Anolik, Irving

Irving Anolik (1924–) is a prominent criminal defense attorney who has practiced law in New York since 1951. He has argued seven cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including several that involved Fourth Amendment issues. He also has argued more than 1,000 appeals in his long career. For example, he argued Heller v. New York (1973), involving the question of whether seizures of obscene material comported with constitutional standards; Giordano v. United States (1969), concerning the legality of wiretapping; and Pugach v. Dollinger (1961), an earlier wiretapping case that Anolik argued in his role as an assistant district attorney in the Bronx.

One of Anolik's more celebrated victories before the Court was in Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257 (1971), which established that a prosecutor must abide by a plea bargain agreement and that a defendant was entitled to a new trial when a prosecutor flagrantly violated such an earlier agreement.

Born in 1924 in New York City, Anolik earned his undergraduate degree with honors from the City College of the City University of New York in 1948 and his law degree from Harvard University in 1951. He later obtained an LLM from New York University in 1960. He began his career in private practice and then became an assistant district attorney in 1957. He left the district attorney's office in 1965 and returned to private practice as a criminal defense attorney (personal interview, December 27, 2011).