BY DAVID NOONAN n the night ofJuly 15,1978, Ed Can- people figured, was Issue the ultimate in- \ trell, the director of public safety in junction. Rock Spriiigs, Wyoming, shot an under Although the state was not seeking the ^ covernarcotics agentnamed Michael Rosa death penalty, Cantrell wasn't optimistic, between the eyes at point-blank range, after twenty-eight years as a Wyoming killing him instantly. Cantrell said it was lawman, about his life expectancy inside a self-defense, but nobody believed him— prison. Whathe needed was the best law not even the other two cops who were in yer he couldfind; and when you need the : the car with him and Rosa when the shoot best lawyer you can findin Wyoming, you , ing occurred. Cantrell was charged with call up Gerry Spence, the man who does first-degree murder, and on the streets not lose. So Cantrell's lawyer phoned and in the bars and newspapers of Wyo Spence and asked if he mi^t be inter- j ming he was branded a cold-blooded ested in handling the case. Spence said i executioner. no, he wasn't inclined to get involved Nobody believed Ed Cantrell when he with any "goddamn assassin." Then he said it was a case of kill or be killed, be thought about it awhile and finally a^eed cause MichaelRosa's gun had never left its to meet with Cantrell and hear his side of holster. And nobody believed him because the story. Rosa died just two days before he was "Ten minutes after I met Ed Cantrell, I. scheduled to testify to a grand jury inves knew he was telling the truth," Spence DAVID NOONAN ts o Writer who lives and works in New York. He last Reared in these pages with tigatingviceandofficial corruptioninRock says now. "And I knew I had to try to save a report on the California marijuana industry. Springs. WhatEd Cantrellhaddone, most his life." ESQUIRE/MAY 1981 HOME ON THE RANGE GERRY SPENCE LIVES WITHIN HEART-STOPPING VIEWOFTHETETON MOUNTAINS. AMID THE GREAT HOLY EMPTINESS OF WYOMLNG. THE NULLIONAIRE LAWYER ALSO OWNS A35,000-ACRE WORKING CATTLE RANCH NEARBY. rich, musical voice Spence has been hon fter practicinglawfor twenty-seven "The courtroom is ing since he first discovered its power, > / a ypars in the relative obscurity of a place ofblood and back when he was a boy singing in church the Mountain West, Gerry Spence gained choirs. With that voice, deep and clearand national recognition in 1979 when he won death," says Gerry full of western soul, Spence can blow the a $10.5-million settlement against the roof offor put the baby to sleep. He can cut Kerr-McGee Corporation in the heavily through the heightened nervous buzz that publicized Karen Silkwood plutonium- envelops men when they find themselves contamination suit, which is generally con and real death." on ajury, charged \vith the impossibletask sidered the most important nuclear en ofseeing the truth in strangers; he can cut ergy-related court case to date. That That's the big angle through it and convince them that the recognition was reinforced this wnter for him—the one truth reposes there, right there, in the when Spence won a libel judgmentagainst eyes of his client. Penthouse magazine wordi S26.5 million— fact he falls back As well known as he is for his way with the largest standing libel award in history. juries, Spence is equally renowned for the Thesevictories were certainly no surprise on when all else phenomenal amount of work he and his to Spence, whose enormous self-confi staff put in before a trial begins. In the dence borders on egomania. Nor were sinks from sight. Cantrell case, Spence's obsessive pretrial they a surprise to those familiar vAth his preparation eliminated two major stum record: Spence handles only criminal bling blocks—the general perception of cases and big-money civil suits, and he trail was going to be the next one to walk. Michael Rosa as an innocent victim and hasn't lost one in ten years. That was among the problems facing the credibility of the grand jury Rosa Outside the West, though, Spence was Gerry Spence as he delivered his opening was scheduled to testify before. something brand-new, and when he won statement to the twelve people who would Spence took care of the grand jury dur the Silkwood case the media ate it for decide whether or not Ed Cantrell was ingthe unusually longpreliminaryhearing, breakfast. Spence was the cowboy who guilty of first-degree murder. Those who held nearly a year before the trial itself. beat the corporation, the Lone Ranger have seen Spence in court—whether