Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2004 | 11:08 a.m.
Las Vegas attorney Harry E. Claiborne was as fiercely independent as the state of Nevada.
So much so, his friends say, he was unyielding in his efforts to fight off what he called a federal government vendetta against him, which in 1986 led to his removal as chief judge of U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, a post to which he had been appointed for life in 1978.
Claiborne, who died late Monday, lost not only his robe, but also his freedom, spending 13 months in a federal prison in Alabama and five months in a North Las Vegas halfway house. Yet Claiborne regained his attorney credentials from the Nevada Supreme Court shortly after his release, returned to a private practice he began in 1948 and again became one of the state's most respected defense attorneys.
His downfall sent a message that reverberates today -- that if aggressive government action can bring about the demise of a man of stature and means, then that power can harm anyone.
As a last act of independence, an ailing Claiborne, who feared cancer had returned to his body, took a decision out of God's hands Monday night by taking his life at his Summerlin home. He was 86.
Attorney Richard Wright, who practiced law with Claiborne the past 15 years, said he wasn't surprised that Claiborne took his own life.
"He rested his case on his own terms," Wright said. "It was almost typical of his own self-determination and independence that he wouldn't just fade away. He didn't like getting old and never wanted to be in a debilitating state."
Claiborne left a handwritten note with instructions for his funeral, including who should be his pall bearers, Wright said. Among those Claiborne wanted to carry his casket are Wright, former Horseshoe owner Jack Binion and attorney George Foley.
Services will be at 3 p.m. Friday at Palm Mortuary-Eastern. Visitation will be from 1-3 p.m.
Claiborne's friends, many from the legal profession, say to understand Claiborne's independence one must go back to his childhood. When he was 13 years old in his birth town of McRae, Ark., he watched his father, Frank, stand up to the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
Mike Stuhff, a Las Vegas attorney who was part of Claiborne's defense team before the Senate and who introduced testimony that the federal government was out to frame Claiborne, recalled how Claiborne, a great storyteller, described that life-altering event.
"Harry said the grand wizard criticized Frank for being the only white farmer in the valley who was not a member of the organization, to which Frank responded: 'I won't join any organization whose members need to wear hoods over their faces,' " Stuhff said.
Days later Frank saved an immigrant farmer from a lynching. He put the man and his family up in his house, then went to the man's farm armed with a shotgun, where he sat and waited. When the KKK rode in that night, Frank stopped them at gunpoint and fired a round of buckshot into one of the nightriders who had bolted toward the barn with a lit torch, knocking him from his horse, Stuhff said.
Never again was a man lynched by the KKK in his community because they knew they would have to answer to Frank Claiborne, and that made his son proud, Stuhff said.
About 10 years later Harry Claiborne, then a sergeant in the Army, "committed the only federal crime of his life," Stuhff said. "And he was proud of it."
Stationed in Santa Monica, Calif., Claiborne was given orders he despised -- rounding up Japanese Americans and putting them into internment camps. One day, upon approaching a shaking bush, he found a frightened Japanese-American man hiding there. The man begged Claiborne not to take him in and Claiborne let him go, Stuhff said.
"The act of letting the man go was a federal crime," Stuhff said. "Later, Harry got into an argument with a colonel, telling him it was morally wrong to do what they were doing to Japanese-Americans."
For that action, the colonel banished Claiborne to a small outpost in the middle of the Nevada desert -- the Las Vegas Army Gunnery School, which today is Nellis Air Force Base. Claiborne's legend in Las Vegas was born.
"A man whose father stood up to the KKK and who himself stood up to the U.S. Army for committing a wrongful act was not going to be intimidated by the government when they came after him with lies," Stuhff said.
Claiborne was convicted in federal court in Reno in 1984 for filing false tax returns, for which he served a prison term where he reportedly was a model inmate who passed the time growing poinsettias.
Claiborne's first trial on similar charges, as well as allegations he received bribes from brothel owner Joe Conforte, ended in a hung jury. At the time Conforte, who had fled the country following a tax evasion conviction, owned the Mustang Ranch brothel east of Reno.
Conforte was persuaded by former Las Vegas FBI chief Joseph Yablonsky to return to Nevada from his luxury hideout in Brazil to testify against Claiborne.
Claiborne's attorneys showed that Claiborne was not even present at the time of the alleged bribe, and federal prosecutors, apparently embarrassed by Conforte's court performance, never again pursued the bribery charges.
"The government knew Conforte's testimony was perjury and used it anyway," Stuhff said. "I was never more ashamed watching my government do such a deliberate act. And they paid Conforte as well for his cooperation."
The government gave Conforte $16 million in tax breaks. After the trial Conforte again fled to Brazil, where he still lives as a fugitive.
Claiborne's tax conviction, however, led to a House impeachment and a Senate conviction on Oct. 10, 1986. During that trial, prosecutors tried to paint a picture that somehow Claiborne did something shady by cashing his paychecks at casino cages.
