Good reads

By Gerry R. Toner

Review of Hail to the Dragon Slayer

Lawyering is the only civilized form of combat known to man. Thus, in popular culture it is not surprising that the criminal defense lawyer is both the hero and the renegade of the adversarial system. He or she butts heads - or better tests wits - with the immense power of the "state" and using superior wile, courage, instinct, and creativity triumphs. In movies, plays, television shows and novels justice prevails and the innocent go free. Those of us who practice law, even if we have never attended an entire criminal trial let alone tried one, recognize the hyperbole in this scenario. Too often criminals aren't victims in reverse, they are everything and more of what they are accused.

Arthur A. "Buddy" Lemann III’s Hail to the Dragon Slayer (VCCI 1998) is therefore a refreshing and highly entertaining memoir of a truly talented and highly skilled barrister. Beginning with Buddy's youth on Palo Alto , a sugar plantation near Donaldsonville , Louisiana , the reader is introduced to a cast of family members who would make Tennessee Williams proud. To say that the Lemanns were both creative and antic is merely to recognize that they are bayou southern. Buddy appears to have surpassed them all. That he survived childhood and early youth to marry - and remain married throughout his life - to his childhood sweetheart, Roberta Ann (or R.A. as he refers to her throughout the book) is a minor miracle attributable only to the plethora of dichotomies that seem to make this man tick. Clearly brilliant, but just as clearly a rebel, Buddy was a predictable "slow starter", who stutter started his way through secondary school and college, only to emerge as a standout at Loyola Law School .

Once introduced to Buddy and his family, the reader is then sent on a whirlwind tour of Buddy's most fascinating legal adventures. And they are indeed fascinating. Buddy's clients are the real deal. No sheik, sophisticated ladies wrongly accused of plugging their older wealthy, husbands here. Perry Mason beware. One meets Carlos Marcello, ''the reputed Mafia kingpin of the Gulf South region" whom Buddy neither vindicates nor glorifies. When Buddy portrays him as a grandfather-like hustler, businessman, one believes the portrayal - if only because Buddy is so incredibly convincing. The "dragon" in all of his anecdotes is the "state", whether that means Louisiana or the federal government, and as a self-proclaimed "dragon-slayer" Buddy convinces us that whatever the charge - and no matter how guilty his client is from a purely moral perspective - the dragons have overstepped their bounds. So it is with Carlos and a myriad of fairly disreputable characters who Buddy is obviously tickled to represent and who, as seen through Buddy's skilled, story-teller's eye, become almost likeable.

Take, for example, Dino Cinel, priest turned loving husband and father. That's how Buddy first lays the groundwork for his defense. Then, without compunction, hesitation or embarrassment Buddy lets us know that Dino is no boy scout. His penchant for child pornography and his homosexual trysts while still serving under the vows of the church would seemingly cast a pall over Buddy's "dragon- slayer" motif and make one root for the "dragon". But no, Buddy again manages to portray the state in such a mean-spirited, vindictive and excessive light that one remains at the very least bemused by our knight errant and in most instances cheering him on as he absolves Dino of his past sins! Buddy is a born and bred Catholic (with substantial Jewish heritage) and a strong believer in the palliative effects of confession and absolution. He so convinces the jury, and Father Cinel, an oft visitor to the wild side, is transformed into a later day Father O'Malley. Such is the genius of Buddy Lemann.

Perhaps the most endearing and engaging aspect of Buddy's many tales is his obvious attention to detail. This is underscored explicitly in the tale of the Blue Knight, Stephen Rosiere. The facts of this case involve a high speed chase in which Rosiere and his fellow officer, McFarland, are in pursuit of a motorcycle driven by a young, black male and his passenger, Gerard Glover, the son of a New Orleans policewoman. Rosiere rides shotgun, reports shots fired and fires in return, hitting and killing Gerard. A gun is planted at the scene, accounts of the event are altered, and Rosiere finds himself fighting for his freedom. Enter the dragon-slayer. Buddy rides to the rescue, but not with tricks and sudden, reversals of testimony. Instead, with an incredible eye for detail and an unrelenting search for whatever the state doesn't want him to find, Buddy-proves that while Rosiere is no white knight, neither is he the black guard the state and his former partners on the force would make him out to be.

There is a little brilliance in every southern "bad boy" and in Buddy Lemann's case there is a lot. Unlike his equally brilliant counter-part, the top-of-his-game plaintiff's attorney (who Buddy unfortunately idealizes as a universal "good guy") Buddy never prattles on about the purity and righteousness of his cause. While his affinity for criminal defense may have come naturally, he obviously honed his skills through long, laborious hours of both study and combat. Beneath the exterior persona of a cigar smoking, lapel thumping bon vivant is the cunning intellect and wisdom of an advocate who understands what makes the world go around. Buddy Lemann, like any great lawyer, is a student of the human race. He knows his jurors, his judges, his opponents, and most of all his often despicable clients. He is not a lazy student or one who is likely to take either foe or friend lightly. He is not overly confident or enamored of his own past success. He doesn't idealize the law as his grand purpose on earth. Yet beneath the somewhat cynical outer shell of this man - which makes his memoir such a great read - is the heart of an idealist and a romantic. Hail to this dragon-slayer, indeed!