When lawyers have a mess on their hands,
they call Charles Sevilla
BY JOE MULLICH PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANK ROGOZIENSKI
CHARLES SEVILLA
· LAW OFFICE OF CHARLES SEVILLA
· TOP 10 SAN DIEGO SUPER LAW YERS:
2010–2011
· TOP 50 SAN DIEGO SUPER LAWYERS:
2008–2011
· CASES INCLUDE: U. S. V. MCTIERNAN
(2008); PEOPLE V. AULT (2004); AND
PEOPLE V. HEDGECOCK (1990)
· BOOKS INCLUDE: WILKES: HIS LIFE
AND CRIMES (BALLANTINE, 1990);
DISORDER IN THE COURT (W. W.
NORTON, 1992, 1999)
Petitions for habeas corpus before the
California Supreme Court tend to have
fairly long and legalistic titles, such as “Due
to the Pattern of Witness Intimidation,
Petitioner was Denied His Right to a Fair
Trial Under the 14th Amendment of the
U.S. Constitution.” The document filed
by attorney Charles M. Sevilla in 1987,
petitioning for the release of Herman
Martin, an insurance executive who was
convicted of murder, was an exception.
It said simply: “Something Is Wrong.”
“That’s a very unusual title for a
legalistic pleading,” says Sevilla, of the
Law Office of Charles Sevilla. “But I felt
something terrible had taken place in this
case. A lot of information never came out
in the trial, including that the defense
witnesses were intimidated by the law
enforcement investigator, and I needed to
do something unusual to get the clerk’s
attention because the case had already
been appealed and lost.”
The gambit worked. Martin’s conviction
for second-degree murder was overturned
based on misconduct by law enforcement,
and Martin, after pleading guilty to
voluntary manslaughter, was released
for time served. “Later,” Sevilla says,
“someone in the attorney general’s office
told me the petition got their attention
because the title was so unusual.”
Those three words—“Something Is
Wrong”—capture both Sevilla the sly
wordsmith, who has penned two satiric
novels about a bamboozling lawyer, and
Sevilla the voice of moral authority, who
instructs other lawyers about ethics.
Criminal defense attorney Bob Boyce
echoes a common sentiment when he calls
Sevilla “the lawyer I would turn to if I was in
trouble [with a case].”
Would and has. Five times, between
1985 and 2008, Boyce asked Sevilla to
handle appeals of his cases; four times
Sevilla has won. “In all four cases [that he
won],” Boyce says, “I really believed in the
clients, and I was devastated and bleeding
all over the courtroom after we lost. I think
of Chuck as the Mr. Wolfe character in Pulp
Fiction, the fix-it guy who John Travolta and
Samuel L. Jackson call when they have a
body in the trunk. When I have a mess on
my hands, I call Chuck.”
All four cases involved headline-
grabbing legal issues—prosecutorial
misconduct; jury misconduct; double
jeopardy; and failure of the court to allow
impeachment with Myspace materials.
