TOP TEN CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS

UPDATE: A protest is planned tomorrow at the Torch of Friendship in downtown Miami from 10am to 1pm 

Protest what? Something good we are sure. So if you want to fight the power, put on your tie-dyed shirt, take a gummie, and go march for social justice, in support of immigrants, preserving the Last Carrot in Coconut grove (being sold to a condo developer 😠) unfair parlay lines on the Hard Rock betting app, the Dolphins in general ( Hey hey Cluck Cluck don't you know the dolphins suck?) , the Supreme Court's secret "We Are For Trump" docket, or any other cause that seems appropriate. 

We live in an age of  plea bargains, Zoom Hearings,  and prosecutors who call a 36-month offer a “gift.” But once upon a time—and still, on the rare good day—there walked among us trial lawyers. Real ones. The kind who smelled of sweat, stale coffee, courtroom adrenaline, and Paco Raban. The kind who could talk a jury into seeing light where the government swore there was only darkness. 

They walk into a courtroom alone, carrying a battered brief case filled with legal pads that had undecipherable notes and proceed to destroy the prosecution’s case. When needy clients called, they growled “before they get to you they have to get through me” and then hung up the phone.

 Here, for your arguments and comments section brawls, are the ten greatest criminal trial defense attorneys of the past half-century—men and women who owned the well of the courtroom. Starting with numbers 10-6

 10. Johnnie Cochran

The poet of the  Dream Team  “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” should be engraved on the wall of every law school—and maybe tattooed on the arm of every defense lawyer who forgets the power of rhythm and rhyme in a closing. Cochran turned persuasion into performance art. He had the trial of the century, and he won it- enough said. But he was no one trick Pony. He made his bones suing the LAPD for brutality and became the lawyer they feared most.

 9. Judy Clarke 

While the men were chasing cameras, Clarke was saving lives.  Unabomber, Eric Rudolph, Jared Loughner. Boston Marathon bomber. Her genius wasn’t in “not guilty,” it was in "life-not death". A master of mitigation who could find humanity where others only saw evil. 

 8. Jerry Shargel 

The killer from Brooklyn. Defended mobsters, politicians, and moguls with surgical precision. His opening statements were symphonies; his crosses, scalpel work. When Shargel stood, prosecutors felt a sudden chill and jurors paid close attention.

 7. Benjamin Brafman 

The New York street fighter who could argue a mob case before breakfast and a celebrity scandal before lunch. He convinced a Manhattan jury that Sean Combs wasn’t packing heat in that club and made the DSK case evaporate. Swagger,  intellect, and  timing—he has it all.

 6.  Thomas Mesereau 

This is our guy. The silver-haired California samurai  who cross-examined Michael Jackson’s accusers into oblivion in 2005. A man who could charm a jury while slicing witnesses like sushi. Always the outsider, never the showboat, yet the show inevitably belonged to him. He became the center of attention in every courtroom he walked into- and he knew what to do with that attention.

We lived through the golden age of criminal defense attorneys. A time we fear is gone with harsher penalties and the trial tax that prosecutors and judges swear does not exist, but the rest of us know it does.  "Take five or risk thirty" is proving to be the death of the Sixth Amendment which is dying a slow-one plea at a time- death. 

 And now, even the best of us are no longer lone wolfs, showing up alone in some out-of-town courthouse in Missouri, New Mexico, or Delaware. Now we are accompanied by a team of twenty-somethings setting up our laptops to access the thousands of files on the terabytes of discovery turned over. 

One of the lawyers in our top five showed up in a Miami Courtroom in the 70's, unknown to the local feds, defending a client, and had a celebrity sitting in the front row- driving prosecutors to complain, and causing the judge to chuckle at their discomfort. Then he proceeded to smash their case like a boat crashing into a jetty.  Those days are gone, and we are the worse for it.