American novelist and screenwriter (1922–2015) who wrote the story and co-wrote the teleplay of Court Martial, the original Star Trek's first courtroom drama.
Don M. Mankiewicz was a novelist and screenwriter, nominated for an Academy Award for I Want to Live!, who specialised in legal and medical drama and wrote the pilot films for Ironside and Marcus Welby, M.D.
His Star Trek credit is Court Martial, for which he wrote the story and shares the teleplay with the story consultant Steven W. Carabatsos. Kirk stands trial at Starbase 11 for the apparent death of Lieutenant Commander Ben Finney, with the ship's computer record seeming to prove that he jettisoned the pod too soon. The lawyer Samuel T. Cogley defends him, and Spock exposes the tampering by beating the computer at chess.
It was the first Star Trek story to turn on a trial, a form the franchise returned to many times.