20     October 29, 2007 - 10:09am | alyeska34

He got his preference

He said he would rather represent someone he thinks is guilty, as I'm sure he doesn't think Kohring is innocent!

  19     October 28, 2007 - 9:20pm | funny_funster

flamboyant

Flamboyant or not Vic is going to jail.

  18     October 28, 2007 - 9:19pm | shasta2

I feel sorry...

For the poor dumb son of a bitches who don't have the connections to run for political office..

  17     October 28, 2007 - 7:06pm | gilld

Two Points to Consider:

- it's taking big bucks to keep John Wayne Henry Anthony Browne-Ross, Esq. (don't forget Vic's "local" attorney) in designer suits and Hummers; I'm sure the billable hours are adding up;
- Vic's not paying a penny; his aged parents have likely hocked their entire retirement future to keep their son out of federal prison.

On the last point, particularly: Kohring is to be despised.

Oh, one more thing: has anyone seen Vic's wife and step-daughter in the courtroom?

  16     October 28, 2007 - 6:34pm | zidar

Flamboyant

"Flamboyant" is an adjective used to describe only lawyers and homosexuals.

  15     October 28, 2007 - 1:32pm | adnak

Attorney John Henry Browne-history

Excerpt from a book on the Wah Mee Massacre trial in Seattle:

http://www.wahmee.com/chapnine.html

Browne was flamboyant, impeccably dressed, arrogant, and articulate. He was a tall, thin man -- 6-foot-6, 200 pounds -- with brown hair and a thick mustache. He had a barbed-wire tattoo on his right forearm, drove a motorcycle on the weekends, and meditated regularly. He had graduated from Northwestern University in Illinois, holding both law and master's degrees. Browne was born in Tennessee, the youngest of two children. His father once worked as a nuclear engineer for the Atomic Energy Commission before retiring in Palo Alto, California, after serving as a vice president at Bechtel Corporation. After high school, Browne enrolled at the University of Denver, where he studied philosophy, played guitar in a rock group, and protested the Vietnam War in the late-1960s. An epiphanic moment for Browne occurred in the late-1960s when he was arrested for writing a bad check. The charge was dropped after police discovered that the check bounced because Browne had moved his account to a different bank by the time the check was cashed. His fianc�e, the daughter of a wealthy East Coast family, bailed him out, but not until he had spent seventeen hours with men whom had been in jail for a week and still didn't have a lawyer. He decided right then he would be a criminal defense attorney. Browne broke off the engagement, quit the band (which was on the verge of a record contract) and enrolled in American University Law School in Washington, D.C. In 1972 Browne was hired as an assistant attorney general for Washington under then-Attorney General Slade Gorton. Posing as an inmate, Browne spent a couple of days in the maximum-security wing at the prison in Shelton, Washington, and rewrote rules on punishment within the institutions. He joined the King County Public Defender's Office in 1975 and soon became chief trial attorney. In the late-1970s Browne opened a private practice in downtown Seattle.

Browne was one of Seattle's best defense attorneys and, because his clients were often the subjects of high-profile trials, he was rumored to have taken cases on contingency.

John Henry Browne

Browne had his critics. He received hate mail and his office remained locked, for security, during business hours. A stranger once approached Browne and called him "the most hated man in the state." A state Supreme Court justice once commented that Browne "needed to be spanked." Browne once wore a white three-piece suit to court. After the judge ruled on a motion, he turned to Browne and said, "Now, I would like two fudge sundaes and a cream soda, please."

Rebecca Roe, a Seattle attorney who faced Browne in court, commented, "He [personalized] everything. He regularly [made] vicious personal attacks on other attorneys. He [is] the single most unpleasant attorney to deal with in King County."

Many thought Browne took high-profile cases simply to get publicity. "In the beginning of my practice," Browne admitted to a reporter before the Wah Mee trials, "publicity was very helpful. But I don't need the publicity now. I'd rather do something else than try some of these cases. But I'm a defense attorney and I take our system very seriously. People take their freedom for granted. They don't teach civics anymore. They don't realize how delicate the system is. It is a simple equation: The more power you give to government, the less power you give to individuals."

"He never seems to doubt the righteousness of his case," remarked Dan Satterberg, chief of staff for the King County Prosecutor's Office. "His hard-nosed style seems based on his unshakable belief, real or conjured, that his clients are always innocent or deserving of a break. Other attorneys will allow themselves to have a casual aside with a prosecutor that he thinks his case is weak or his client is lying. But you won't get any of that from John."

