This year the Vanguard is honoring eight individuals in this community and around the region who have put forth exemplary work in the area of social justice and justice reform. Two of these individuals are honored posthumously.
It was a great honor that Steve Berlin worked as a member of the Vanguard Court Watch Editorial Board in 2011 until health conditions forced his resignation. It was nearly a year ago that Mr. Berlin passed away at the age of 66. On Saturday, we will present his wife, Linda Berlin, and his son, Eddie Berlin, with the honor.
Steve Berlin, who was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 8, 1946, was raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, and attended and graduated from the University of Chicago and Stanford Law School.
For nearly 40 years, Steve Berlin worked a criminal defense attorney, mainly as a public defender. He began his career in 1972, according to his obituary, in the Yolo County Public Defender’s Office.
He then went to work for the state Public Defender’s Office in Sacramento where he argued a number of death penalty cases before the California Supreme Court. It was at this point, in 1984, he was hired by the Marin County Public Defender’s Office to help represent David Carpenter.
Mr. Carpenter, known as the Trailside Killer, from 1979 to 1981 had raped and murdered five women, and was suspected of killing at least two others including UC Davis’ Ellen Hansen, who was killed while hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
In the second trial, in 1988, Mr. Carpenter was represented by Steve Berlin and fellow public defender Frank Cox. The trial was held in San Diego.
After just seven hours, the jury recommended a death sentence. However, according to one account on the trutv.com site, “A few months later, the jury forewoman, Barbara Durham, revealed something that could have made a difference. She told friends that she had been aware (or became aware during the trial) of Carpenter’s convictions in Los Angeles in 1984 for the Santa Cruz murders. She had concealed this fact during voir dire (or during the trial).”
According to the LA Times, “Superior Court Judge Herbert Hoffman ruled that jury forewoman Barbara Durham, through her knowledge of Carpenter’s previous death sentence for two 1981 Santa Cruz trail slayings, deprived him of his constitutional right to a fair trial.”
Judge Hoffman said that he was convinced of Mr. Carpenter’s guilt “without any questions,” and added “Regrettably, I have to make this finding.
“This is not one that is particularly gratifying to the court. . . . This is an absolute travesty that such a result could happen in such a case,” he said.
“This is not a popular decision in San Diego or in Marin County, but that’s what being a judge is about–making hard decisions as required by law,” said Stephen Berlin to the LA Times in 1989.
“That’s what this whole system is about–not 11 impartial jurors, not nine, but 12,” Judge Hoffman said.
The 1988 trial was estimated by Marin County officials to have cost more than $2 million. David Carpenter, now 83, remains alive on death row in San Quentin, oldest inmate in the state on death row.
Steve Berlin left the Public Defender’s Office in 1991 for a private practice. Mr. Berlin and two other attorneys founded Alternative Defenders, Inc. in 1994. The agency still provides private criminal defense lawyers to the Marin County courts for indigent defendants who cannot be represented by the Marin Public Defender’s Office because of professional conflicts of interest.
According to his obituary, “ADI was one of Steve’s proudest achievements.”
Mr. Berlin moved back to Davis in 2002, rejoining the Yolo County Public Defender’s Office in Woodland, where he served as one of the senior deputies until his cancer forced him to retire in 2009.
According to his obituary, “Steve will be remembered as a gifted attorney and a compassionate man who had an encyclopedic understanding of criminal law, yet always took the time and found the way to carefully explain to his clients what they were being charged with and what their options were, no matter what level of intelligence, understanding, or language they possessed.
“He represented each and every one of his thousands of clients with the utmost respect and dignity. He gave his all to all of his clients.”
It adds, “Steve was an avid motorcyclist for 45 years, having taken his last long ride a little over a year ago. He also enjoyed playing his 100-plus year-old banjo and listening to bluegrass music. He became a big hockey fan over the past nine years, while proudly watching his son Eddie play roller hockey in Davis, Woodland, Florida, and Toronto.”
On Saturday, November 9, Stephen Berlin will receive the Vanguard’s Award honoring the Attorney of the Year for his forty years of work on behalf of indigent defendants and social justice.
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—David M. Greenwald reporting
