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High-profile attorney takes Souza case
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By Tim Omarzu
Marinscope Newspapers
M. Gerald “Gerry” Schwartzbach, a Mill Valley criminal defense attorney who in 2005 got actor Robert Blake acquitted of murdering his wife, has agreed to represent San Quentin inmate Frank Souza.
Souza faces the death penalty for murdering Edward Schaefer of Novato last July in the prison’s exercise yard with a “bone crusher,” a weapon made from bunk-bed metal. Schaefer had just entered prison on a sentence of 24 years to life for killing Melody Osheroff, 9, and tearing the leg off her father, Aaron Osheroff, on May 28, 2009, when a drunken Schaefer slammed his Harley-Davidson motorcycle into the Osheroffs as they were walking in a pedestrian crosswalk on San Marin Drive.
Souza is serving a life term for killing a homeless man in San Jose in 2007.
Schwartzbach met three times with Souza before agreeing to represent him. One thing they discussed was the “White Power” tattoo that covers Souza’s forehead.
“That was obviously something we addressed on our first interview,” Schwartzbach said. “I’m obviously Jewish. I needed to know if that was an issue.”
Being anti-Semitic, alone, wouldn’t stop Schwartzbach from representing a client.
He spent 13 years fighting to free Glen “Buddy” Nickerson from prison for murdering two men in San Jose in 1984, because Schwartzbach was convinced of Nickerson’s innocence. Another man whose blood was DNA-matched to the crime scene said he had never met Nickerson and that Nickerson wasn’t at the crime scene.
Soon after his release by a federal judge in 2005, Nickerson had laser surgery to get his racist tattoos removed in gratitude for Schwartzbach’s help.
Schwartzbach has represented a wide range of clients, including members of the Black Liberation Army in a case of attempted murder of Detroit police officers in the early ’70s, when Schwartzbach was an attorney doing civil poverty work for VISTA, the domestic version of the Peace Corps.
In Marin County, Schwartzbach is probably best known for successfully defending Stephen Bingham, a Yale-educated civil rights attorney who was accused of smuggling a handgun into Black Panther George Jackson’s possession in a failed 1971 escape attempt from San Quentin that resulted in the death of Jackson, two other inmates and three prison guards. Bingham was a fugitive in Europe for 13 years before deciding to return in 1984 and stand trial in Marin.
“I work very hard on all my cases,” said Schwartzbach, who was nicknamed “the badger,” by actor Robert Blake. He earned the moniker for his “dogged efforts to dig out the tiniest shred of evidence and chew at it endlessly till it had given up all its clues,” said a 2010 article in the publication Northern California Super Lawyers.
“I intend everything I need to do to provide quality representation to Mr. Souza,” Schwartzbach said. “It’s going to take, it always takes, an enormous effort.”
Alternate Defenders Inc., a San Rafael nonprofit organization, spent weeks searching for an attorney for Souza after the public defender’s office declined to represent Souza due to conflict of interest, because it represented Schaefer in the Osheroff case.
ADI Program Administrator Jim Nielsen described Schwartzbach as “one of the best attorneys in the state.”
“I contacted him on the off chance he might be interested. I was kind of surprised [that he was],” Nielsen said.
Schwartzbach said he initially dismissed the idea out of hand, but changed his mind after considering various legal and personal issues in the three weeks prior to taking the case.
“I didn’t think I wanted to put myself or my family through another capital case,” he said. “I didn’t seek it out. I’ve represented two other men in capital trials, but haven’t been involved in one since 1995.”
His first order of business will be asking the Marin Superior Court to assign a second attorney to Souza’s case. In a 1982 case, Schwartzbach convinced the California Supreme Court to establish the right of defendants in death-penalty murder cases to have two court-appointed attorneys.
Souza faces the death penalty for murdering Edward Schaefer of Novato last July in the prison’s exercise yard with a “bone crusher,” a weapon made from bunk-bed metal. Schaefer had just entered prison on a sentence of 24 years to life for killing Melody Osheroff, 9, and tearing the leg off her father, Aaron Osheroff, on May 28, 2009, when a drunken Schaefer slammed his Harley-Davidson motorcycle into the Osheroffs as they were walking in a pedestrian crosswalk on San Marin Drive.
Souza is serving a life term for killing a homeless man in San Jose in 2007.
Schwartzbach met three times with Souza before agreeing to represent him. One thing they discussed was the “White Power” tattoo that covers Souza’s forehead.
“That was obviously something we addressed on our first interview,” Schwartzbach said. “I’m obviously Jewish. I needed to know if that was an issue.”
Being anti-Semitic, alone, wouldn’t stop Schwartzbach from representing a client.
He spent 13 years fighting to free Glen “Buddy” Nickerson from prison for murdering two men in San Jose in 1984, because Schwartzbach was convinced of Nickerson’s innocence. Another man whose blood was DNA-matched to the crime scene said he had never met Nickerson and that Nickerson wasn’t at the crime scene.
Soon after his release by a federal judge in 2005, Nickerson had laser surgery to get his racist tattoos removed in gratitude for Schwartzbach’s help.
Schwartzbach has represented a wide range of clients, including members of the Black Liberation Army in a case of attempted murder of Detroit police officers in the early ’70s, when Schwartzbach was an attorney doing civil poverty work for VISTA, the domestic version of the Peace Corps.
In Marin County, Schwartzbach is probably best known for successfully defending Stephen Bingham, a Yale-educated civil rights attorney who was accused of smuggling a handgun into Black Panther George Jackson’s possession in a failed 1971 escape attempt from San Quentin that resulted in the death of Jackson, two other inmates and three prison guards. Bingham was a fugitive in Europe for 13 years before deciding to return in 1984 and stand trial in Marin.
“I work very hard on all my cases,” said Schwartzbach, who was nicknamed “the badger,” by actor Robert Blake. He earned the moniker for his “dogged efforts to dig out the tiniest shred of evidence and chew at it endlessly till it had given up all its clues,” said a 2010 article in the publication Northern California Super Lawyers.
“I intend everything I need to do to provide quality representation to Mr. Souza,” Schwartzbach said. “It’s going to take, it always takes, an enormous effort.”
Alternate Defenders Inc., a San Rafael nonprofit organization, spent weeks searching for an attorney for Souza after the public defender’s office declined to represent Souza due to conflict of interest, because it represented Schaefer in the Osheroff case.
ADI Program Administrator Jim Nielsen described Schwartzbach as “one of the best attorneys in the state.”
“I contacted him on the off chance he might be interested. I was kind of surprised [that he was],” Nielsen said.
Schwartzbach said he initially dismissed the idea out of hand, but changed his mind after considering various legal and personal issues in the three weeks prior to taking the case.
“I didn’t think I wanted to put myself or my family through another capital case,” he said. “I didn’t seek it out. I’ve represented two other men in capital trials, but haven’t been involved in one since 1995.”
His first order of business will be asking the Marin Superior Court to assign a second attorney to Souza’s case. In a 1982 case, Schwartzbach convinced the California Supreme Court to establish the right of defendants in death-penalty murder cases to have two court-appointed attorneys.
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