Dedicated defender: Thompson is on a roll

By Denise M. Champagne
Posted: 5:32 pm Mon, February 7, 2011

Donald M. Thompson has always been a fighter of sorts.

As a young man in college, he worked as a bouncer and bartender, jobs prone to confrontations.

Now, as a defense attorney, he still considers himself a street fighter, just in nicer clothes.

His sort of self-deprecating humor belies his expertise and the quality of defense work that has exonerated numerous wrongfully convicted people, some of whom had been incarcerated for long periods of time.

“I’ve known Don for more than 20 years,” said Brian Shiffrin, one of Thompson’s partners at Easton, Thompson, Kasperek and Shiffrin. “It’s not merely his knowledge and his intelligence, but his dedication to his clients that distinguishes him from most other attorneys. When Don represents someone, he works unceasingly on his client’s behalf and doesn’t let roadblocks stop him from achieving what he thinks is right. It’s that perseverance that has enabled him to achieve the incredible successes.”

Those successes include proving Frank Sterling, Douglas Warney, Freddie Peacock and others were wrongfully convicted. Thompson’s hard work got them freed. His efforts have been rewarded with the New York State Defenders Association 2010 Service of Justice Award; the Charles F. Crimi Memorial Award from the New York State and Monroe County bar associations, recognizing his commitment to the legal needs of the poor and disadvantaged; and — most recently — the 2010 New York State Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Gideon Champion Justice Award.

“He is a wonderful person to know, to work with and have as a friend,” Shiffrin said about Thompson. “It’s great to be able to work with someone as a both a friend and a tremendous attorney. What you see is what you get. He’s just a loyal great guy.”

Thompson, a native of Gates, didn’t start out to be a lawyer. He got a dual degree in biology and chemistry at State University of New York at Plattsburgh and had actually planned on going to medical school, but started doing the math on how many more years of education and training he would need.

While working at the bar as an undergrad, he said one of the customers, an attorney, told him he seemed “kind of adrift” and suggested he sit in on a trial or two. Thompson was intrigued and decided to pursue what he called “the last refuge of the true generalist.”

He got his law degree from Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa, passing the Iowa Bar Exam shortly after graduation. One of the draws, he said tongue in cheek, is that the Iowa Bar is the only one in the country that offers the bar exam on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. He said results are released on Thursday, new attorneys may be sworn in on Friday and get to work on Monday.

Instead, he left on Saturday to return to Rochester. He passed the New York Bar and started volunteering for the Public Defender’s Office where he met Shiffrin, who was then head of the Appeals Section.

Thompson liked defense and appeals work and got his first office space in exchange for doing work for Petra H. Topping, who was handling the divorce of a waitress Thompson knew at a local bar.

“All good things in my life start out in a bar,” he joked, adding — on a more serious note — that Drake had a good litigation program and defense work was a chance to really do something to make a difference.

“Your clients really, really need you,” he said. “They got where they are for a reason. There’s a background there.”

He said everyone has a redeeming quality, acknowledging some may not have tapped it since the age of 4 or 5.

“I think that’s the part I’m good at is finding that or being willing to look for it,” Thompson said. “It’s always there. If ripping off a drug house is your best option, there’s a reason for that. A Rhodes Scholar doesn’t wake up and say, ‘I’m going to rob a drug house.’”

Thompson’s first case was a criminal driving while intoxicated matter, starting him on a long career path in criminal defense work.

“Criminal defense seemed like the highest stakes,” he said. “It seemed like the most important area where good efforts were needed most. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but figured I could work harder than anyone else.”

Thompson worked for more than 14 years to establish Sterling was innocent of the murder for which he was convicted and imprisoned. Sterling was exonerated last year when Thompson’s efforts also led to the exoneration of Peacock for a 1976 rape conviction. Warney served 10 years on a wrongful murder conviction before Thompson proved his innocence in 2006.

All three cases were part of Thompson’s work with the Innocence Project, a New York City-based national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individual through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

He became involved with the Innocence Project when he started working on the Sterling case. For more than 20 years, Thompson has maintained a private practice devoted to trial, appellate and post-appellate representation in criminal matters.

He has also served as counsel for defendants facing the death penalty and represented death row inmates in conjunction with the Southern Prisoners’ Defense League in state and federal habeas corpus proceedings and before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It is hard,” Thompson said. “It’s terribly hard. Every person you represent — that representation is going to affect the rest of their lives. That’s why we’re in this business. It’s not like you’re a librarian. You’re getting in there punching away and getting punched.”

Some of the punches come in the form of criticism. Thompson said his wife Cheryl usually steers him away from people at cocktail parties who start asking how he could defend criminals.

First of all, Thompson said he almost never knows if his client is guilty or not. That, he said, is up to the jury to decide and he doesn’t really care what others think because they don’t have the background and the understanding of criminal defense work to make an informed judgment.

Some people tell him they would like to be on the jury in capital cases or flip the execution switch.

“That’s just an uniformed opinion,” Thompson said. “That’s easy to say at a cocktail party. There isn’t a capital defendant that hasn’t had a life that’s more horrible to believe. It’s not easy to say that guy ought to die. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

He also sees irony in capital punishment.

“It’s wrong for the government to kill people to send a message that killing is wrong,” he said, noting that 75 percent of wrongful convictions are because of mistaken identities in cases that often have no physical evidence. He said 20 to 25 percent of DNA exonerated wrongful convictions were the result of false confessions.

“Cops are permitted to lie to suspects to get them to tell the truth,” Thompson said. “There’s another irony.”

He gets an encouragement from a Talmudic phrase he learned from Shiffrin which says “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers grow, grow …”

“That’s a way of saying that every human being has worth and is worth saving,” Thompson said. “How do you not represent those people? You have a moral obligation as a lawyer. If you walk away, you’re part of the injustice.”

Many clients of defense attorneys revile their representatives, Thompson said. Many have anger management problems. Still many are appreciative.

He keeps files of letters he receives from inmates. The funny ones he sometimes reads when he gets an award.

He calls his partners — including William T. Easton and Lawrence L. Kasperek — his heroes, “the best criminal defense attorneys” in Rochester.

Thompson and his wife, Cheryl (Wilber) Thompson, who is originally from Rochester, live in Penfield with their 16-year-old son Vaughn.