I’m getting to be an old man now, but back 30 years ago Ted represented me in a DUI case that went all the way to a jury trial in Torrance. I was as drunk as a skunk, but I had not been driving. (The cop found me in my car, in the parking lot of a bar, where I had passed out after leaving the bar. I had left the bar, got into my car, realized I was too drunk to drive, and fell asleep. My car never moved a foot. The cop said he saw me leave the bar, drive around the block, and then pull back into the bar’s parking lot and fall asleep. That was total BS….cops do lie!)
Ted fought my case like a tiger. A couple of weeks before the trial, Ted had brought a motion to suppress evidence. At the hearing on that motion, the arresting officer had testified. The motion was denied, but the officer’s testimony was down in black and white.
When the officer testified at my trial, he forgot what he had said in his testimony at the earlier hearing. Ted was able to impeach him from here to kingdom come with his prior inconsistencies. The arresting officer lost all credibility and the jury promptly returned a verdict finding me NOT GUILTY.
That was more than 30 years ago, but I remember it like it was last week. (The kicker was this: Ted didn’t tell me that this was his first jury trial until after the case was over. In retrospect, I’m glad that I didn’t know until after the case was concluded because I really would have been on pins and needles. But, everybody has to start somewhere and this was Ted’s start. And what a grand send off it was for an eminent career.)
I never did have the chance to take Ted out to dinner, the way I promised him at the end of the trial. But, I’m happy to make it up to him now by writing this testimonial….some thirty years later.
Delbert B., Torrance
