Feisty Law Firm Plays Hardball in Denny Case

In law--as in sports or on the battlefield--the best defense sometimes is a good offense. And no one is playing tougher offense than the lawyers who are defending one of four young men charged in the April 29 beating and robbery of truck driver Reginald O. Denny.

With a fusillade of public comments, charges and insinuations, lawyers and a spokesman for the Center for Constitutional Law and Justice have launched what promises to be a no-holds-barred campaign for Damian Monroe (Football) Williams. Williams and three other suspects are scheduled to be arraigned today in the attack, which was broadcast live on television and seen around the nation as rioting broke out in Los Angeles.

In the last week, the center has accused Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner and U.S. Atty. Lourdes G. Baird of pursuing the prosecution for political reasons. It has floated hotly disputed allegations that Denny provoked the attack that left him critically wounded. It has hired a team of private investigators to ferret out the most personal details of Denny’s life.

And a spokesman for the center, Fred Sebastian, suggested in an interview that if Williams is denied bail, “my personal opinion is you might as well bring the National Guard back right away, because it’s going to be a mess.”

Comments like that have catapulted the tiny North Hollywood law firm and its three lawyers into controversy in the highest-profile case they have ever tried. The center--housed in a suite of gritty offices that even their spokesman describes as resembling “New York poverty row”--makes no apologies for its tactics, and promises to do whatever it takes to win an acquittal for Williams.

In its two-year history, the firm--whose three attorneys are Juliet Ireland, Dennis Palmieri and Lydia Sanchez--has challenged federal racketeering laws and defended several people charged with capital crimes. Most of its clients, including Williams, are represented for free. It raises the bulk of its money from individual and corporate contributions.

Whether its clients are Death Row inmates or accused gang members, the firm’s lawyers have a reputation for attacking with vigor, winning them many admirers in the South Los Angeles neighborhood where Williams and his family live.

“Those guys are tough,” said one young man who lives across the street from Williams. “They fight.”

The center even buys an hour of weekly radio time to air its own program, “Civil Liberties,” which is broadcast at 1 a.m. Mondays on KIEV-AM. The station’s program director, Dick Sinclair, describes the show as provocatively liberal, and says it has a solid following, including many listeners who call to criticize its political bent. Last week’s show, which was videotaped by a CBS crew led by newsman Ed Bradley, featured Williams’ relatives.

But it is inside the courtroom, not the studio, that the center’s lawyers say they are most dogged.

“We have never, ever plead anybody guilty,” Sebastian said. “If you want to plead guilty, stay with the public defenders’ office.”

The other suspects--Henry Keith (Kiki) Watson, Antoine Eugene (Twan) Miller and Gary Anthony Williams--are represented by private attorneys and the public defender’s office.

Mark Jackson, who is Damian Williams’ brother, said he wanted the center on his brother’s case because he and other residents know the firm’s reputation for playing hardball. But just to be sure, Jackson says he gave the center a little reminder.

“I said: ‘If you don’t push hard for my brother, you’ll deal with me,’ ” Jackson said Wednesday. “They’re pushing hard, though. I have the utmost respect for them.”

Jackson added: “In this country, the way blacks have been treated for so long, you have to be aggressive. If you talk all this mingle-mangle crap, you get nothing.”

Still, some of the center’s tactics have raised eyebrows. Legal experts question the role that Denny’s alleged provocation could play in the case and say it is highly unusual for lawyers to raise the specter of unrest if a judge refuses to give them their way.

“I think there is a need for people to be aggressive, to challenge the legal system, to challenge the status quo,” said criminal defense lawyer Barry Tarlow, who is not representing any of the defendants in this case. “But there is a limit. . . . To me, this sounds like rhetoric that is way over the line.”

Tarlow, who said he watched the videotaped beating of Denny and was horrified, added that he is concerned about whether the defendants can expect to get treated fairly by the judicial system.

“I think these people ought to get a fair trial, and if guilty, they should go away forever,” Tarlow said. “I also think many people are concerned that they will not get a fair trial.”

That fear is already widespread in the neighborhood near Florence and Normandie avenues where Denny was pulled from his truck and beaten just hours after a jury delivered not guilty verdicts in the case of four white officers charged with beating Rodney G. King.

Television cameras captured the Denny beating, and millions watched it unfold. Using videotapes from that attack, investigators identified the four suspects. The judge will be asked to set bail for them, but Dist. Atty. Reiner has said that he believes they should be held without bail until their trial.

What galls supporters of Williams and the other suspects is that these four men are being held while the officers in the King case all were allowed to post bail.

The magnolia trees on Williams’ block are adorned with yellow ribbons, and neighbor after neighbor says the community views bail as the yardstick by which they will judge whether justice is being done. They say they are anxiously awaiting the judge’s ruling, and they credit the center with hammering away on that issue.

“Since we took this case, we receive on-average, 150 telephone calls a day and another 60 to 70 pieces of mail,” Sebastian said. “It all says that there will be trouble if these four guys don’t get bail. It’s not me saying that. Anyone who doubts it is welcome to come over here and answer the phones for a while.”