Pubdate: Sat, 21 Sep 2002
Source: Times-Picayune, The (LA)
Copyright: 2002 The Times-Picayune
Contact:  http://www.nola.com/t-p/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/848
Author: Gwen Filosa, Staff writer/The Times-Picayune
Cited: National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws 
http://www.norml.org/
Cannabis Action Network http://www.cannabisaction.net/
Police Association of New Orleans http://www.pano1544.com/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Gary+Wainwright

DA CANDIDATE HAS MAVERICK STYLE

Wainwright Extols Value of Marijuana

Gary Wainwright, the feisty criminal defense attorney running for
Orleans Parish district attorney, talks bold.

He routinely calls police officers "perjurers" in open court, rants
that the nation's war on drugs is a racist, violent mess, and extols
marijuana for purposes both medicinal and otherwise.

With the city's favorite son a known fan of the same herb, Wainwright
doesn't hesitate to proclaim: "Louis Armstrong would be a supporter if
he were alive today."

When Wainwright, 48, says he has lived in Criminal District Court on
Tulane Avenue for the past dozen years, first as a public defender and
then under his own shingle, few insiders would call it hyperbole. He
is a fixture there, part of a breed of New Orleans lawyers dedicated
to the unglamorous trenches of criminal law.

Day in and day out, Wainwright's confident swagger and trademark
mustache are fixtures in the halls. "Tulane and Broad is a lifestyle,
not a job," he likes to say.

He estimates he has helped resolve at least 3,000 felony cases, more
than 100 of which went to trial.

Switching sides, from defense to prosecution, should send a message to
the city's criminals, Wainwright said. "You want to strike a chord of
fear?" he asked wryly. "Hire their best lawyer away from them."

Wainwright is markedly unlike anyone in the race: a self-styled
maverick calling for an end to criminal prosecution of minor drug
possession and for a moratorium on the death penalty in Louisiana.

He is also facing his own misdemeanor charge for possession of
marijuana from an arrest at a Carnival parade in February. He has
pleaded innocent.

With no big money or endorsements, and no high-profile political
backers, Wainwright is free to play the anti-establishment
alternative. He has spent about $10,000, more than half out of his own
pocket. But while his competitors have coolly ignored him on the
campaign trail, Wainwright refuses to play odd man out.

"I am not a politician," he said. "I've never been appointed to
anything by a politician."

Playing to twentysomethings who think mainstream candidates don't
speak for them and baby boomers turned off by glossy political ads,
Wainwright has hit the campaign trail as doggedly as he tackles his
court cases.

While he isn't expected to come close to winning, Wainwright could
very well affect the final ballot count, said defense attorney Joseph
Meyer Jr., who made his own long-shot run for district attorney in
1996.

"He's going to get his share of the votes," Meyer said. "He's going to
be ahead of the fringe candidates but he's going to hurt somebody or
help somebody, depending on how you look at it. In an eight-man race,
if he gets a handful of votes he will have an impact on the election."

'Passion for Clients'

Charles Gary Wainwright was born in Hammond, the oldest of five, to a
mother who had emigrated from Cuba and a father who grew up on dairy
farms in Tangipahoa Parish and worked in construction. Wainwright
excelled at school and at age 12 enrolled in the governor's program
for gifted children, held at McNeese State University. He recalls
having his own lab in the chemistry building at his local college
campus and spent most of his time reading and studying. In 1966, he
said, his IQ rocked the charts.

"I had the highest IQ ever measured in the state of Louisiana," he
said. "I'm a genius."

At 19, Wainwright took off for South America to work for his family's
oil-field catering company, traveling through Bolivia, Colombia and
Peru. By 1979, he had earned a business degree from Millsaps College
in Jackson, Miss. He worked on business ventures, acting as the U.S.
representative for the Brazilian paper products industry for five
years and later sold insurance for a spell in New Orleans.

Law school entered the picture when he was 32, a fresh start after his
first marriage ended in tandem with the paper products business. Legal
work and the adversarial process suited Wainwright, and he headed
straight for Orleans Parish.