Originally impaneled to investigate allega lawyer who rode mto Oklahoma, doffed they've seen him once or seen him many tions of statewide political corruption, the his six-hundred-gallon cowboy hat, and times—all remark on the near-mysterious jury, Spencesaid, had come up with "just whomped "the men ingray," as he dubbed contact he makes with members of the piddly little things that made them look the panel of lawyers representing Kerr- jury. At times, it seems as though he is sillyto the press." By the time the grand McGee. Gerry Spence was great copy—a casting a spell; in fact, an opposing at jury got to Rock Springs, he argued, it was millionaire, a cattle rancher, a poet, a torney once told a judge that he was con- desperate for a fall ^y. In the course of painter, a g^uine western Renaissance \inced Spence ^as literally hypnotizing the three-week hearing, Spence exposed man. But above all he was a master at the jury. That is not the case, Spence a pattern of deception, intimidation, and torney, and when the Silkwood verdict says; "1just talk western." cover-up (complete \vith shreddedfiles) in came in he found himselfelevated to mem Of course, he does do a bit more than the grand jury's handling of its Rock bership in the exclusive club that includes just talk western to the folks on a jury. He Springsinvestigation andinits subsequent E Lee Bailey, Melvin Belli, Racehorse has grown up with and perfected the handling of the CantreO case. That be Haynes, and fewer than a handful ofothers down-home idiom in all its forms, from the havior was orchestrated by the special who are touted as the best trial lawyers in easygoingmanner of the front-porchphi prosecutors in charge of the grand jury, the country. losopher to the fevered pitch of the coun Spencelater told the Cantrell jury, and it "I really don't know what that means," try preacher in the grip of divine inspira was motivated by their need for a Big Spence says of his sudden emergence as tion. His simple narrative style relaxes Case. one of the nation's legal elite. "I only know jurors; it relievesthem to hear plain talkin Spence's pretrial investigation of Mi I have to ^vin because I can't stand the pain a placeas foreign as a courtroom. On top chael Rosa enabled him to portray the of losing." ofthat, Spence is in a position to take only twenty-nine-yeai'-old New York-raised those cases he believes in, and so he can Puerto Rican as a failed policeman, a drug invest tus owm passions in each case and user and dealer, and an unstable, paranoid 3 hetrialofEdCantrellbeganinmid- communicate those passions to the jury. personality. It also enabled him to show f3 November 1979, sixteen months He opens himselfup to the jurors and asks the jury that Rosa had no evidence to pre after the shooting and six months after them totrust him; helets t^em know that sent to a grand jury that could have been Spence's Wctory in the Silkwood case. So he trusts them, that they are good and damaging to Ed Cantrell. conscious of his reputation had Spence be honest people who want to do the right After Spence had laid all that out, sup come that during the jury-selection pro thing; he lets them know, too, that he ported it with eridence, and defended it cess he asked potential jurors whether wants them to do just that, so they are in it with cross-examination, it finally all came any of them "would hold it against Ed Can- together and they must help and love one down to the actual shooting—to that es trell because he hired this flamboyant hot another and get to the bottom of this great sentially western blinkofan eye when Ed shot that gets people off." human problem that has been laid before Canirell drew his gun and shot Michael A change of venue had moved the trial them—this problem of Ed Cantrell, "my Rosa. from Sweetwater County, where the town good friend Ed." In time, it becomes a Cantrell is a soft-spoken man of fifty- of Rock Springs is located, north to Sub- kindof group therapy session; it is Spence three, with a thin, rugged face set off by lette County. One of the things working andthe jury against the world, as they look crystal-blue eyes and a white brush mous against Cantrell was the fact that the peo to him for clarity. And he gives them clar tache. Up until thetime ofthe Rosa shoot ple of Sublette County had watched suc ity the way a good teacher does—with a ing his record was, as they say, un cessive murder trials in their courthouse blackboard (a trademark of Spence's blemished.