Claiborne pointed out that in Nevada people use casino like banks, cashing checks and even keeping money in locked boxes in casino cashier cages.
When a prosecutor referred to Claiborne's wife as a one-time cocktail waitress in a way that made it sound like that was a seamy profession, Claiborne shamed the government for its mean-spirited demeanor.
Still, Claiborne became the first federal judge in 50 years to be stripped of his duties and the 13th federal official to be impeached by the House. He also was the first official to be convicted by the Senate without the benefit of the full Senate hearing the evidence.
For Claiborne's hearing, a panel of 12 senators heard the evidence during a three-day impeachment trial aired live on C-SPAN. They then made a recommendation as to how the full Senate should vote -- a move the legal team of Stuhff and current Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman fought tooth-and-nail.
Stuhff declined to say the outcome was fixed, but noted, "We were charging into hell with one bucket of water."
Claiborne was convicted of three of four articles of impeachment and ordered removed from the bench. Four of the 100 senators voted against all four articles of impeachment: Sens. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Dan Evans of Washington and David Pryor of Arkansas.
While the Senate refused to look at claims of government abuse during Claiborne's trial, the Senate passed a unanimous resolution to investigate government abuses in Claiborne's case and in similar cases throughout the country. That action went nowhere.
Attorneys who long worked with Claiborne say they were shocked by his death, despite his years of bad health from a lengthy battle with cancer, a heart attack in the early 1990s and Alzheimer's disease in recent times.
"What made Harry so independent was his great intelligence and his upbringing," said 89-year-old Las Vegas attorney Herb Jones, who was a deputy district attorney in Clark County with Claiborne in 1947.
"He had a great knowledge of the law and was a great orator -- a skill he developed doing speeches for politicians in Arkansas."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, who once served as Washoe district attorney, described Claiborne as "very dynamic and one of the most colorful trial attorneys in the state."
"He took up the unpopular cases and he gave it his all," Raggio said.
As a federal judge, Raggio said, "He was a nonconformist -- a maverick in judicial robes."
Raggio, who worked with Goodman defending Claiborne in his bribery and tax evasion case, said Claiborne "became a target" for those who disagreed with him.
Others remembered Claiborne as an inspiration to their careers.
"It certainly is a loss to the legal community," said District Attorney David Roger, noting he spoke to Claiborne frequently, particularly when he was prosecuting the Ted Binion murder case in 2000.
"Many younger lawyers look toward senior members of the bar as mentors and (Claiborne) was a mentor to me as well."
Defense attorney James "Bucky" Buchanan said he worked with Claiborne many times during the last 25 years, while Claiborne was both a defense attorney and a judge.
"In his heyday, when he first was a defense attorney, he was idolized by most defense attorneys," Buchanan said. "He was one of the best criminal trial lawyers I'd ever known. He had an Arkansas drawl that could just charm juries."
Wright described Claiborne as "the best damn lawyer in the history of the state."
"He was an absolute communicator to juries," Wright said. "He was like E.F. Hutton. When he spoke, you listened. It's a quality you can't teach or learn. You either have it or you don't."
Claiborne's godson, Jerry Claiborne Dunn, said he was "shocked and surprised" by his godfather's death.
"We all knew he had been sick but I never expected anything like this," said Dunn, 26. "He was seemed bigger than life and death."
Dunn's mother said she and her son last saw Claiborne at his home last week for one of his popular prime rib dinner parties.
"He was laughing and talking, enjoying his children and grandchildren," said Jan Dunn. "The only way I can make this make sense is that he wanted to keep his dignity. He was a very dignified person."
Claiborne's widow, Norma Ries, preferred to recall the charming fellow she first encountered in the mid-1970s at Binion's Horseshoe.
Ries was working as a cocktail waitress when Claiborne strode in, flipping a gold coin high in the air.
"He had just won a big case and he had some gold coins he was flipping up in the air," Ries said Tuesday, as she sat on the couch in the Summerlin home she shared with her husband and grandson.
Claiborne asked Ries her name and then -- to her surprise -- asked whether she had any children.
She told him she had two, and that they were 19 and 17.
Ries then got a dose of the famous Claiborne charm.
"He asked me who was taking care of them, and I said they were taking care of themselves," Ries said. "(Claiborne) said, 'At 19 months and 17 months?"'
In recent years, a new generation of Las Vegans saw Claiborne at work for the Binion family, representing the estate of Ted Binion. He delivered the eulogy for the colorful gaming figure and represented Ted's daughter, Bonnie, who inherited the bulk of Ted's gambling fortune.
Claiborne, a father of three and grandfather of five, never made an effort to seek a pardon.
"He probably felt it would be futile," Jones said. "Harry put up a good public front about what had happened to him, and he never complained about it. But he really was hurt."
Stuhff said Claiborne "deserves a pardon and I hope one day he will get it."
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