Kingdom of Fear (34 page)

I had a list of the top five criminal lawyers in Colorado, whose names had been suggested. Hal Haddon was on that list, and I called him first. I had known Hal for years, since the McGovern campaign. On the phone I found myself apologizing to him, saying, “Oh I’m sorry to do this, but . . . that fucking lawyer. . .” I was apologizing for everything. He said, “Christ, I thought you’d never ask.” Hot damn, man. The next day, Hal drove over the Divide to take the case.

That was a huge morale booster; “Ah, finally, we rumble.” After I got rid of Chickenshit—from then on it was fun. It was agony with that other lawyer; if you do not trust your lawyer and have good reason not to, that is very unpleasant and uncomfortable.

In the beginning, I didn’t think I was going to need a huge criminal lawyer. But once Haddon came over here, and he told me how much trouble I could be in, as they always do:
You might die from this. . .
well, I just figured, if I was going to die, it was better to die fighting.

I remember Haddon said this only once in the case: “My theory as a lawyer is that: Lawyers will take you all the way up to the door of justice, and just say, Well, it’s up to the jury now—justice will be done.” Haddon said, “My theory is, I want to take the client through the door.”

THOMPSON HIT WITH 5 FELONIES
JUDGE DISQUALIFIES HIMSELF
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Hunter S. Thompson didn’t act Monday like a man who had just learned he was facing a possible 16 years in prison.

Moments after the District Attorney hit the “gonzo” journalist with five felony charges and three misdemeanors, Thompson and his lawyers retired to a conference room in the Aspen courthouse. Somebody asked what they were doing in there. . . .

“We’re just smoking crack,” said Thompson with a grin.

Judge J. E. DeVilbiss announced that he was disqualifying himself from the case. He gave no reason in court for removing himself and he wouldn’t comment outside the courtroom either. Ninth District Judicial District Chief Gavin Litwiler will decide who replaces DeVilbiss.

April 10, 1990

. . .

There were several judges; nobody really wanted this. DeVilbiss recused himself; we went through all the judges in the county—all three on the district level. Nobody would touch it. We had to go to Grand Junction to find a judge.

NEW JUDGE NAMED IN THOMPSON CASE
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A Grand Junction judge—who is regarded as a good listener, but unpredictable—was selected
Thursday to handle the drug, sex, and explosives case of author Hunter S. Thompson.

Mesa County District Judge Charles A. Buss will replace Aspen District Judge J. E. DeVilbiss, who withdrew from the case on April 9 without explanation. . . .

Independent Judge

“From my experience, he takes every case on an individual basis and I don’t think there is any way to predict how he will rule,” said Grand Junction attorney Steve Laiche. Laiche, who is now in private practice, appeared almost daily before Judge Buss when he was a deputy district attorney.

“When you are before him, you don’t know how you are going to do, but he is going to listen,” Laiche told the
Times Daily
on Thursday.

Laiche said it’s hard to generalize about how Buss rules on drug cases. But, the attorney noted, there are other judges in Grand Junction who would probably give drug defendants longer sentences than would Buss. . . .

April 20, 1990

. . .

It wouldn’t have meant much to half-win a case on the right to smoke marijuana in the home.

Deciding it was a Fourth Amendment case and not a marijuana case was the right thing to do. Legally it wasn’t. Legally it was risky. But politically it was right.

Almost everything I did was contrary to Haddon’s wishes and habits. He said he never had a case where every time he went into court, he knew what he was going to say by reading the morning newspapers.

(CA Press Photo Service)

THOMPSON BOUND OVER FOR TRIAL
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A judge Tuesday threw out one of the five felony charges pending against gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson because a witness who claimed to have seen him consume cocaine later admitted she wasn’t sure what it was he put up his nose. . . .

May 23, 1990

. . .

I think Haddon was surprised to win the preliminary hearing: Not even God can win a preliminary hearing. I just got angry. It wouldn’t have meant much to half-win a case on the right to smoke marijuana in the home. That wasn’t an issue with me.

