Stephen Bingham

Stephen Mitchell Bingham (born April 23, 1942) is an inactive American legal services and civil rights attorney who, after being a fugitive from justice from 1971 to 1984, was tried and acquitted in 1986 for his alleged role in Black Panther George Jackson's attempted escape earlier from San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California, in 1971.

Early life and education Stephen Bingham, the son of Alfred Mitchell Bingham and Sylvia Doughty Knox Bingham, was raised in Salem, Connecticut where he grew up among the state's wealthy class. His father was an author, attorney, and activist who was elected to the Connecticut State Senate as a New Deal Democrat in 1940 and served one term; he was also the editor and a founder of the left-leaning Common Sense. His grandfather, Hiram Bingham III was a governor and a U.S. Senator from Connecticut as well as the first European to see the ruins of Machu Picchu since the late-16th century conquistador Baltasar de Ocampo.

Bingham graduated from Milton Academy in 1960, where he was captain of the track team. He attended Yale University, where he participated on the freshman track and the varsity cross country teams. the granddaughter of Adolph B. Spreckels and whose family founded the Spreckels Sugar Company. The couple joined the Peace Corps and were assigned to Sierra Leone. He was admitted to the California bar in January 1970. he was an intern in the United States Congress and the United States Department of Justice, and he worked for Berkeley Neighborhood Legal Services. Bingham eventually moved to France, where he attended film classes at the University of Paris. He also joined an artist collective that created documentaries about the country's agricultural workers. In 1974, Bingham was interviewed for The New York Times in an unknown Canadian city by a law school classmate. He surrendered on July 9 with the help of former United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark. A Marin County, California jury eventually acquitted him of murder and conspiracy charges at trial in 1986.

Bingham was reported to have retained his "political activism" after the trial. He remained an active member of the National Lawyers Guild, including serving as the president of a local chapter during the 1990s.