They Tried Their Best and Help a Cuban Refugee Go Free

Sherri Honer still doesn’t know if she passed the bar exam. Nicole Hampton doesn’t even take it until February. But there they were Friday morning, already savoring the kind of big-time courtroom success that even veteran lawyers covet. No wonder Honer and Hampton were smiling and laughing and making party plans for the weekend.

It’s not every day you win a case that may well have saved a man’s life.

That’s what Hampton and Honer have done, under the supervision of Stuart Miller, their professor at Western State University College of Law in Fullerton. Winning the case would have been satisfaction enough, but in an unusual gesture, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that decided in their favor last week singled out the two women for stellar work.

The court noted: “The petition was briefed and argued with excellence, by two students from Western State University College of Law. . . . The performance of the students and their professor is a tribute to that program--a program that when properly implemented, as it was in this case, greatly benefits both the students and the court.”

The court was referring to a court-approved program in which the Fullerton law school’s students can do pro bono work under a lawyer-professor’s guidance. Miller, a New York native, has a background in administrative law.

“I looked for the best talent I could find, and these two came to mind first,” Miller said.

The case could be considered a tough one, if only because the Western State trio had to convince the circuit court to overturn two U.S. immigration rulings that Francisco Rodriguez-Roman should be denied asylum after 14 years in America.

Rodriguez, formerly in the Cuban Merchant Marines, argued that he fled Cuba to escape communism and that deporting him meant a certain prison term and, possibly, severe punishment or death while in prison. That constituted political persecution, he had contended, which would have been grounds for granting asylum here.

A U.S. immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals agreed that Rodriguez might face harsh penalties in Cuba. They ruled, however, that his flight from Cuba constituted a crime and that, in essence, the subsequent punishment couldn’t be defined as political persecution.

The original decision against Rodriguez came in 1990. The Western State team got the case on appeal last year and, on May 7 of this year, Hampton and Honer argued it before the three-judge 9th Circuit panel in San Francisco.

Based on experience, the two women would have seemed in over their heads against U.S. Justice Department lawyers. Honer, 34, had only argued in the school’s Moot Court; Hampton, 25 and now in her final semester at Western State, had never argued beyond a classroom setting. In fact, she feared her public speaking skills were so untested she enrolled in Miller’s Oral Advocacy class after joining the case.

The team began its research even before meeting Rodriguez, 37, who lives in Las Vegas with his wife and four children and works as a parking lot attendant for the Tropicana Hotel. The three Orange Countians took an immediate liking to him.

“He was frustrated,” Hampton said, “with what had happened and he was certainly afraid it was going to continue along those same lines. He didn’t feel he had received justice.”

In their decision this week, the circuit judges gave an overwhelming victory to the Western State team. Even beyond the 3-0 vote, the judges assailed the immigration judge’s reasoning that denied asylum and cleared the way for Rodriguez’s deportation.

Writing for the court, Judge Stephen Reinhardt noted that Rodriguez would be punished for the act of leaving his country. To the Cuban government, he would be a “traitor,” Reinhardt wrote, and subjected to “particularly harsh conditions of imprisonment,” including violent cellmates and denial of medical care.

“Moreover,” Reinhardt added, “he might, like others before him, simply ‘disappear.’ The evidence regarding the conditions Rodriguez would likely face in prison and the possibility of his execution is uncontroverted.”

In a concurring opinion, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote: “What happened in this case at the administrative level is chilling.”

With the stakes so high, Honer and Hampton couldn’t help but get personal about the case. “It was never strictly business,” Hampton said.

And when they won? “After this, I figured this is definitely what I went to law school for,” said Honer, who graduated class valedictorian in May and is now working for a Tustin firm. “And not so much even for winning the case. Even before the decision came down, I knew that. . . . He [Rodriguez] was at the oral arguments and he was so thankful and it felt so good to help somebody who had problems and felt like nobody was helping him.”

As Miller and the two women celebrate in Orange County, another celebration is going on in Las Vegas. I contacted Rodriguez late Friday afternoon when he got home from work.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, “I don’t even got a word to explain to you how much I love these people. I love them from the bottom of my heart. These people saved me and my family.”

I asked if he was concerned that law students were handling the case, even under a lawyer’s guidance.

“Let me put it to you this way,” Rodriguez said, “I remember the first time I looked into these two ladies’ eyes, I can feel the love they got for my case and I can feel it in eye contact how much they want to help me. From that minute on, I know we were going to do well.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.