Filling In for Abramson Is Just His Latest Trial by Fire

Like a passenger on a careening bus who grabs the wheel after the driver passes out, Barry Levin was trying Thursday not to crash.

After months of playing second fiddle to one of this country’s most flamboyant attorneys in one its most sensational trials, Levin suddenly found himself in a position where he felt like he was holding the fate of Erik Menendez in his hands.

Forced to take over for lead defense counsel Leslie Abramson, Levin stood up and asked a Van Nuys jury to spare the life of the parent-killer. It was the finale to an ordeal that Levin has characterized as “worse than Vietnam.”

But as someone who is used to turmoil--in fact he wrote a book on post-Vietnam stress--the 49-year-old Levin was ready.

“I will admit to you that I am terrified,” he told jurors as Abramson sat and listened in silence. “I’m scared. I’m afraid you won’t listen to me. I’m afraid you won’t hear my words. I’m afraid you won’t understand.”

Levin and Abramson apparently thought it was best for him to handle the closing arguments after a psychiatrist for the defense told jurors last week that he altered notes of sessions with Menendez at Abramson’s request.

The smoothness with which he took over Abramson’s 6-year-old case was no surprise to those who have seen the tenacious, streetwise Levin work. This is his 10th capital case--and not one of his clients has ended up on death row.

Those who know him say Levin’s toughness is the result of two tours of duty in Vietnam, followed by a dozen years on the streets of South-Central Los Angeles as a police officer.

Levin was an 82nd Airborne infantry sergeant involved in some of the heaviest fighting of the war and was severely wounded during the Tet offensive. Shot three times in the side and hip, he returned home with a Purple Heart and he wears the ribbon on his lapel.

After the war, the Chicago-raised Levin moved to Los Angeles. His former brother-in-law was working as a trainer at the Police Academy. He suggested that Levin--who only had a high school education--apply to the department.

Levin is quick to point out that he never had to fire his gun on duty.

After graduating from Cal State Northridge and the San Fernando Valley College of Law, he worked briefly as a deputy district attorney before beginning his own practice, specializing in defending police officers accused of crimes.

Perhaps to the surprise of some former fellow officers, Levin also developed a reputation as an aggressive criminal defense attorney.

“He’s a man very well qualified to be in the position he’s in right now,” said one judge Thursday who has seen Levin at work. “There’s nothing you can do to hurt him. He was very badly shot up in Vietnam.”

That explains how a normally take-charge kind of person seemed unfazed when he found himself following Abramson’s lead after he was appointed by the court last year to be Menendez’s co-counsel.

Until Thursday, Levin’s main job had been to examine Menendez on the stand. Even then, Abramson frequently ran up to the podium to hand him instructions hurriedly written on yellow Post-It notes.

Trial watchers joked that Levin’s right arm probably turned black and blue from Abramson’s continual poking to prompt him to object during Menendez’s cross-examination by prosecutor David P. Conn.

“They are two hard-driving individuals,” said Harvey Giss, a veteran Los Angeles prosecutor who has faced Levin and Abramson in court. “The first question you’d ask is how could they work together.

“As skilled as Leslie is, there won’t be much drop-off with Barry coming in.”

In the Van Nuys courtroom, Levin has displayed a quick wit--and sometimes mangled grammar. Both traits have occasionally provoked smiles from the normally stony-faced jury and from the sometimes-stern judge, Stanley M. Weisberg.

Levin joined the case in May when Abramson’s former co-counsel was unable to continue in the second trial. Since then, he and Abramson have sometimes had to go before the court--”begging bowls in hand,” as Abramson put it before a gag order was issued in the case--so Levin could get paid. Levin has jokingly calculated his pay rate for the case at a paltry $20 an hour.

Long hours spent on the case has been a strain on Levin, the father of three, both professionally and personally.

Three other judges are getting antsy over criminal cases left hanging because of the Menendez trial and a backlog of potential new cases is forming, he said.

Last fall, Levin moved his mother into a house across the street from where he lives in West Los Angeles so he could help care for her after she was found to have Alzheimer’s disease.

And, he said, “In the middle of the trial my wife left me.”