Guns and wire taps: a mob lawyer's career

In 1964, Oscar Goodman graduated from Penn Law School and headed for Las Vegas. He left with only his car, the shirt on his back and his wife. "The rest is history," said Law School Dean Colin Diver in introducing the defense attorney for reputed mobsters to a crowd at the Law School last week. Goodman called himself a "dinosaur" whose courtroom gambits have been rendered meaningless by mandatory sentencing laws. But for almost all of his speech, he delighted the audience with often outrageous anecdotes from his storied career. Goodman, who played himself in the 1995 film Casino, said he became a trial lawyer by accident. A day after making small talk with some card dealers on a Las Vegas casino floor, he received a phone call at his room in the Hacienda hotel. The caller was a "porno king" who got Goodman's name through the card dealers. "Mr. Goodman," the man on the phone said. "Come to 1500 South 15th Street." "What about?" Goodman replied. "You just go there." Needless to say, he did. Upon arriving, a man handed him an envelope. "There's three dimes in here," the man said, explaining that an associate of his had been arrested. "You better win the case." Back in his car, Goodman discovered what a "dime" actually meant -- $1,000. Soon after, he won his first case. Some years later, Goodman worked on a case involving wiretapping. This case somehow established him as a "wiretap expert," a label he disavows. But when federal investigators raided underworld hideouts in 20 cities based on wiretap evidence shortly thereafter, Goodman defended 19 of the raids' targets. During the wiretapping cases, Goodman explained, one of his clients noticed that a prosecutor had signed his name differently on two documents. Goodman investigated and discovered that the prosecutor's deputy had signed documents without authorization. All the wiretap cases were dismissed. "Everything I was touching was turning into gold," he said. The lesson Goodman had learned -- to take his clients' input seriously -- was only the first he related to an audience of many prospective lawyers. Another rule of thumb -- one that has landed Goodman in hot water for breaking -- is to watch what you say. Upon leaving a courtroom, Goodman once told the press that his client was "gutty." The next day's headline read: "Defense Lawyer Says Client Is Guilty." And when Goodman warned a prosecutor that he was going to "bury" that prosecutor, he soon faced a grand jury for intent to murder. But Goodman managed to avoid indictment. In closing, Goodman criticized the federal government's mandatory sentences for drug offenses. He said these "draconian" minimum sentences have made him feel disillusioned with the justice system, as he has seen the nation's jail population grow dangerously large. To illustrate his point, he told of a client who recently received life imprisonment without parole. The youth had been caught smoking marijuana twice and was then arrested for possession of crack cocaine. "This is a 21-year-old black kid from the projects," Goodman said. "It's a lack of opportunity [that made him do drugs]. He doesn't deserve a life sentence." He said he feels handcuffed by the sentencing guidelines, because he is unable to fight for punishment proportionate to the crime. Several Law students in the audience agreed with Goodman. Third-year Law student Elizabeth Preate said the mandatory sentences have not imprisoned the people lawmakers intended them to -- the "drug kingpins." She added that she understands people are "fed up" with crime, but that different solutions are needed. First-year Law student Kesari Ruza argued that mandatory sentencing unfairly targets the poor, while white-collar crimes go relatively unpunished. Both students said Goodman's talk inspired them to consider defense law as a career path.