(HST archives)

(Aspen Daily News)

TODAY: THE DOCTOR, TOMORROW
YOU.
That was the breakthrough. After that, the majority of people I knew in town were prepared to fight this to the end. I saw then that I had the support of the newspapers and my friends hadn’t turned against me.

I had recognized a threat when it was announced to the press that it was a felony case. I recognized the lack of support I had then, mainly due to the charge that I’d put a gun to her head. Nobody knew what had actually happened that night, until I got on the trumpet—the coconut telegraph. I realized it was a threat; I understood it instantly, and my response was to take out a full-page ad in the
Aspen Times
and the
Daily News
to explain my case—point one, two, etc. I labored over it; dense, gray type, like a legal argument. Solheim and I struggled for days. And finally I said, “Fuck this. Never mind it.” And I came up with that line: “Here’s what we’ll put in there—just white space and ’Today the Doctor, Tomorrow You,’ underlined . . .” When the ad appeared . . . it was like magic. Maybe one of the best decisions of my life. Now, if I had come out with some legal gray page explaining
my
position, it would not have worked. It had to be “we.”

I recognized that. I was trying to put the ad together—to be effective—and it wasn’t. But that “Today the Doctor, Tomorrow You” just came to me in a moment of stress. And, shit, the tide turned immediately.

GONZO’S LAST STAND? (CONTINUED)

“. . . I have more public support now than when I ran for sheriff,” Thompson laughs, and he’s almost certainly right: There are a lot of houses in Aspen where 66 hours of searching could produce something incriminating. As a supportive ad in the
Aspen Times
read, “Today the Doctor, Tomorrow You.” But beyond that, there is something about the D.A.’s invasion of Thompson’s house that seems to grate on the Western sensibility of even Aspen’s conservatives. Finally, of course, there
is the matter of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

A few years ago, McCrory’s warrant would have been worth as little legally as it is morally, but the Nixon/Reagan legacy on the Supreme Court means that it has a better than even chance of standing up against the challenge Thompson’s lawyers plan to bring. And what that means is that on the basis of someone’s unsupported word that you used drugs (burned the flag/plotted insurrection/planned a possibly illegal demonstration/committed sodomy/possessed pornography/arranged an abortion) in the privacy of your own home, the cops can break down your door. . . .

The Village Voice,
May 15, 1990, Vol XXXV, No. 20

. . .

I had to mobilize the whole national and international network. I would call the papers. I could get the
Times
in London . . . I could mobilize people. And Haddon recognized that suddenly we had a cause here. For Haddon it was like going into combat with somebody you know is good and think is right, you’re a lawyer and he’s not, and he—your client—starts making announcements to the press. Every move he makes is not with your counsel . . . I just left the legal stuff to him.

THOMPSON REJECTS PLEA BARGAIN; TAKES
DELIVERY OF CONVERTIBLE
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MAY 22, 1990

On the eve of his preliminary hearing on drug charges, author Hunter S. Thompson rejected a plea bargain offer from prosecutors and received a red convertible from well-wishers who traveled here from San Francisco.

His supporters, led by porn theater owners Jim and Art Mitchell, left the Bay Area in a convoy of a half dozen vehicles at 3
A.M.
Sunday—or “after work,” as they put it. They arrived Monday morning at Thompson’s cabin near Woody Creek.

As the convoy was arriving, Thompson was on the phone talking to his lawyer about the plea bargain offer from the District Attorney.

Thompson was adamant Monday about the importance of refusing the District Attorney’s offer—even one allowing him to plead guilty to one misdemeanor and have a felony conviction purged from his record if he completes two years of probation.

“First, I’m innocent,” Thompson said. “And, second, if I plead guilty, that means their search was right, that they got away with it.”

He said defendants across the country who are innocent are forced to accept plea bargains in drug cases because they can’t afford to fight the system. He said he won’t do that.

“This is getting worse because people are caving into this. Somebody has to say, ’enough,’” Thompson said.

Echoing that position were the Mitchell Brothers, owners of the O’Farrell Theatre in San Francisco and longtime friends of Thompson. They said they came to Aspen to support Thompson, who wrote about the government’s unsuccessful 11-year battle to shut down their establishment, which features nude dancing. “Somebody has to stand up to this,” Art Mitchell said.