Among the cast of characters at Tulane and Broad, Wainwright is as
colorful as they come. He has exasperated his share of judges and
prosecutors with his whirlwind, at times flamboyant, arguments, but
wins his share of cases.

James Boren, a Baton Rouge attorney for whom Wainwright worked as a
law clerk while in school, calls his longtime friend a bright,
energetic lawyer. Boren, who has practiced criminal defense law since
1976, said he isn't involved in Wainwright's political bid but admires
the effort.

"He has more passion for his clients and his cases than most lawyers,
and I respect that," said Boren, who is representing Wainwright in his
criminal case. "He has great courage to take on the political
establishment, both in court and in his campaign."

Campaign Called Joke

But to many police officers who are in the drug trade's crossfire,
Wainwright's verbal antics are simply offensive. The law-and-order
stalwarts openly call his campaign a joke.

"I'd give Bozo the Clown the same kind of consideration," said Lt.
David Benelli, president of the Police Association of New Orleans.
"He's such an insignificant candidate. There is no way he'll be DA but
he's getting what he wants, attention for his preposterous theories on
decriminalizing drugs."

Auto theft, burglaries and other crimes in New Orleans can be directly
linked to narcotics use, Benelli said. It is "ludicrous," he said, for
a candidate for district attorney to be talking about taking the
emphasis off drug prosecution.

Wainwright drew similar ire when he represented John Dorsey, who
admitted shooting police officer Juan Barnes twice after making a
crack deal inside the Fischer public housing complex in Algiers.
Wainwright helped broker a plea bargain of 15 years for Dorsey, but
when the plan was made public, police and victims' advocates howled.

During a court hearing in January, Wainwright argued that Barnes, who
almost lost a leg from the gunfire, was yet another victim of the
nation's war on drugs that puts police in danger. His sweeping
statements infuriated many in the police community, who wanted to see
Dorsey put away for the maximum 50 years that the attempted murder
charge carried.

When Wainwright flippantly compared the Barnes shooting to that of a
U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, he was treated to a flood of angry,
threatening phone calls at his office.

Judge Calvin Johnson eventually sentenced Dorsey to 25 years for the
shooting and cocaine-related charges. Wainwright insists his
subsequent marijuana arrest was payback for representing a
cop-shooter.

Decriminalize, Not Legalize

Wainwright, who has worked for years on behalf of groups such as
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and the
Cannabis Action Network, is quick to correct those who sum up his
platform as "legalize pot." He believes marijuana should be
decriminalized: no indictments for possession of a pipe encrusted with
residue or a small amount of marijuana.

In his view, these are petty cases that waste time and money at court.
A recent Metropolitan Crime Commission study found that one of every
four convictions at Criminal Court were for first-offense marijuana.

Offenders caught with "hard" drugs, like heroin or cocaine, need
treatment and not a jail cell, said Wainwright, who says the drug laws
disproportionately affect African-American men.

"Cocaine dealing and heroin dealing will never be eliminated from the
city of New Orleans or from the planet Earth," he said. "We have to
focus on finding a pathway that minimizes the harm to society from
people consuming drugs."

Wainwright compares the war on drugs to the era of alcohol
prohibition, except he points out that back then possessing alcohol
wasn't a crime -- smuggling and selling it was. "We had enough common
sense in the 1920s to understand the government could never police the
private behavior of every American citizen inside their own homes," he
said.

He tailors his arguments for his audience. In more formal settings,
such as campaign forums, Wainwright makes his case in academic terms.

"Those who say medical marijuana sends the wrong message, what is the
message? That we live in a brutally insensitive society?" he asked.
"It's not rational. How can you prohibit the growing of an
agricultural crop used for paper, oil, clothing?"

But at his recent campaign fund-raiser dubbed the "Hip-Hop Smokin'
Jam," held at a club on Earhart Boulevard, Wainwright appeared in a
white polo shirt embroidered with a small green marijuana leaf and
pants made from hemp. Between rap acts, he took the stage and cut loose.

"I am a pot smoker. I can't stand in front of my own house, which I
pay taxes on, with my next-door neighbor and burn one," he said,
drawing cheers. "That's a crime."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake