Rising to the Defense of Accused Killers : Courts: Four lawyers who represented the convicted Mall Murderers explain their watchdog roles and why they do it.

They admit they represent the “dark side,” yet insist theirs is a calling higher than that of police officers, prosecutors--even judges.

They are the four court-appointed attorneys whose clients were convicted in Pomona Superior Court last week of multiple murder charges in the summer-long 1991 crime spree dubbed the Mall Murders.

From July 5 to Aug. 27, five people were slain--including two women kidnaped from the Puente Hills Mall, the killings that gave the case its name. In the new year, the jury will decide the penalty, which could be death for all four defendants.

“How can you defend those people?” is the typical question lobbed at the four lawyers and other defense attorneys.

But to question the Mall Murders attorneys--David Daugherty, John Tyre, Lee Coleman and Gerald Gornik--is to understand the blend of egoism, competitiveness and idealism that fuels those who make their living defending accused drug dealers, burglars, robbers and murderers.

“No one else is looking out for what’s fair and what’s just,” explained Daugherty, a former deputy district attorney, who represented defendant Eileen Huber. “If defense attorneys were not there, the result would not be as fair.”

For Los Angeles County, if the four defense attorneys were not there, the case would have cost taxpayers $200,000 more, county officials said. For a flat, $70,000 fee and $20,000 in expenses each, the attorneys gave up the $125 hourly they could have billed for 16 months of work on the case.

The lowered fees were negotiated under a 3-year-old contract between the county and six attorneys representing indigent defendants in Citrus Municipal Court in West Covina.

When lawyers from the public defenders office, who are county employees, cannot take cases because of multiple defendants or conflict of interest, private attorneys from the six-person list are appointed.

Daugherty was one of the founders of the arrangement. At 50, with 20 years experience in court, including six years as a prosecutor and four previous death-penalty cases, he is the most experienced of the Mall Murders attorneys.

Tall and bespectacled, the Covina attorney often appears to have the air of an eccentric, distracted professor. It is an image reinforced by his singular pastime of “reading the library,” checking out 10 books weekly in their sequence off the shelves.

Born and raised in Alhambra, the privileged son of a food company executive, Daugherty said he knew as a child that he would not follow his father into business but would become a defense attorney.

His was a romantic and glamorous vision, culled from movies and, of course, books such as “Darrow for the Defense,” the biography of famed barrister Clarence Darrow. “My job would be protecting the innocent wrongly accused,” Daugherty recalled with a smile.

Despite the reality that 80% of the people he defends are sentenced to prison--most without ever going to trial--Daugherty’s idealism remains strong. His job, he said, is to establish in court differences between defendants--differences, for example, between hard-core criminals and youthful offenders capable of turning their lives around.

A prosecutor, he contends, simply strives for the maximum punishment for all.

The Mall Murders case illustrates his point, he said. All four defendants, basically, were charged alike and perceived alike. But Daugherty said his client, Huber, played only a marginal role in the killings that terrorized the San Gabriel Valley. And she was remorseful.

“That’s why I think I’m on the side of justice in that case and the prosecutor is not,” he said before the guilty verdicts were returned.

Attorney Tyre, 39, who represented Robbin Machuca, holds similar views.

“There’s a difference between legal guilt and factual guilt,” the Irwindale lawyer said. “Let’s say you shot somebody. Self-defense may be a legal defense that vitiates your culpability.”

Tyre says he never asks his clients, “Did you do it?” Instead, he asks, “What happened?”

“You deal with people’s dark side,” he said. “You deal with things they don’t want anyone else to know. They’re very vulnerable.”

Still, Tyre said he has to steel himself in court against sympathy for the crime victims.

“Truthfully, my heart goes out to the victims,” he said. “But when I’m in court, I have to have a 100% allegiance to my client. . . . I still go home and sleep well at night.”

The most flamboyant of the four attorneys, with his colorful, hand-painted ties and cowboy boots, Tyre leads somewhat of a double or even triple life.

During the fall and winter, he dons a blue blazer with a National Hockey League insignia to spend nights next to the ice as an official working Los Angeles Kings games at the Great Western Forum.

On weekends, he can often be found parking cars at the Del Mar racetrack and fairgrounds. The union, parking-lot job is a holdover from his pre-attorney days when the Los Angeles native tried to decide what he wanted to do in life.

Tyre also worked as a glazier in his family’s 80-year-old, downtown Los Angeles glass company and drove a truck before finally settling on the law.

Although Tyre jokes that he would prefer being independently wealthy, he said he relishes competing against deputy district attorneys.

“Your ego wants to take on the big challenges,” he said of his appointment to the Mall Murders case.

Attorney Coleman’s response was just the opposite.

“I was sitting in my office minding my own business and I got a phone call from the court,” he said. “Maybe some people do look forward to high-visibility cases but, speaking for myself, how could you look forward to a case like this?”

Nonetheless, the West Covina attorney, who represented John Lewis, said he did the job expected of him.

“If you’re faint of heart, you just can’t do them (murder trials),” he said.

A black and the only minority among the four Mall Murders attorneys, Coleman, 51, was raised in Shreveport, La., when segregation existed. During his days at Southern University, Coleman recalled, he participated in a peaceful, civil rights march that was broken up by police using dogs, tear gas and fire hoses.

“That was when I realized I didn’t fit the nonviolent mode,” the soft-spoken, bearded lawyer said. “It made me angry and I wanted to fight the police.”

Instead, Coleman turned to his studies, graduating with a premedical degree, moving to Los Angeles and spending 16 years in medical technology jobs.

After putting himself through law school, he passed the bar, got married and moved to West Covina all in the same year, 1974. He turned to criminal defense work when he could not get a job with the district attorney’s office. His wife works as his legal secretary.

In his spare time, Coleman, who has two sons, manages a Little League baseball team, or can be spotted fishing at any of the area lakes or the Salton Sea.

He regards his 17-year legal career almost as a righteous cause, adding that even President Abraham Lincoln did criminal defense work.

Societies are measured by how humanely they treat criminal defendants, and the United States stands apart from Middle Eastern and Asian countries, Coleman said. He compared himself to a doctor saving the life of a man shot by police during the commission of a crime.

“You can’t say, ‘We don’t want to bother with him, he’s just a waste of time,’ ” Coleman said.

Despite his own personal doubts, Gornik welcomed the Mall Murders case. At age 35, and with only six years of legal experience, Gornik, who represented Vincent Hubbard, said he found himself asking, “Am I up to it?”

Gornik’s father was on the road a lot as a law book salesman. But Gornik’s idea to become an attorney was simply a practical decision, based on his conclusion that he had the verbal and intellectual skills for the job. He said he chose criminal defense because of the drama, the excitement and the chance to be in the trial mode more frequently.

After passing the bar, Gornik’s first job was with Daugherty’s office in 1986. He handled minor matters as a green attorney in what had been a one-man firm. But when Daugherty went out ill for four months, Gornik plunged in and took over his colleague’s caseload in a trial by fire.

Married and with identical twin girls 10 months old, Gornik looks like any young, suburban father. Nights are spent playing piano--Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, and show tunes--and fending off criticism from his wife, Cindy.

“She asks me why don’t I join the D.A.’s office, join the good guys so she can root for me,” he said.

But Gornik said he enjoys the underdog position--himself and a court-appointed investigator against the district attorney’s office, the police, an army of investigators and public sentiment.

“I guess it’s a combination of ego and professionalism,” he said. “In the face of overwhelming odds, to prevail in court, to win, is really satisfying. It’s really exhilarating, that kind of high.”

Although sometimes he reads police reports before he sees his clients and finds himself unable to conceive of their side of the story, Gornik said he still often finds himself persuaded by his client’s version of events.

“For the most part, I have a strong identification with my clients,” Gornik said. “Everyone has had an experience of being hassled by the cops and all of us have gotten into some kind of trouble.”