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Think we need to get in touch with this man!

Lawyer in prominent courts-martial maintains low profile himself

By GEORGE ESPER

FAIRFAX, Va. (August 22, 1999) - His law office is not much bigger than a

storage room tucked away on the second floor of a two-story brick building.

His name is not even among the attorneys listed on the outside.

Spinner has no business cards set out in the foyer. He has no staff

of investigators or researchers. His only employee is a part-time one - his

daughter.

Spinner is so low-key that he sometimes surprises even his own clients

expecting an entourage when he arrives to defend them.

" Where is everybody? " a client once asked him when he arrived in Tokyo

with only his briefcase and one bag.

" Well, " he replied, " this is all you get. "

Although he has been practicing law for 20 years and has at least 200

cases under his belt, Spinner is not exactly a marquee name. This is

not nie Cochran.

But in the world of military law, he's a star. In the past five years as a

civilian defense lawyer in military cases, the former career officer has been

at the center of one high-profile case after another, many of them

politically charged with sex and scandal and headlines:

Flinn, the B-52 bomber pilot whose affair with a married man led to

demands she be discharged, which in turn led to a national debate about

gender equality and morals in the armed forces.

Army Gen. Hale, accused of seducing the wives of his officers.

Marine Capt. Ashby, who faced court-martial this year in the

deaths of 20 people at an Italian ski resort after his low-flying fighter jet

severed a gondola cable.

The limelight is something new for the 48-year-old Spinner, who served as an

Air Force lawyer before retiring in 1994 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

His clients say he is an able, experienced counsel who is not afraid to

take on the establishment and who knows how to use the press to plead their

cases to the public.

His detractors within the military perceive him as sometimes using the

press to make the military justice system look bad.

" I'm not sure they understand that my intent is just to represent my

client and then engage in a public debate and let the public decide what they

will, " Spinner says.

The word has spread that he represents his clients so well, both as an

attorney and friend, that he has to pass some of his cases off to other

attorneys. " I don't even have my cards out, " he says.

And he adds, joking: " I'm a 20-year overnight sensation. "

The truth is, he says, " I never had a dream I want to grow up and be a

lawyer some day. "

Spinner once planned to become a pilot. At another stage, his strong faith

pointed him toward the seminary and a career as a minister, following in the

footsteps of his father.

Spinner, 70, who now lives in La Veta, Colo., is a retired

Presbyterian pastor. He retired from the Air Force as a personnel officer in

1972, then entered the seminary.

" He was a strong influence in my life, " says the son.

But then, in 1974, just as he was thinking of getting out of the Air Force

and studying divinity himself - with further plans to return as a military

chaplain - the Air Force offered him a deal he couldn't turn down: law school

and a chance to get out of remote Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota where

he was a missile launch officer.

In return he would spend a career in the Air Force, which was having

trouble keeping lawyers in the service. He received his law degree in 1977

from St. 's University School of Law in San , Texas, where he was

born. Eventually, he wound up teaching law at the Air Force Academy from

which he resigned as a cadet in 1970 to get married.

Outside of work, he participates in services, prayer and fellowship at the

Fairfax Covenant Church, just down the road from his office.

" It really keeps my feet on the ground and focused on the really important

things in life, " he says. " When you're in the middle of a hurricane - and

some of these cases have been like hurricanes because of the publicity and

press - it really is important that you know what the ultimate values are. If

I ever lose my sense of direction, then I'm not sure I can be effective for

my clients. "

Between the Hale and Ashby cases, he attended a religious group's

conference for attorneys and their spouses, which he called refreshing.

" It's through that that I can keep my marriage strong and my law practice

strong, " he says.

Ashby was acquitted in March of involuntary manslaughter in the ski

gondola deaths. But he was convicted in May of obstruction of justice for

helping get rid of a videotape shot during the flight. He was sentenced to

six months in confinement at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and dismissal from the

Marines. Spinner is appealing.

Carol , Ashby's mother, who sat through both trials, calls Spinner

" a man of God ... He believes in Rich and his innocence. and his family

opened their home to Rich. "

Ashby said in an e-mail response to written questions that he hired

Spinner over other high-profile attorneys because a family friend, also an

attorney, recommended him.

" We knew had the experience ..., " said Ashby. " We also like that he

was a devout Christian. "

Ashby recalled that the first time they met, Spinner made him feel

comfortable.

" I knew I could trust him, " Ashby said. " I felt like he truly believed in

my innocence. I also felt he didn't just want to defend me, but wanted to get

to know me as a person and a friend. I needed that because I would be

trusting him with my life. "

Besides, Ashby said, Spinner could " argue a point on the fly as if he had

practiced it all week. "

Spinner says his highest profile case was that of Lt. Flinn, the

United States' first and only B-52 woman pilot. In 1997, she was facing a

possible court-martial on charges of adultery and disobedience.

