The San Diego legal community lost one its giants yesterday. While arguing a motion in the downtown criminal courthouse, attorney Steve Cline collapsed and was later pronounced dead. He was 58.
I am in shock and sorrow as I write this. I came to know Steve during my 19 years with the Sheriff’s Department. He had a well-deserved reputation as one of the best-of-the-best criminal defense attorneys in the County. He was a zealous advocate for his clients, most of which were repeat high-level felons who were facing decades, if not life, in prison. Steve did not take the glamorous cases. He took the hard ones. He took the kind of difficult cases in which there was overwhelming evidence of a horrendous crime by an unsympathetic defendant (often a high-level gang member), and a “win” was defined as anything less than a life sentence. We attorneys love to think of ourselves as guardians of the rights of the accused to a fair trial, but few lawyers are willing to actually take on these kind of cases where the defendant is unsympathetic, committed an awful crime, and has no realistic possibility of being acquitted. Steve did, and he gave his clients what they needed and what any fair system of justice required: a strong advocate who would force the prosecution to prove his client’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
During most of my career as in-house legal counsel to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, I was responsible for advising the Detention Services Bureau (the jails). Steve always had several clients in jail, many of them in some kind of protective custody either because they were a target for jail violence, a perpetrator of jail violence, or both. When Steve would go to a jail to talk to his clients, they inevitably would complain to him about all the things they were being denied while in protective custody. Steve, of course, had my number on speed-dial, and he would frequently call me either to see if there was something that could be done to throw his client a bone, or to advise me that he was preparing a motion in court to order the jail facility commander to alter some of his client’s living conditions. He was not an unreasonable advocate. He knew his clients were often dangerous and had to be handled differently. So when he would call to plead for the facility commander to lessen some of the (necessarily) harsh conditions of confinement, he was always quick to suggest solutions that he believed would still provide sufficient security. Sometimes we were able to find a compromise, and sometimes not, but Steve always managed to be gracious and professional in his dealings with me. He would often begin his phone calls to me with, “It’s been a long time since I last bothered you, but……” When I retired from the Sheriff’s Department in March 2021, Steve offered me warm praise for being a reasonable adversary.
In December 2022, I received an email from the California JNE (“Jenny”) Commission, the investigative body of the State Bar that is responsible for researching and investigating attorneys who are being considered for judicial appointments. They wanted to know my personal and professional opinion of Steve. I was happy to tell them that I firmly believed that Steve would make an excellent judge because he possessed the highest level of integrity, and his decades of work on difficult felony cases made him uniquely qualified to preside over complicated criminal trials. (I also believed that as someone who spent his career representing criminal defendants, Steve would have a much more finely-tuned “BS detector” than most attorneys, which would serve him well as a judge). It is a great loss for the justice system that Steve did not get to take his place on the Superior Court bench, where I have no doubt he would have excellent as a judge and served with honor.
Earlier this year, I applied for an opening on the JNE Commission. Steve was one of three distinguished justice professionals from whom I sought a letter of recommendation. He enthusiastically agreed to recommend me, and his letter to the JNE Commission on my behalf was beyond what I was expecting. He concluded the letter with:
…No matter how contentious the issue of the day, Sanford and I always managed to find a way to address the matter effectively for the benefit of our respective offices. For that reason, I am forever grateful for Sanford’s guidance over the years and believe that he would be a very positive addition to the JNE Commission.
Steve was a consummate professional. He was also a gentleman, a scholar, and a fierce advocate for his clients. He was a model for how criminal defense attorneys should strive to represent their clients, conduct themselves in court, and treat other attorneys. The justice system is better for Steve’s decades of service.