He was one of the founders in 1966 of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, and successfully argued a number of cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
[1] Kinoy was attorney for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), classified in the 1950s as a Communist-controlled union by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), headed by conservative Democratic Sen. James O. Eastland from Mississippi.
It briefed attorneys on legal problems confronting civil rights demonstrators in Mississippi, where state and local governments resisted change.
Kinoy was also affiliated with the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, which in 1966 became part of the newly established Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, of which he was a founding member.
Together with William Kunstler and others, Kinoy determined the need for a non-profit legal defense organization to raise awareness of issues in civil rights and work to overturn unconstitutional practices.
In 1972, the Supreme Court upheld his contention that President Richard M. Nixon had no ‘inherent power’ to wiretap domestic political organizations.
He suggests that it was ordered because the Nixon administration knew of the impending decision in United States v. United States District Court, likely, by a tip from SCOTUS Justice William Rehnquist, who had served as Nixon's Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel prior to joining the Supreme Court.
He was survived by two children from his first marriage, as well as by his younger brother Ernest Kinoy, a noted television and film screenwriter.