Hello everybody. I'm Harris Taback. The reason I was asked to speak here today, I'm speaking on behalf of the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association of Northern California. I am a former president of that organization, probably about four years ago I finished my two-year term. The organization started well over fifty years ago, and it started as, and continues to be, an organization that is a community of criminal defense lawyers. We would put on events, we would support each other, it was a place to have lunch, to hear a speaker, and to be part of a community. When I took over as president, I put on, over two years, probably ten or so events. Steve Scherr, who had been a buddy of mine now for a long time, long retired, came to every one of those events. He didn't miss one. He was the first guy to respond "I'll be there," send in his check. He just loved being part of the community.
But he wasn't just a part of it, and you all know this, but to family members and friends outside our community, you gotta know it's not enough to say that he was a great criminal defense lawyer, that he was magnificent at trial. I don't think there was a lawyer, let alone prosecutor or defense attorney, in the Hall of Justice, practicing at 850 Bryant Street, that was more respected by his peers; that was more respected by the judiciary. If you were having breakfast with Steve Scherr at the cafeteria at 850 Bryant, the guy couldn't swallow a bite of food without lawyers running up to him, with motions, showing him police reports, asking "What do you think? What do you think?" And he had time, he cared, to answer all of these questions.
The thing about Steve, and Jim pointed out, there was no ego involved. It wasn't like you were coming up to him and he just loved that kind of attention. But when you talked to Steve with your issue, it was equally important to know that you, also, could not have an ego. Because if you had an ego, it was going to get hurt. Honest. Brutal. There were times when I just wanted to give him my bar card, like what am I doing practicing law. He would ask questions, I would ask him for advice and he'd ask me these detailed questions, and I would say, "Well, who knows?" and he would look at me and he would say, "Well, I would hope your client's lawyer does!"
We would talk, we would talk it out. I was doing a trial in Lakeport, an attempted murder case where my client shot several rounds of a shotgun, several shells through a closed door and almost killed the individual on the other side of the door, and but for emergency surgery the person would have died. So we had a defense, a heat-of-passion defense. I had forensic psychiatric work done on the client. I was a much younger lawyer at the time. Steve agreed to have lunch with me before I drove up to begin the trial, and I thought it was going to be a quick lunch. So we sit down, and I start asking him some questions about my direct examination, which you would think is simple enough, to just ask a doctor some questions: "What did you do," and "What did you read," and "What are you considering," so different than cross. I started running some ideas by Steve, and that lunch turned out to be about three and a half hours, where Steve was like, "Okay. And no. And this is how you do it." We sat down and wrote the questions out, as Jim was talking about, question by question. I just can't tell you what it felt like to have that type of wisdom shared with you by a guy who could not have been more generous. And it worked; we beat the attempted murder charge; the direct examination that he prepped me for I think helped tremendously.
I'm not the only lawyer that would come up here and tell stories about how he mentored them. I am kind of convinced that in thirty-five years of practicing the guy never picked up a check in San Francisco at lunch. Because we were always paying him essentially for his meal.
So the question becomes that I have, is, what does he leave us with? How do we process this loss? I'll tell you, Michael Gaines and I would have dinners with Steve Scherr at Alfred's Steak House, probably four times a year for many many years now. We know Steve's love of literature, we would talk books, Michael and Steve would talk books I've never heard of. I'd sit and listen to these book reports that these guys were doing. Movies. Music. We've heard of his love for the Dead, and Baez, Steve loved Bob Dylan as well, and he could talk about all those subjects for hours with great knowledge. But this was the guy who once taught me the greatest lesson. My takeaway from Steve and my relationship with him. He was taking me to a Warriors game in the 90s, picked me up, driving to the Oakland Coliseum, and we're talking about this trial that we had coming up, we had co-defendants. And at a certain point you know, this young lawyer, I was coming from a much more radicalized position than Steve, sort of the Abbie Hoffman school of thought. And I'd say to Steve, "I hate prosecutors. I hate 'em." And he looked at me like I was out of my mind, like, "What are you talking about? What do you mean, you hate prosecutors?" I said, "Well how could anybody, how could you charge someone with a crime and stand up there and try to put them in jail, anyone who can do that, you know." And he gives me this civics lesson. About how people need to do that! There needs to be a social system in place, there are people that have to take on a job of being a prosecutor. That doesn't mean they're a bad person. You should not hate your adversary.
And that lesson in civility is something that came to me the other night, preparing for a hearing on Friday. To stay civil, as I was tossing and turning. Not to go in and wrestle. You're the face of your client, you gotta be the face of reason. Take the higher moral ground. And I won't forget the lesson of civility: but I also won't forget his dedication to what he spent his adult life doing, which is standing up for those of us who are weak, those of us who have been accused by the power of the state, demanding that justice be served, that the proceeding be fair, that the defense be competent. I'll tell you, one of his clients is here today. She doesn't know many of you. But I ran into her years ago at a concert, and we started chatting it up, and she said what do you do, and I said, "I'm a defense lawyer in San Francisco." She goes "Really! Do you know Jim Collins and Steve Scherr?" I go "Indeed I do." She says, "Well let me tell you something. Those two guys saved my life." Now I have permission, I asked her if it was okay to talk about this, and she said of course. She was a doctor who was charged with murder for how the prosecution thought she handled a child making end-of-life decisions. She said that Jim and Steve could not have been kinder, could not have been more sympathetic, and could not have been there more for her. And of course the two of them put together, a brilliant, brilliant defense. She was not charged; she was allowed to continue practicing, she was able to go on with her life. But she's not forgotten what Steve Scherr has done for her. Jim always would say that Steve is the brains, and that Steve was [laughter]. But Steve would say, Steve always would say that that is not true. That Jim is by far among the smartest guys in the room, don't ever forget that.
Steve's fight for justice, for fairness, for the underdog... I'm figuring as I'm going to close my remarks, how do I tie it together with his love of literature, film, and music. And I thought of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, which is an amazing novel, it was turned into an amazing film, and Woody Guthrie, one of Bob Dylan's heroes, wrote an amazing song, The Ballad of Tom Joad. Now Tom Joad was radicalized by the Dust Bowl, and his family's treatment by the powers that be. They were forced to California, where they did not find any welcoming hand, and justice was hard to come by. Tom Joad wound up killing a deputy who had killed Tom Joad's friend, Preacher Casey, who was standing up for the working man, standing up for those among us who needed help and protection. And after Tom Joad killed that deputy he knew his time with his family in this world was over. Tom Joad was leaving his family for good, as he had to skedaddle out of town to beat the deputies on his heels. But he had to say goodbye. Before he left, he went that night to the camp, and he found his mother sleeping, and he went to kiss her gently on the head, to say goodbye. And Woody Guthrie wrote these words, and this is what I'm going to leave you with.
Tom Joad run back where his mother was asleep
He woke her up out of bed
And he kissed goodbye to the mother that he loved
And he said what Preacher Casey said, Tom Joad,
He said what Preacher Casey said.
Everybody might just be one big soul
Well it looks that way to me.
Everywhere that we love, in the day or night,
That's where I'm going to be, Ma.
That's where I'm going to be.
Wherever little children are hungry and crying,
Wherever people ain't free;
Wherever men are fightin' for their rights
That's where I'm going to be, Ma,
That's where I'm going to be.
So I say to all of you, in all those troubles, in all the cases we will continue to do and defend our clients, where people are fighting; just look, and that's where Steve Scherr will be.
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