Legal Docket: A transformed life

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: It’s Monday the 19th of August.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Jenny Rough.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time now for Legal Docket.

Lawyer Bob Cochran has spent his career writing about Christianity and the law. His most recent book is titled The Servant Lawyer. It aims to help law students and seasoned attorneys think about law practice from a Christian perspective—by raising questions.

ROUGH: Such as questions like these: Should a lawyer refuse to represent certain clients, a terrorist, a big corporation, or someone like Harvey Weinstein? Is it ever okay to use deceptive tactics in the courtroom? Should lawyers go to court at all given what Jesus said about settling matters “on the way to court” before you get there?

EICHER: A couple of law schools have adopted Cochran’s book into a class.

Today, one of his former clients is a convicted felon who talks about how Cochran influenced his life for the better.

ROUGH: Let’s go back to January 29th, 1979. Even now 45 years later, it’s a day Sidney Cutchin believes he’ll never forget. A police officer knocked on the door of his dad’s home in Charlottesville, Virginia. The night before, Cutchin did something he shouldn’t have.

SIDNEY CUTCHIN: Robbed a gas station.

He was just 20 and had finished two years of military service. Cutchin had five brothers, and back then, all the Cutchin boys had bad reputations.

CUTCHIN: We called ourselves gangsters. That’s what we did. I mean at that time.

As a boy, Cutchin had a strong sense of right and wrong.

CUTCHIN: I was in the church when I was real young up until 14 when I really found God as a child. And there were certain things that I would never do. I knew it was just biblically wrong to do. I wouldn’t do to people, I wouldn’t do certain things. And I knew that was just the hand of God until I got into trouble for the first time.

EICHER: That was the night he robbed the gas station. He was with one of his other brothers. They were physically aggressive enough not even to need a weapon.

CUTCHIN: Actually, it was just a physical hand. They called it strong arm. You knock them down and take the money.

Cutchin and his brother ran off to a nearby hotel.

But there in the parking lot some students from the University of Virginia were hanging out. The college boys yelled racial slurs and one threatened the Cutchin brothers with a baseball bat.

CUTCHIN: And they were coming to hurt us. And he swung, and I ran into him and caught the bat and snatched the bat from him. And I ended up beating him with the bat.

The next day when police arrived, Cutchin got cleaned up.

CUTCHIN: Went on down to the police station. Got back into the room. Never saw daylight no more until 1982, September 11, 1982, that’s when I saw daylight again.

ROUGH: He spent those years in prison for strong armed robbery and malicious wounding. But early in the process, right after his arrest, was when Cutchin met Bob Cochran, a lawyer but not a criminal-defense attorney.

BOB COCHRAN: Back in those days you didn’t have a public defender.

Instead, the city of Charlottesville simply asked local attorneys to volunteer for criminal defendants. Pro bono work. Cochran had signed up on a list for court appointed attorneys.

Like his new client, Cochran had also grown up in church.

COCHRAN: My father was a Baptist pastor. And I guess through high school and college I was the rebellious preacher’s kid, and kind of running away from my faith.

And in his first year of law school, he looked at his future path to success: become an editor of the law review, then work for a big New York firm. Yet he suspected that wasn’t going to bring him meaning and purpose. So he joined a Bible study, read a lot of C.S. Lewis, and took a course called Law and Religion.

COCHRAN: It really called on us to think of the connection between our faith and law practice and law. We had wonderful, wonderful talks about what might be the tensions that would be there.

EICHER: In the first few years out of school, he started to feel the tensions. He was still young when he first got the call about Cutchin’s case. Cochran received a copy of the confession and remembers thinking the police “had the goods” on him.

COCHRAN: It was pretty obvious from the confession that he had committed the offenses that he was charged with.

For his part, Cutchin was suspicious of Cochran and had strong opinions about the court system.

CUTCHIN: Court appointed attorneys were traitors. They’re not really there to help you. There’s there to help get you convicted, because they’re not going to do more than they have to.

But as the two talked, Cutchin changed his mind.

CUTCHIN: I found out he was a Christian. My mind went back to where I was when I first went to church. I said, okay, God done put this man in my life for a reason. (Laughs) I got a Christian lawyer!