The then 26-year-old pilot was charged with having an affair with a

married civilian, lying about it to superiors and disobeying an order to end

it; she was also charged with fraternization for a brief affair with an

enlisted man.

Flinn initially held out for an honorable discharge, which would have

allowed her to fly in the reserves; the Air Force sought a general discharge,

under honorable conditions. In the end it came down to whether Flinn would

face a jail sentence if the case went to trial.

" I couldn't guarantee that she would not get jail time, and so she had to

factor that into her consideration, " recalls Spinner, who advised taking the

general discharge. In the end, that's what she did. Flinn declined to comment

for this article.

In the midst of heavy press coverage of that case, it was revealed that

Spinner had sent to the Secretary of the Air Force a list of cases of

officers who he says had engaged in comparable misconduct but who had not

been tried by court-martial.

" I never intended to disclose the identities, " he says. " I think it helped

but it also was combined with what I saw as public pressure to achieve a

reasonable outcome ... because people in their own experience questioned

whether this was the type of case that would go to a court-martial. "

Spinner knows how to use the press, say military prosecutors, including

Maj. Mike Mulligan, chief of criminal law for the III Armored Corps at Fort

Hood, Texas.

" I think Flinn was a press victory, " Mulligan says. " I think he got

out in front of the story that he wanted to tell ...

I don't think Flinn was a sex case. I think Flinn was about

disregarding orders, about lying, and if you ask Q. Public what

Flinn was about, it was a sex case. "

Mulligan was Spinner's adversary in the Hale case, and the prosecutor

says, " I consider him a student of the law. "

The Hale case ended in a plea bargain under which the general was heavily

fined but escaped prison time. Admitting sexual involvement with the wives of

officers serving under him, he pleaded guilty to seven counts of conduct

unbecoming an officer and one count of making false official statements.

The case that first brought Spinner to prominence was that of Air Force

Capt. Jim Wang. Wang was charged with dereliction of duty in an accidental,

" friendly fire " shootdown of two Black Hawk helicopters that killed 26 people

over Iraq in April 1994. A military jury cleared him a year later.

Wang had never heard of Spinner but hired him on the recommendation of his

military counsel.

" We weren't after high profile, " Wang said in a recent telephone interview

from his current duty station at Air Force Base in Illinois. " We were

after an individual that knew the ins and outs. "

Wang says they were able to capitalize on good media relations. " I know

that's one of the things that he takes advantage of, " he says.

Spinner also makes good use of the military counsel assigned to his

clients for preliminary work, including two lieutenant colonels in the Hale

case. The availability of military counsel is one reason he does not have a

large staff. The other is that he doesn't want the headaches of running an

office.

" I travel to the cases so I'm working out of their offices most of the

time, " says Spinner. " I'm a strong team player. On occasion, some of my

clients have said, `I'm not sure I trust my military lawyer. I may want to

fire him.' I say, `No, we're a team.' They know the local territory and the

judges and the personalities at their base and in their offices. "

Spinner adds his own expertise. " I understand military juries. I

understand military commanders. I know where the skeletons are buried in the

military justice system. "

Military attorneys, alternating between service as defense counsel,

prosecutors and judges, feel pressures that civilian lawyers do not, Spinner

says.

" There is a certain reluctance to be too outspoken because you're really

part of the system, " he says. " There may be concerns about promotion, about

my next assignment. "

ph E. Cazenavette, an attorney who worked with Spinner in the Air

Force and who now practices civilian law in the same building, says when

Spinner steps into a case the opposition gets uneasy.

" They know, " he says, " that when enters the scene, it could be a

high profile case that will become media noise. They don't like the light

shining on them. They'll go to any end to try to dispense with the case... "

Why does he embrace the media?

Spinner says: " I see it as we're waging a war. We're fighting for my

client in court but we're fighting for my client's reputation out of court. "

Helping with the media and with running his office when he is on the road

- 80,000 frequent flyer miles a year - is the youngest of his three

daughters, , 24, a finance major at Mason University.

When he retired from the Air Force, he thought he would be playing golf.

" My wife had a good income, " he says. " With her income and my retirement pay

from the Air Force we're in six digits. So what I'm making from my law

practice is just gravy. "

His wife, a, a senior cost analyst with a private firm, has accepted

his frequent absences, going back to his days in the military. " She knows

that this is my passion and she respects that. "

Spinner feels he's doing just what he should. " If I were not doing what

I'm doing now, I would probably be in some form of Christian lay work. That

would be my next choice. If I was faithful, and if God put me here to do this

type of work, then he would bless my work. I believe that's happened. "

©1999 Nando Media ©1999 Associated Press

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 99-08-24 14:38:59 EDT, Gceelliott writes:

<< I remember that we discussed putting in an ad into USA Today, and the cost

was an issue. What about putting an ad in the Army Times or the Navy Times

or the Marine Corps Times or the Air Force Times??? This would probably be

much cheaper and this would also be seen by a lot more military service

members. >>

Checking into that very thing now as a matter of fact.