Skip Cornelius

Legendary Defense Attorney and former Prosecutor Skip Cornelius passed away yesterday.  To say that his passing has resonated across the entirety of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center Family is an understatement.  From his fellow members of the Defense Bar to the Prosecutors who handled cases against him to pretty much all of the Judges he practiced before, Skip was the Gold Standard of what it meant to be a lawyer practicing indigent defense.   If you've been a reader of this blog over the years, you'll have seen his name brought up many times as I cited him as the best Harris County had to offer.  

It seems that the only thing that really motivates me to write something on the blog these days is when I feel the need to say goodbye to someone who I consider to be an influential force in my legal career. Lately 'm having to do that far more than I wish.  There have been other recent passings that I feel remiss for not having written about here, including Skip's brother, Terry Cornelius, who passed away earlier this year, and retired Judge Don Stricklin, who was the man in 1999 who called and offered me a job as a prosecutor.  Between lawyering and parenting, there have been things I've wanted to sit down and write about over the past months but just haven't had the opportunity.

With Skip's passing, however, I have so much I want to say that I just couldn't . . . not, I guess.  

There were so many eras of my legal career where I dealt with him, learned from him, and tried to imitate him -- starting when I was a new Felony Three who had hastily written a very low offer on a case file (back when we had paper case files) on one of his clients.  He looked at the offer and frowned slightly before handing me the file.

"I appreciate the offer.  I do," he said.  "But it would probably get you fired."  He pointed out that I had neglected to pay attention to his client's criminal history which made his punishment range 25 years to Life -- far higher than the 2-year offer I had extended.  But I had extended the offer, and after explaining my mistake to my chief, we honored it.

So, one of the first things that Skip taught me was in an adversarial system, there was still very much a calling for honor and chivalry in how we deal with each other.  He very easily could have called in the doctrine of No Take Backs and gotten me in trouble for my mistake to the benefit of his client.  In some defense attorney circles, one might argue that he made the wrong call.  I disagree with that argument wholeheartedly.  Skip's demonstration of honor put the onus on me to respond in kind.  It also made me want to follow his example in my future dealings with him and all opposing counsel in the future.

Skip's chivalry didn't always translate into patience with a young prosecutor, however, and I'm sure that I was just one of a multitude of young prosecutors who could annoy him.  I saw him mad on occasion, but more often it was his annoyance that tended to resonate with me.  I always felt if I was annoying Skip, I was definitely doing something wrong.  We once had a case together where a charge had been filed against his client but several other charges hadn't.  As we were getting closer to trial, I had gone ahead and filed those additional charges in anticipation of trial.  

We approached the bench for a pre-trial conference and Skip was clearly exasperated with me for reasons I didn't completely grasp initially.  The judge asked us what the status of the case was.

"Well," Skip said.  "We probably could have worked it out today if the State hadn't filed the C.S. Charges."

"What are C.S. charges?" I asked, very confused.

"Chickenshit charges," he replied, shaking his head.  We ultimately worked his case out on the original charge and dismissed all of those extraneous C.S. charges.

Skip was a highly respected and skilled trial lawyer who handled a multitude of serious cases, including many Death Penalty Capitals.  Because of his experience in trial, he was highly sought-after to be a speaker at Continuing Legal Education classes on Capital Murder cases.  I loved attending lectures where Skip was talking, because he always got straight to the point in a way that so many other lecturers failed to do.

While other lecturers at a Capital Murder seminar have an annoying tendency to wax overly poetic as they pontificate -- 

As we realize that we hold a precious life in our hands in these dastardly cases and everything is riding on us, we must first take a moment to step outside of our limited world view and embrace the situations that our clients have existed in that led them to this horrible and tragic circumstance for so many.

 -- Skip would take to the stage and say things like "The first thing you need to do is make sure there are no damn engineers on your jury."  With no offense towards the many esteemed lecturers on Capital Murder that I've listened to over the years, Skip was king of giving me information that I could put into practice.

My favorite Skip story came from the one trial I ever had against him.  It was an Aggravated Robbery case where a trio of Defendants had robbed a young lady in her apartment complex parking lot.  They had stolen her purse with credit cards and her cell phone and then immediately headed to a local tattoo parlor for some extravagant skin artwork on the young lady's dime.  Cameras on cell phones were still a relative novelty in those days, and the trio used her phone to take pictures of their tatts.   We had recovered the pictures from the phone, but in the one with what appeared to be Skip's client (based on clothing worn at the time of his arrest a short time later), his face wasn't clearly visible.  The case was a whale for me and Skip was fighting an extremely uphill battle.

But it is a truism that in any trial, there will be something that a prosecutor has forgotten to do, and in this case, I had forgotten to get a court order to have Skip's client's tattoos photographed before trial.  Realizing this mistake mid-trial, I approached Skip on a break during testimony.  He was working on the case in the break, taking notes while staring at something intently at the offense report.

"Hey," I said, "I need a favor."

"Oh yeah?" he asked, without looking up or stopping writing his notes.

"So, I should have gotten an order to have your guy's arm tatts photographed before trial and I didn't."

He paused writing but continued reading with a smirk starting to show up on his face.

"So you want to know if the tattoo is there?" he asked.

"Well, yeah," I said, starting to feel my face turned red.  "I was going to have the Court order him to show his arm to the jury.  I mean, if it isn't there you can obviously point it out and get some mileage out of that."

Skip set down his pen and scooted back from the table, folding his arms and looking at me like he was playing with his food.  He didn't say a word. 

So I continued

"I mean, all it would do is just make me look like a big dumb ass in front of the jury if it isn't there.  If it's not there, you can obviously show that to them without making me look like an idiot."

He smiled.

"Do you think it's there?" he asked.

I paused and thought about it for a second.

"Um, yes?"

He shook his head and rolled his eyes.

"Of course it's fucking there," he said and went back to taking his notes.

To be clear, he wasn't giving up anything that would have benefited his client.  He just saved a young-ish prosecutor from a potentially humiliating experience in front of the jury that would have haunted me for life.

Skip once told me that he didn't take retained cases because he had no desire to deal with the "bullshit" that came along with keeping the customer happy.  He preferred appointed work because he knew he was doing an outstanding job for all of his clients.  He didn't feel the need to explain himself unnecessarily to those who were high-maintenance.  There is no telling how many miracles Skip pulled off for clients who never had a clue as to how lucky they were to have him as their lawyer.

He was so good at everything he did and he was so good in trial.  As news of his passing spread, former prosecutors shared stories of their whale cases against Skip where he somehow kept the juries out for hours and hours.  His name rarely made the news but he was most definitely the lawyer that all of the other lawyers knew and respected.  He was a subtle, but commanding presence in the courtroom.  He was serious but also had an outstanding dry sense of humor.  He was confident and steady in all of his cases and there wasn't a prosecutor born that rattled him.  

He was a respected, dignified, and talented attorney who will be greatly missed.

He was what all of us should aspire to be in this profession.