Elie Mystal

Elie Mystal Jr. (born May 10, 1978) is an American attorney, writer and political commentator. He is the justice correspondent at The Nation, where he writes about the courts and the criminal justice system. Mystal has described himself as a liberal.

Early life and education
Mystal is the son of Elie Mystal Sr. His father was the first African American elected to the Suffolk County Legislature and an influential political operative whose career ended with a fine for violating election district residency laws.

Mystal received a Bachelor of Arts degree in government at Harvard College and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School.

Career
Mystal is a former associate and litigator at the Debevoise & Plimpton law firm. He is a former executive editor of the Above the Law legal news website. He has made guest appearances on MSNBC and Sirius XM.

He is the author of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution, which is intended to be an "easily digestible argument about what rights we have, what rights Republicans are trying to take away, and how to stop them." Mystal's book, which was published by The New Press in March 2022, made The New York Times Best Seller list that same month.

As of 2022 he was a board member of Demand Justice, a liberal judicial advocacy group.

Views
Mystal has described himself as a liberal. He has been a supporter of civil rights and abortion rights.

Mystal believes the Massachusetts Good Samaritan law could form the basis for civil liability

In March 2022, he said the United States Constitution is "actually trash", pointing to the Fugitive Slave Clause and the Three-fifths Compromise. In that interview, he said about the Constitution: "We act like this thing was kind of etched in stone by the finger of God, when actually it was hotly contested and debated, scrawled out over a couple of weeks in the summer in Philadelphia in 1787, with a bunch of rich, white politicians making deals with each other."

Publications

 * Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution. New York: The New Press. 2022. ISBN 9781620976814..