karlson. Aside from these two small quibbles, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed 'Ben'.
Seems like watching the same scene over and over for twenty minutes, which is monotonous. Frankly, it just runs on too bloody long. No other kid in their right mind would hang out with Danny! My second gripe is with the climax of the film. But I suppose it was meant to make his outcast status believable, in which case it works beautifully. He's creepier than Ben ever thought about being.
The strange marionette obsession, the circus-like songs he 'wrote', the annoying heavy breathing when he'd supposedly overexerted himself.the kid's weird and in a male-Shirley-Temple kind of way. He made me want to feed him to the rats for the majority of the film. Actually, I only have two major gripes: First, the kid. It's not a bad little piece of early '70s horror, really. I've been aching to see this for ages, but never came across it until recently. This is one of those films that you hear about for years but never get the chance to see.