The Law: The Panthers' Honky Lawyer

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When the Black Panthers sought a lawyer to defend Huey Newton on a murder charge a few years ago, so a popular story goes, they tested the attitude of Charles Garry in a long interview. "Are you as good as Perry Mason?" one of them growled at the white San Francisco attorney. "I'm better," Garry replied. "Both of us get our clients off, but Mason's are innocent."

The Panthers happily hired Garry —and they have never regretted it. At Newton's trial, Garry pictured the Panther "defense minister" as a selfless leader of his people and compared his message with that of Jesus, who said: "I came not to send peace but a sword." Despite a public clamor for revenge against Newton, who was accused of murdering a policeman during a Shootout in Oakland, he was convicted on the lesser charge of manslaughter. Now Garry, 60, is the top legal defender of other Panther leaders across the nation.

Last fall he became famous as the missing lawyer in the conspiracy trial of the Chicago Eight. Panther Bobby Scale demanded a delay in the trial because Garry was unavailable, recovering from gall bladder surgery. Eventually, a mistrial was declared in Scale's case because of his outbursts. So close is Garry to the Panthers that San Francisco police now call him whenever they issue a warrant for a member of the black militant organization.

Not Afraid. How did a honky lawyer win the complete trust of the Panthers? Garry says that they were looking for an able trial lawyer who could also "project the correct social views in defending his clients." He met all the requirements. Born in Bridgewater, Mass., he was the son of immigrant Armenian parents named Garabedian who later moved to California's Central Valley. He learned about discrimination at an early age. "I was called a goddamned Armenian," he recalls. "Until I finished grammar school, I think I had a fight every single night." After high school, Garry worked in a cleaning shop while attending the San Francisco Law School at night. A convert to socialism during the Depression, he began his career defending trade unions, which were then in their most militant period.

Garry denies ever having been a Communist. But when asked point-blank by the House Un-American Activities Committee some years ago, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer. In so many words, Garry says, "I told them to kiss my ass." Garry believes in socialism, and that belief is one of his closest links to the Panthers, who share his economic views. He also believes in Huey Newton, whom he first met after the Panther was charged with murder in 1967. Garry recalls that Newton had a bullet wound in the stomach and was being fed through a tube in his nose. "With all of that," says Garry, "here was a man who was not afraid. This man is a natural-born leader without any ego."