Lyn McClellan

I have always said that the best thing about working in the Harris County Criminal Justice World is that it provides us the opportunity to walk amongst giants.  Harris County boasts some of the most famous names in the history of Texas Criminal Justice:  Percy Foreman, Racehorse Haynes, Dick DeGuerin, Rusty Hardin, Kelly Siegler, Johnny Holmes, and Dan Cogdell, to name a few.  As impressive as all of those names are and the large volume of famous cases associated with them all, the name and face that I always though of when I spoke of giants was retired Harris County District Attorney's Office Bureau Chief Lyn McClellan.

Lyn passed away this morning after a lengthy illness.

Lyn was a career prosecutor who had been at the Harris County District Attorney's Office for at least twenty or twenty-five years before I started there in 1999.  He retired in November 2008, shortly before I headed out the door.  I wrote this post about him back on the occasion of his retirement.

He was an understated but fierce trial lawyer who had handled some of Harris County's most famous cases.  He became the head of the Misdemeanor Division shortly after I started at the Office, which gave the baby prosecutors of my day the amazing opportunity to learn from a true legend of the game.  It was the legal equivalent of finding out Tom Brady is coaching your high school football team.

Lyn exemplified the ideal of leading from the front as he supervised fifteen county courts with three prosecutors each -- none of whom had more than two or three years of prosecutorial experience.  He raised a generation of us, and he held our love and loyalty throughout our careers.  He was sarcastic and funny without ever being anything that approached unkind.  He would offer advice, and if you asked him, off the cuff, to sit with you in trial, he would do it in a heartbeat.

He never bragged about his trial exploits, and if asked for a war story, he would usually tell a funny backstory to a case that had nothing to do with his trial skills.  He wasn't afraid of getting in trouble if it was for the right reason and he never criticized the prosecutors who made mistakes.  He turned all mistakes into teachable moments and he did so with a sense of humor.  If you were a baby prosecutor who screwed something up, he worked you through it so it didn't happen again.  He was the kind of boss that when you had something that you had reached your limit with, you felt no qualms about taking it to him.  You knew he wasn't going to make you feel dumb or bad for not being able to handle it yourself.

I remember being a Misdemeanor Chief in Court Five around 2001 when my Three brought me a criminal mischief case where a kid had thrown a rock at a car as it drove down the street.   The lady driving the car wanted charges upgraded to (I kid you not) Attempted Murder, and she was going on a verbal rampage toward anyone who would listen.  I tried reasoning with her and was getting nowhere.  When she demanded to speak with my supervisor, I was more than happy to pass it to Lyn.  Without ever losing his temper, he took the lady through what a trial would look like when she took the stand and tried to convince the jury that a rock-throwing teenager had murderous intentions.  

Lyn's catchphrase was loudly challenging someone to combat his logic by leading off with "I DEFY YOU TO SHOW ME . . . " and he used that phrase on me more times than I can count.  I loved arguing and messing with Lyn.  He took it all in stride and enjoyed the banter.  

Around this same time, a large group of my peers were selected to go to Career Prosecutor School in South Carolina if they agreed to extend their commitment at the Office.  Somehow, I didn't get an invite, so I asked Lyn why I had been excluded.  He replied: "We're trying to get all those people to stay longer by sending them.  We know we couldn't get rid of you if we tried."

Lyn saying thanks to me for letting him use the phone in my office.

Lyn was a leader who loved moving amongst his troops.  When I was a younger prosecutor, my group all participated in Steak Night every Wednesday night at Little Woodrow's on West Alabama.  We always invited Lyn to join us to which he would reply, "I'll show up when you start having it north of 1960."  He didn't drink, but would always come to lunch with us young ones just to hang out and talk.  He was our boss, but he was also so very much one of us.  We adored him and we admired him.

In 2000, as notorious serial killer Rafael Resendez-Ramirez (the Railcar Killer) went to trial, Lyn joined future District Attorney Devon Anderson and District Attorney Johnny Holmes (in his last trial as a prosecutor).  His job was to attack the insanity defense, and pretty much the entire Misdemeanor Division attended to watch and learn.  Lyn put on a clinic and taught us all how to handle those cases and handle voir dire on what can be an extremely tricky issue.  He was an outstanding trial lawyer.

