mistake for Dane.
In a 1978 settlement conference, an unauthorized Shinn waived Dane’s right to a trial by jury and his right to appeal, among other things. Shinn also failed to show the court his client’s written estimation of the structure’s value, thereby waiving Dane’s right to testify.
And that was just the beginning. When a temporary judge granted Dane $200,000, Shinn deposited the check into a client trust account, according to documents. Shinn later admitted that over the next five years he borrowed against the accounts for personal use, holding Dane’s funds in five different trust accounts, opening and closing six different certificates of deposit or money market accounts and purchasing 11 cashier’s checks.
But the complicated accounting was almost legitimate, claimed Shinn.
The judge didn’t buy it. He said that Shinn improperly withdrew $180,693.03 from his client’s funds. Most had been repaid by the time of trial, but $20,000 was still outstanding. The judge demanded he repay the balance and compensate Dane for more than $50,000 worth of interest, according to documents.
Shinn was then disbarred. Shinn also represented Kenneth Earl Gay, who killed a Los Angeles police officer in 1983. Gay was convicted and sentenced to death. But 13 years later, while sitting on death row, the Supreme Court reversed the sentence, describing Shinn’s defense as “woefully inadequate.”
According to the Mercury News, Shinn didn’t tell Gay or the court about the pending State Bar and criminal investigations surrounding the Dane case. Additionally, Shinn did no investigation into Gay’s defense and spoke to witnesses only on their way into the courtroom. Gay became one of 26 inmates since 1987 to have their death penalty sentences reversed based on their lawyer’s poor performance.
The Crime Library, a Web site of Courtroom Television Network, described Shinn’s defense of Susan Atkins in the Manson trial as brief and added that, “For the most part the defense put forth a disap-
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 29, 2002. Read the original PDF.