Mario Conte Is Named to Lead Federal Defenders of San Diego

Mario Conte, the veteran chief deputy at Federal Defenders of San Diego Inc., was tabbed Wednesday to take over the agency, which is nationally known for its feisty defense of poor people charged with crimes in San Diego’s federal court.

Conte, 48, was picked to take over as executive director of the 20-lawyer agency in a unanimous vote by the agency’s 13-member board of directors. He will succeed Judy Clarke, who announced in September that she was leaving to join a private law firm.

Under Clarke, who served eight years, and previous boss John Cleary, Federal Defenders attorneys have earned a reputation for aggressive and hard-charging lawyering. Cleary also left to go into private practice in San Diego.

“I’ll do my best,” Conte said Wednesday by phone from New Mexico, where he was attending a legal seminar. “I’m inheriting a wonderful organization from two real legends. We’ll see where it goes.”

U.S. Atty. William Braniff, whose prosecutors bring the cases that keep Federal Defenders in business, said he welcomes Conte’s elevation.

“He certainly is a vigorous advocate of his clients’ positions,” Braniff said. “He has been that in the past. I’m sure he will continue that in the future and will continue the high traditions of the office.”

It was unclear Wednesday when Clarke will officially depart and Conte will take over the post, which pays $106,300 annually.

“Relatively soon, I would think, probably before the first of the year,” said Charles Bird, a San Diego lawyer and president of the board of directors. Clarke could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

Conte is a former Air Force pilot who saw combat in Vietnam in the early 1970s. He said he is often asked about the transition from fighter jock to legal defender.

“I don’t see anything conflicting at all about it,” he said Wednesday. “Fighter pilots are generally a very aggressive, unique, independent breed. I think that fills the mold of the federal defender attorney.

“There’s nothing inconsistent with believing at the time that what your country was doing is appropriate, with believing in the Constitution your country has, and with believing in seeing that Constitution applied evenly--even to the poorest of the poor and the baddest of the bad,” Conte said.

Conte is a 1965 graduate of St. Michael’s College in Vermont. He earned a master’s degree in pharmacology and physiology in 1968 from New York Medical College and was selected by NASA as a graduate scientist to test life support equipment.

After serving as a pilot in the Air Force from 1971 through 1975, Conte went to law school, graduating in 1978 from the University of Connecticut.

He served as a law clerk to a federal judge for a year, then signed on at Federal Defenders in San Diego as a deputy in 1979.

In 1982, after three years as a trial attorney, Conte left the agency to go into private practice. That lasted a year. In 1984, he returned to Federal Defenders as chief trial attorney, the No. 2 post in the office, which he has held since.

Conte has tried well over 50 felony cases before a jury. He is a nationally recognized expert in death penalty cases and in the technical rules of evidence and procedure that guide the admission of testimony and exhibits in federal court. In recent years, Conte has become an expert in the defense of battered women who claim that the abuse they suffered is legal justification for a crime.

Conte has taught law at the University of San Diego and California Western schools of law in San Diego.