CALL ME PHAEDRA. Lise Pearlman

       Every Negro ever convicted of killing a police officer has died in the gas chamber. So what chance did I have?1

      DEATH-ROW INMATE AARON MITCHELL INTERVIEWED THE DAY OF HIS EXECUTION ON APRIL 12, 1967

       I don’t remember anyone thinking that Huey Newton, a person who advocated the use of guns, could shoot an Oakland police officer and expect to walk away from it. Everyone thought that surely he would be convicted of first-degree murder.2

      PIONEERING AFRICAN-AMERICAN TV REPORTER BELVA DAVIS

      By late October 1967, Fay might have thought she knew what her opportunity would be. Oakland made international headlines following a blockade of the Oakland Induction Center by thousands of demonstrators during Stop the Draft Week. The largest anti-war protest to date began on October 16 and ended several days later when demonstrators were forcibly dispersed by heavily reinforced police armed with pellet guns, stun grenades and nightsticks. Covering the confrontation for her San Francisco TV station, cub reporter Belva Davis knew she was witnessing history: “The Bay Area felt like ground zero in a generational battle for the soul of the country.”³ Charles Garry signed up to be lead counsel for seven activists arrested for organizing Stop the Draft Week. But barely a week later he got a call to take on an even bigger challenge.

      The lead story in The Oakland Tribune on October 28, 1967, blamed a local black militant named Huey Newton for an early morning shootout in West Oakland resulting in the death of one Oakland policeman and the wounding of another. At the time, Garry knew little about the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense or its co-founder, who lay hospitalized with a bullet wound in his abdomen. A few days later, when Charles Garry poked his head into Fay’s cubicle on his way to see his new client in the hospital, Fay jumped at the chance to accompany him.

      Garry really could not handle another high-profile case at the same time as he agreed to lead the Oakland Seven defense team. Yet Garry could not resist Beverly Axelrod’s urgent plea for help. Beverly and her new lover Eldridge Cleaver had befriended Huey Newton the prior spring. The two had helped launch the Panther underground newspaper in Beverly’s living room just weeks before the mainstream media first focused on the Black Panthers as a dangerous new militant group from Oakland, California who prompted the state’s enactment of strict new gun control laws.

      Garry developed instant empathy for Newton when Garry had rushed with Beverly to the hospital to meet the accused cop killer. Fay, too, would never forget the impact of seeing Huey Newton lying half-naked under armed guard as he recovered from life-saving surgery. At first sight, she felt a strong sexual attraction. She also reacted with indignation at his helpless condition. She would do whatever it took to save Newton’s life. It would be a monumental task.

      Staunch opponents of the death penalty like Fay Stender and Charles Garry knew that Governor Reagan had strongly endorsed capital punishment in his 1966 campaign. In April 1967, the popular new governor had followed through by declining to halt the execution of an African-American man on death row for killing a policeman in a botched robbery. Sending a leader of black militants like Huey Newton to the gas chamber for another officer’s death would be a crowning achievement for Governor Reagan. The path to save Huey Newton’s life would be to win his acquittal at trial — an unheard-of result when the victim was a policeman.

      Charles Garry planned a two-pronged approach: a super-aggressive defense in court raising every possible factual and legal issue, and a major publicity campaign. For both aspects Fay’s skills would be essential — particularly in researching and writing motions addressed to technical defects in the prosecution. Garry had developed no skills of his own in this critical area.

      First, publicity was needed to generate sympathy for Newton as a victim of police aggression and to harness support for the Panthers. The small militant group already had gained admiration in the local black community for lobbying for stoplights at dangerous intersections and for challenging oppressive police tactics. In addition, unlike Stokely Carmichael and other black militants, the Panthers welcomed the support of radical whites. The Panthers had been impressed by white anti-war activists arrested during Stop the Draft Week and wanted to reach out to the coalition already rallying in support of the Oakland Seven.

      Fay had two quick assignments addressing both the legal and political angles. A local physician contacted their office after she saw the photo of Huey Newton grimacing in pain, his arms pulled back by tight handcuffs securing him to the gurney. The doctor was appalled that Kaiser staff had allowed police to aggravate their patient’s injury while he was awaiting abdominal surgery. Garry immediately asked Fay to file a lawsuit against Kaiser Hospital for malpractice. Garry then trumpeted Newton’s ordeal to the press as another example of how black men were systematically mistreated. Garry also directed Fay and Alex Hoffmann to prepare papers seeking to compel the prosecutor to reveal evidence taken from the crime scene — ballistics reports, police files related to the Black Panthers, anything that might be useful to the defense.