Haven’t written for a while, so let me bring you back to some things that were going on in LA.
Well, I am still assigned as the Deputy in charge of the cases sent to Judge Herbert Walker’s Court, Department 101, Hall of Justice, at 1st and Spring Streets,in downtown LA. Dept. 101 generally had only heavy cases assigned to it, after pleading not guilty in Master Calendar which was Dept 100. The lighter cases never seemed to get there, except on occasion, such as bookmaking, petty theft with prior convictions, small burglaries and other non violent offenses. I suspected the defense attorneys managed to keep out of Dept. 101, how I can only guess. The two other trial attorneys assigned to my court generally were very good, and I had no trouble assigning cases on a rotary method as they came up; I would take one, then the next, say, to DDA Sheldon Brown (great trial lawyer) or Bert Denmark (also extremely good) or then myself. I still had the responsibility of making sure all the cases were ready for trial, witnesses had been subpoenaed, investigation was complete, handle all negotiations and plea bargaining as well as motions. The DA’s office had its own appellate branch, I earlier mentioned Lew Watnick as a friend and classmate was assigned there,. But basic motions such as an attack on the sufficiency of the evidence to support the charge which was known as a 995 motion based on the penal code section was my responsibility. Lots of work, but I loved it. There was a saying among the defense lawyers about my Department “Greatest triple play combination – Schulman to Walker to Chino” (Chino was the State Reception Prison, and also a medium to minimum security prison.) Each courtroom would have a small custody chamber where those in custody would be brought every day awaiting their appearance or some proceeding or another or trial. Went into one one day for some purpose when we had a visiting judge from the San Joaquin area and noted the prisoners had written on the wall: “There is hope with Walker” as the visiting judge made Walker look like a gift horse. The valley judges generally sent their convicted felons to State Prison rather than have the expense of giving probation with local time, (cheaper that way and the County did not have to pay.)
Earlier I wrote about one of my associate attorneys, Paul Herbert, and know I would like to introduce you to Ray Daniels.
Ray was from Boston, a graduate of Boston College, who somehow ended up in the LA DA’s Office and into my Court, Dept. 101. At the time, he had been trying to put together a murder theory against, if I recall correctly, an injection of insulin causing death, which would have been the first ever such type of murder. Very hard to prove. I allowed him to continue amassing his experts and trying to make the case. Ray was about my height; at the time, I was about 5’9″ (age shrinks you, you know) dark hair, and, I would say, a rather handsome young man. He was married to a gorgeous gal from Italy, and Ray, though a Boston Irishman, was fluent in Italian, which helped him after LA. We will get to that. Man, was she a good-looker and I generally melted when she called me “Tiger.” Oh Well, Ray made the case and got the 1st murder by insulin case in history. I do recall, while Ray was in the process, he self-promoted himself by giving an unauthorized interview about the case before it was presented, and I told him if I was the elected DA, I would fire him as he worked under and on behalf of the DA and the DA has to authorize any press statement. He got the picture, and we stayed friends.
Well, Ray eventually returned to Boston and was hired by the famous F. Lee Bailey, one of the most prominent criminal defense attorneys in America at the time. You may remember Bailey was part of the OJ Simpson defense team and asked the investigator: did he the investigator ever used the “N”word (which was denied by the investigator.) One generally does not ask a question just out of he blue, and OJ’s defense team had witnesses to contradict the officer and make him a liar in front of the jury. The prosecution should never have tried to support the police officer witness to maintain their credibility, but they just took it on the chin instead, and lost a dead bang winner because of that and other acts, such as having OJ try on a glove found at the scene.
Later on when I was in private practice I had a chance to meet up with F. Lee Bailey on a case in Orange County, Thomas Gionis, in 1995
Tomas Gionis was a orthopedist with a highly successful practice. He was married to John Wayne’s daughter, Alissa Wayne. They had two young children and there was a bitter custody fight going on between them. Alissa was at the time dating a character named Roger Luby. One evening, Alissa and Luby returned and upon leaving their automobile, were met by two thugs; if I recall, one was armed. Supposedly, Luby and Alissa were tied up, threatened and Alissa had her head smashed onto the concrete floor causing pain, bleeding and later stitches, and Luby also head his head smashed into the concrete floor of the garage and one of the thugs sliced Luby’s Achilles tendon and tried to do the same to the other ankle area. Luby ended up with a limp as well as his head injuries. The DA charged the two thugs, the private investigator who allegedly hired them, (allegedly by Gionis) and Gionis with the assaults, battery and conspiracy to intimidate and injure. Gionis hired me to defend him. I thought the DA would have trouble connecting Gionis. Well my employment did not last very long, as the DA brought a motion to kick me off the case, based on a conflict of interest. It seems previously, my partner at the time, Byron McMillan, had been consulted by Luby for some advice and charged him all of $100.00 for the short meeting. The DA had the cancelled check as proof. I probably could have fought it, but F.Lee Bailey had been consulted and came into the picture. Bailey and I met the evening before court and made arrangements to transfer the file and for Bailey to take over the case, which was done. They had a preliminary hearing, but Bailey did not last after the case got to the superior court. The case went to trial,and Gionis hired John Barnett, a local, and one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the area. The jury hung on the first trial, but rather than keeping John Barnett, Gionis hired from New York another lawyer, Bruce Cutler, who was also very famous and was best known for representing John Gotti, who was alleged to be a big Mafia Boss. They went to trial and Gionis was convicted and sentenced to 5 years in State Prison, took the case up on appeal where the appellate court reversed, based on a violation of attorney client privilege, where Gionis made some damaging statements to his divorce attorney as well as other reasons. The prosecution took the case to the Supreme Court and the appeal court reversal was reversed, the verdict and sentence reinstated and that ended that saga. Alyssa Wayne went on to law school, graduated and was admitted to practice law in California. For detailed facts and law stuff. google People v Gionis at 9 Cal 4th 1196’/
I am ambivalent regarding Bailey, but it was nice meeting a nationally-known attorney.
I mentioned Byron McMillan earlier. Byron was from the West LA area, and passed away just last year. He went to University High in the Westwood area, and though I do not recall ever meeting him as a teenager, I learned he was pals with one of my classmates, Eric Blore Jr., our high school fullback and son of the English actor, Eric Blore, who played butler parts in the movies. However, in 1946 or 47, I went to Catalina Island looking for work with a couple of high school buddies, Merwin L Koeppel, who I knew from the age of 10 to today (lived across the street,) and Frank Morris, who eventually played quarterback for San Jose State. Frank eventually connected with Hollywood and was the editing director for the movie, “Mary Poppins,” where, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, the music was written and directed by two other high school classmates, Richard and Robert Sherman. I spent one summer in Catalina Island doing odd jobs and ended as a fry cook in a diner located on the main pier where the daily steamer from LA docked with its daily load of tourist passengers. Didn’t know a griddle from a frying pan, but learned quickly and would cook a lot of cheeseburgers and fries, waiting for the Catalina Steamer’s passengers to hungrily swarm down the dock to the Cafe, “The Busy Bee.” After work, I would go to the small beach in Avalon and play volleyball. I later learned Byron was in Catalina doing something at the same time and also meeting in the afternoon playing volleyball, so we definitely met there for the first time.Byron was one of the youngest judges appointed by Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, father of California’s present Governor, Jerry Brown, in Orange County, was a trial judge, a master criminal court judge, and eventually presiding judge of the Court. Well, he became part of my golf foursome. He took an early retirement, and went to work as an associate in a personal injury firm, but eventually asked if we could get together to practice criminal law and I jumped at the chance to work together with him. I will eventually get to private criminal defense.
Enough for today
Marshall
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