Even after we graduated into the ranks of Felony Prosecutors and he left Misdemeanor to be the Felony Trial Bureau Chief, we all still sought Lyn's advice -- and he was always there to give it.  He was someone we would follow into battle and he was always someone who was there to help us through any battles that we were facing -- both personal and professional.

I'm happy to say that Lyn and I stayed in touch after he retired from the Office and I became a defense attorney.  I would run into him from time to time in the misdemeanor courts.  He did a little bit of defense work but only on low-level offenses where no one got hurt.  His heart always belonged to the victims of violent crimes, so I wasn't surprised to see him avoid defending felony cases.  He was also a deeply religious man who worked in prison ministries.  Although he was a prosecutor to his core, he believed in redemption.

He would occasionally come to lunch with us until his health began to fail him.  Whenever we could get him to come south of 1960, there were plenty of his former prosecutors who would come to see him.  We would talk about the old days and laugh until we turned red.  It was a nice reminder that even when you leave the house you grew up in, you are still family.

When I talk to today's current prosecutors about what the Office used to be like, they often express some level of disbelief that it was once a fantastic place to work.  They have a hard time comprehending what having an inspiring leader who backed you up and taught you at the same time would be like.  Sadly, most of them never heard of Lyn McClellan.

That's a shame, but it isn't surprising.  Lyn never sought the limelight or attention.  He just did his job and led from within.  In so many ways, he was the heart and soul of the Office.  He shaped a generation of Harris County prosecutors and we wouldn't be who we are today without him.

I'm proud to have worked for Lyn McClellan and proud to call him my friend.   He was a Giant amongst Giants in one of the most famous places in all of the Criminal Justice World.

And he was one of the best people I ever knew.

An Academician Retires

Tomorrow will be Felony Trial Bureau Chief Lyn "Big Poppa" McClellan's last day in office.

To say that his departure from the Office will be a tremendous loss is like saying that the Titanic took on a little water back in 1912.

Lyn was one of a handful of prosecutors that I had heard about and read about prior to my joining the Office in 1999. One of my early mentors in life was a former HPD Homicide Sergeant named Gil Schultz who had his biggest case tried by Lyn and Rusty Hardin. It was the Cynthia Campbell case that was documented in two books -- Daddy's Girl by Clifford Irving and Cold Kill by Jack Olsen. If you haven't read them before, I highly recommend both books. For those of you who have read them, you know there is a priceless photo of Lyn in one of them.

Shortly after I started at the Office, Lyn became the Division Chief of Misdemeanor, meaning he was one of my supervisors. It was hard to fathom that a prosecutor of Lyn's stature would be supervising me while I was trying first time DWI cases, but yet that was what happened.

When I was still a Baby Three in Misdemeanor, I argued a Motion to Suppress in front of Judge Pam Derbyshire and Lyn showed up to assist. He backed me up and argued the points of the case with me.

To be honest, it may have been the coolest moment I ever had as a prosecutor. For the first time in (at that point) a very short career I felt like I was part of a Team. And to be a part of that team was exactly where I belonged.

During my time in Misdemeanor, Lyn and I had some rather contentious dealings with each other. For some reason, we couldn't help but pick on and harass one another. He thought of me as a goofy gossip with some severe maturity issues. I accused him of being an inventor of words that did not truly exist -- such as Academician, for example. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure we were both correct in our respective assessments.

Although I would never tell him to his face, however, I admired the Man immensely.

Lyn was a Leader amongst Leaders. He was the guy who backed his people with everything he had, and those who worked under him knew it. To countless prosecutors, both current and former, he earned our undying admiration and loyalty.

In addition to his leadership skills, Lyn was a phenomenal prosecutor who had absolutely no fear of trying any case. He was an expert in so many fields of prosecution, especially those having to deal with the insanity defense. I had the opportunity to watch him during his individual voir dire on the Rafael Resendiz-Ramirez case. The issue of insanity in a criminal setting is not a simple one, but Lyn had a way of making it seem like the easiest question on Earth to answer. I learned a lot from watching him, and I copied what he did when I had a murder case with an insanity defense years later.

He was an authority on many legal issues, and he always had time to explain it to even the most junior of us.

I was talking to a Felony Three this morning about McClellan, and we came to the conclusion that pretty much everyone in the Office had a "Lyn story" or two about great moments they had working alongside him.

