5 colorful memories from attorney’s life
Jeff Blackburn, an acclaimed defense lawyer and crusader for criminal justice reform in Texas, died last week of kidney cancer at age 65.
Blackburn was best known for his work unraveling a massive drug sting in the tiny West Texas town of Tulia. But there are countless other stories about the charismatic, hard-charging lawyer’s career. Here are five especially colorful memories.
He managed to secure an acquittal in a criminal case — before he even had a law degree.
In 1978, Blackburn got arrested during a protest in Nashville, Tenn. Nashville was hosting the Davis Cup that year, and an all-white team from South Africa was allowed to play, in spite of the much-publicized horrors of apartheid.
Blackburn spent 17 days in jail. He persuaded the judge to dismiss one of the charges against him but not the misdemeanor offense of resisting arrest.
He ended up representing himself at a trial before the judge and received a directed verdict of “not guilty.” The experience prompted him to go to law school at the University of Houston.
He got charges dropped against the former singer of the Mamas and the Papas — using a bag of seeds.
In 1987, singer Michelle Phillips was driving with a companion to California when she got pulled over near Amarillo. A state trooper claimed to spot a single marijuana seed on the driver’s side floor mat of the car, using that as justification to search Phillips’ purse. He found a small bag of marijuana inside.
As her defense lawyer, Blackburn decided to contest the validity of the search. During a hearing, he put the trooper on the witness stand and challenged him to identify various seeds, including a marijuana seed and a peppercorn. The trooper couldn’t tell the difference, and a judge dismissed the case.
“The question was, ‘OK, you said you can pick out the marijuana seed, pick out the marijuana seeds,’ ” recalled Morris Overstreet, the judge presiding over the hearing who is now an attorney in Houston. “Well, it seemed like he picked everything except the marijuana seed, which didn’t do a lot for his credibility with me since I was the judge!”
But that wasn’t the end. Police were incensed that Blackburn had brought a marijuana seed to court. (In a recent interview with the
Chronicle, Blackburn said it was “non germinating.”) They wanted to take custody of the seed to see if it would grow, so that they might charge Blackburn himself with marijuana possession. The judge refused.
He made a name for himself representing clients in civil lawsuits, from whistleblowers to people facing wrongful termination from their jobs. One involved a bus driver.
In the ‘90s, Blackburn represented a Black school bus driver whose kids attended a high school near Amarillo where the vast majority of students were white. The school arranged for the kids to attend because of their well-known basketball skills, even setting up a fake address for the family because they did not actually live in the area. The school’s losing basketball team began to do well, but “her kids were miserable there,” recalled Doug Murphy, an attorney based in Houston who worked for Blackburn’s office in Amarillo at the time.
The school district threatened to fire the bus driver if she withdrew her kids from the school. Blackburn managed to secure a hefty settlement for her, Murphy recalled.
He was the first Texas lawyer to get a jury to acquit someone of marijuana possession using a ‘medical necessity’ defense.
When Amarillo police arrested Tim Stevens for smoking marijuana on his porch in 2007, Blackburn took the case to trial — a rarity for a misdemeanor offense. Stevens was HIV-positive and suffered from cyclical vomiting. He explained to Blackburn that marijuana was one of his few avenues for relief.
Blackburn found an expert witness from New Mexico’s health department to help prove his case. The jury acquitted Stevens after deliberating for less than 15 minutes.
No witness was too far-fetched for Blackburn to call to the stand — including a dog.
Blackburn once represented a man who was attacked by a police dog in Amarillo but ended up being charged with harming the dog himself. During the resulting trial, Blackburn subpoenaed the dog so that the jury might be able to see how vicious it was.
The judge ordered the bailiff to bring in the dog during the trial, but the dog was so uncooperative it never made it inside. The jury heard the ruckus outside the courtroom, however. The verdict was not guilty.