Cutchin pled guilty, but where Cochran thought he might be the most helpful would be in the sentencing hearing.

COCHRAN: You know, digging into Sidney’s background. Pointing to the challenges of being raised in a tougher part of town.

He thought the judge ought to know that. And that he was raised by a single parent — his dad. When Cutchin was 14 his mother died.

COCHRAN: Sidney had some skills. He had a good military record.

ROUGH: At the sentencing, Cochran asked Cutchin’s dad to testify. He needed a character witness. But …

CUTCHIN: And I’ll never forget my dad told him: Sidney’s a pretty good boy. But he dangerous.

Oh, no. Cochran did the best he could to argue that Sidney Cutchin wanted to straighten out. Go to community college …

COCHRAN: I looked at Sidney. We were about the same age. I thought, there but the grace of God go I.

Making a plea, Cochran’s voice broke.

But it didn’t appear to move the judge much, if at all. Cutchin got 12 years for the malicious wounding, and six for the robbery.

When Cochran left the courthouse later that day, another attorney walked up to him.

COCHRAN: He said, “Bob, let me give you some advice.” He said, “Don’t get emotionally involved with your client.” He said, “The Cutchin boys are scum. And they’re not worth it.”

He didn’t believe that.

COCHRAN: Humans are made in God’s image. And that was the way I saw Sidney. I think that’s the way all lawyers should see their clients.

EICHER: Yet the two lost touch. But after about three years, Cochran was driving near the prison where he knew Cutchin was:

COCHRAN: And I just decided I’d stop and see him. Just encourage him a little bit.

Cutchin was working in the prison kitchen.

CUTCHIN: The warden came back in the kitchen and got me. Said, “Your lawyer here to see you.” I said, “What do you mean my lawyer here to see me?” And I came out and there he was on the other side of the gate to stop by to check on me to see how I was doing. And I couldn’t believe it. And we prayed. He prayed for me. He prayed for me a couple times.

EICHER: After that visit, Cochran moved to California to teach law. But Cutchin remained on his mind and in his prayers.

ROUGH: Cutchin finally got out of prison, but not out of trouble. Within two years, he committed robbery again, armed robbery. And back to prison again, a place he calls the devil’s domain. Rape. Drugs and alcohol. Fights. Time in the hole. Even still …

CUTCHIN: God is always talking. We just ain’t listening. Or we’re ignore Him. But I knew He was pulling, and every now and then I’d pull my Bible and I’d pick it up and read. I knew God was real. I knew Jesus was real.

Cutchin tried to appeal his case time and time again. But one day it became clear no judge was going to rule in his favor.

CUTCHIN: And that’s when I just gave up and decided to commit my life to God.

When he was released this time, on his way out the prison gates a prison official made a comment.

CUTCHIN: “We see you in two years.” I said, “You think?” “Yeah, you’re going to throw that Bible away.” Because I had my Bible in my hand. I said, “Really? Don’t hold your breath.” That was 22 years ago.

EICHER: Cochran spent those years in California, teaching and writing about Christianity and the law.

When he began to think about retiring and returning to his hometown of Charlottesville, he decided to search for his former client. And word got back.

CUTCHIN: Your lawyer friend looking for you, man. He represented you years ago. I think his name is Bob. And then, I think you contacted me. I gave him my phone number to give to you.

COCHRAN: Yeah, that was probably 30 years after I represented you. So you and I got together for dinner and you told me all this.

CUTCHIN: [Laughs]

EICHER: Today, the two get together for dinner often. Cutchin thanks Cochran for being his lawyer and God for changing his heart.

ROUGH: Not long ago, Cutchin filled up his car with gas, went inside the station, and noticed the clerk mopping the floor and getting ready to close up.

Cutchin noticed something else too: bags of cash sitting out in the open.

CUTCHIN: I see the moneybags right there. She’s got all stacked up. Four of them. Ain’t nobody in the store but me and her. I could be like I used to be. I could run right out the door with that.

But he didn’t. Not only that, when the clerk gave him too much change, he didn’t even take the few extra dollars.

CUTCHIN: Normally, I would just pick it up and walk right out the door, but God would not let me take that money off of that counter. She said, thank you for being so honest. I said, Thank God. Because Sidney would have left. It’s amazing what God will do with your heart.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

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