The Rest of the Best : L.A.’s Other Leading Criminal Defense Lawyers

Gerald Chaleff, 47, spent two years in the Los Angeles D.A.’s office and eight years as a public defender before entering private practice in 1977. Like Leslie Abramson, Chaleff specializes in capital cases and counts as successes those that end in prison sentences rather than the death penalty. Among his clients was Hillside Strangler Angelo Buono Jr. In 1983, Buono was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1988, Chaleff won a dismissal for Neil Woodman, charged with first-degree murder for the 1985 “ninja” slayings of his parents in Brentwood. Chaleff successfully argued that Woodman had been denied due process.

Charles English, 51, joined Chaleff in private practice in Santa Monica in 1977 after 11 years as a public defender. He handles cases that tend to get less media attention than his partner’s, and he is proud of keeping many of his cases out of court altogether. One case that did go to court was that of Danny Murray, convicted in 1988 of second-degree murder after he killed a family of four while driving drunk on the freeway. The accident occurred not long after the state Supreme Court ruled that some drunken drivers could be considered murderers. Murray was sentenced to 30 years. “There are people who acted in the same way (as Murray) three years before who got five years. . . . There’s no way this kid knew that if he killed someone while on the road, he would spend the better part of his life behind bars.”

Edward Rucker, 46, is currently defending Eddie Nash, charged in the 1981 Laurel Canyon murders for which the late porn star John Holmes was charged and acquitted. Rucker took over from Abramson and Chaleff, who handled Nash’s preliminary work. Rucker says he takes on “complicated” cases: murders, fraud and white-collar crime. Although his most prominent work was his defense of Symbionese Liberation Army member William Harris on charges of kidnaping and assault (he was convicted of assault), Rucker says his most disturbing case was a gang-rape case he lost during his 13 years as a public defender. “I was convinced that (my client) was innocent. It showed me the price defense lawyers have to pay: You are the only one truly responsible to see that justice is done, and you feel the weight of the responsibility.”

Charles Gessler, 56, has been a public defender for 24 years, working for such clients as Vaughn C. Greenwood, the so-called Skid Row slasher, and Sam Nam Chinh, charged in the 1984 Chinatown murder-robbery case. Gessler kept both men off Death Row; they are serving life terms. He also defended G. Gordon Liddy, charged and convicted in the break-in of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office in 1972. Although that case was eventually tried in federal court, Gessler says it posed more legal complexities in the six months he worked on it than any other case since. “Is it illegal to go in and take photos of documents as opposed to stealing them? Was it breaking and entering, or theft? The personalities involved made (the case) interesting, but the legal issues were utterly amazing.” In a public office that has served as a training ground for the city’s best criminal defenders, Gessler has no plans to leave. “I don’t feel that I am underpaid.”

Harland Braun, 46, left the Los Angeles district attorney’s office in 1973 to become a “middle-class defense lawyer” in Century City. He’s probably best known for his work in the 1987 “Twilight Zone” case, in which he won an acquittal for director John Landis, who was charged with involuntary manslaughter. Braun says his most disconcerting case involved a Los Angeles doctor, Robert Nejdl, who was charged in 1978 with first-degree murder for unplugging a patient’s life-support system at the request of the patient’s family. “When I told the doctor the penalty for first-degree murder was life, I’ll never forget the look in his eyes. He just said, ‘I’m glad my kids are through school.’ ” Nejdl was acquitted.

Barry Tarlow, 49, specializes in representing businesses as well as individuals. Before going into private practice in 1966, Tarlow worked as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A. Among his most successful outcomes was the dismissal in 1988 of three of four charges against Jesus Felix, accused in the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena. In 1987, Tarlow got a murder conviction reversed against an unjustly convicted man whom he had read about in the newspaper. “Here was a person who couldn’t afford a decent lawyer, who didn’t receive a fair trial and who was sentenced to life for a crime he did not commit. Becoming involved in this kind of case is why lawyers should be practicing law--to make a difference and force the system to work.”

In Howard Weitzman’s 25 years of what he calls “high-profile white-collar criminal defense work,” his most famous case was his defense of John DeLorean on charges of drug trafficking in 1984. Weitzman successfully argued that the government used a sting operation to make it appear that a crime had been committed. He also defended Cathy Evelyn Smith, who pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in the 1982 death of John Belushi. “The DeLorean case was one no one thought could be won. But it exposed what can happen when the federal government abuses its power.”

Other Southern California criminal defense attorneys mentioned as outstanding by judges, peers and other court observers include Johnnie Cochran, Charles Lindner, Madelynn Kopple, Richard Hirsch, Elizabeth Harris, Bruce Hochman, Stanley Greenberg and his partner, Joel Levine.