My favorite personal story about working with Lyn was when I was in Judge Ross' court and got into it with C. Tom Zarrati. Zaratti had told me "Listen kid, when you are dealing with lawyers like Racehorse Haynes, Dick DeGuerin, and me, just give us the bottom line." He went on to announce "the reason I hate you prosecutors is that when you can't get the Defendants, you go after us lawyers".

At which point, McClellan jumped out of his chair and yelled: "Well Goddamn Tom! After all these years of wondering why you hate us prosecutors, we finally know the reason! I've been wondering all these years, and now you've finally told us!" Zaratti turned beet red and promptly shut up on his diatribe.

And I knew from that moment on that Lyn McClellan was someone who always backed up his prosecutors.

In a post that I wrote back in the Spring, I mentioned that the best thing about practicing criminal law in Harris County is that it provides you the opportunity to walk amongst Giants.

Lyn McClellan was one of those Giants I had in mind when I said that.

Happy Retirement, Lyn. You deserve it.

On behalf of the countless young 'uns that you mentored, I offer a very sincere "thank you" for everything.

P.S. "Academician" is not a real word.

The Quintero Verdict

As you probably know by now, Juan Leonardo Quintero was sentenced to life in prison today for the murder of decorated Houston Police Officer Rodney Johnson.

I will not criticize the decision of the jury, because I wasn't there, and I don't know what they saw or what did or did not factor into their decision.

That being said, I think the decision is a travesty.

I believe that whenever a person thinks of what the ultimate police officer should be, that they need only to look to the example set by Officer Johnson. A veteran police officer who had stayed in the patrol division like Officer Johnson did is clearly an officer who likes being out and interacting with his community and doing everything in his power to improve it. The stories of his bravery, dedication, and kindness resonated throughout the trial and the media's coverage of it.

To put it mildly, the term "a credit to the Force" doesn't seem to have even scratched the surface in describing this fine man.

On the opposite end of the spectrum of good and evil, we had Quintero.

A convicted sex-offender and previously deported felon who, after shooting Officer Johnson multiple times in the back and head, called the dying hero a "nigger" in his final moments.

The jury had two questions to answers in deciding his fate.

The first was whether or not Quintero would be a continuing threat to society. The jury answered that he would.

The second was whether or not there was evidence that was sufficiently mitigating that would warrant a life sentence be imposed, rather than death. This question is commonly referred to as the "safety valve" question. If a juror finds any reason from the evidence that life is more appropriate than death, they only have to answer "yes", and Life it is. The Quintero jury did not reach a unanimous verdict on this, rather they reached a 10-2 verdict that the answer was yes. That was all that was required by law.

Where the jury found mitigation is beyond me. Quintero was raised in a strict household where none of the other children had turned out to be cop killers, and his "insanity" defense had been rejected during the guilt/innocence phase.

Playing arm-chair quarterback, I think the jury just didn't want to give a death sentence to someone.

Because God knows that if anyone deserved to die for his crime, it was Juan Quintero.

The District Attorney's Office was represented by three of the best prosecutors in the building: Lyn McClellan, John Jordan, and Denise Bradley. If they couldn't secure the death penalty against this monster, then nobody could.

What I fear is that today's verdict is more reflective of the changing attitude of our society, specifically in Harris County, Texas. When voices are more vocal in support of a child molester/cop killer than they are for one of the most honorable peace officers to ever hold a badge, what does that say about the shift in our values?

Have we really gotten to a place where victims of crime, and advocates of victims of crime can be shouted down by those who argue that it is the law (not to mention those who enforce it) which is barbaric, rather than the criminal? Do we really want to celebrate that somewhere Danalynn Recer is toasting her great success today, while the Johnson family is left to wonder what it was that made this crime somehow less deserving of the ultimate punishment?

Susan Johnson, Officer Johnson's sister, said that in prison, Quintero would most likely join one of the prison gang's and be a celebrated member by virtue of the fact that he killed a cop. I fear that her statement is nauseatingly accurate.

Tonight, my heart goes out to the family and the memory of Rodney Johnson. I have so much admiration and awe of the job that Peace Officers of Harris County do every day.

No single officer seems to have embodied those qualities which I look up to more than Officer Johnson.