Browne was a colorful character in the courtroom. He once represented a man charged with custodial interference for taking his son and moving out of the area, although his ex-wife had been awarded custody during their divorce. Browne made the woman's behavior the defense. When he began his closing argument, Browne didn't even rise from his chair. "Ladies and gentlemen," he told the jury, "would you leave your dog with that woman for the weekend?" The jury acquitted.

In another case he defended a doctor named Jim Stansfield, charged with killing his wife and a neighbor. The trial was memorable for several reasons: a Hamlet-reciting medical examiner, and a key prosecution witness with such a long criminal record that Browne rolled his rap sheet from one end of the courtroom to the other. Charges were dismissed on the last day of trial.

Browne would spend much of the 1980s drinking and taking drugs. He lived in a waterfront home, drove fancy cars, and made headlines. He married and divorced three times. Later, in a 1998 interview with the Times, Browne reflected on his wild and crazy days. He was in counseling in 1986 when he was asked, "What do you want?"

"It was a great question," Browne said in the interview. "I didn't know." Shortly thereafter, he went to Death Valley to attend an intensive 10-day self-awareness seminar conducted by Dr. Richard Moss. He stayed in sweat lodges, taking long speaking and eating fasts and spending hours on his hands and knees scrubbing floors. He began to read the poetry of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, one of the Sufi spiritual masters of the Thirteenth Century.

Browne was against the death penalty -- not uncommon for a criminal defense attorney. He was also a fine attorney. He reveled in his role as a defense attorney, despite the fact that such attorneys are held in such low regard. While defending Bundy in the early-1980s, a Seattle detective allegedly tried to get Browne to leak information about his client. "He was trying to get me to help him with nailing Ted!" Browne told a reporter. "When we do that, the system doesn't work! Then our Constitution is for everyone but Ted Bundy or whoever the next unpopular person may be. [The courthouse is] a 'Temple of Justice' not a 'Temple of Political Correctness.'" No other profession suited Browne more than the courtroom. "I like people. I like juries," Browne added. "I like to be in court."

  14     October 28, 2007 - 1:08pm | adn_20_antegrenkid

Kohring's lawyers comments...

Some astute readers are analyzing Kohring's lawyers statements and are sensing Kohring might be in a heap of trouble with his legal representation... Here is the one that got me...

"I am not going to sit there like some lapdog and help the government put my guy in jail," Browne said a couple of weeks before the trial.

Now there are several ways you can analyze this statement, but what I hear is that Kohring's attorney is saying his guy is going to jail, but he isn't going to just sit down and take it... In other words, he will stand up and take it??? Yikes!!! too bad Kohring didn't pick a better career... If he had chosen to be a used car salesman or a matress salesman, he could have been crooked, lied thru his teeth and made a ton of money, and maybe even been a local celebrity on TV...

  13     October 28, 2007 - 12:12pm | tinkcicle

Retirement?

If Vic is found guilty I don't think he should qualify for his retirement from the state and he should have to pay it back...and frankly I think Vic is full of shit because when I retired from the state it took serveral months for me to even be able to roll it over into a fund I control...of course I was a regular state employee and not in the Legislature.

  12     October 28, 2007 - 10:17am | franklin_6

Kohring is guilty as sin.

Poor Vic, sitting there in the chair while his Republican buds are still yuking it up in Juneau subcommittees.

Browne wants to defend Vic by making the point that Vic is a small fish and Ben Stevens is still unindicted.

Weak argument, Mr. Browne. You'll be worth six figures if you make it stick, and the jury that buys it won't be worth a damn.

  11     October 28, 2007 - 9:50am | FranzSigelShroy

who pays this rated "average" talking head?

http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/98104-wa-john-browne-4323.html

Who is paying for this attorney, and why? If Alaskan politicians can be bought off for the cost of a used pickup truck, who is paying for JHB's fee? Certainly not the drunk, bumbling, foul-mouthed good-ol-boy in the videos!

  10     October 28, 2007 - 9:50am | kellied

no pictures?

THIS ARTICLE IS USELESS WITHOUT PICTURES.

  9     October 28, 2007 - 8:59am | joan_of_bethel

guilty

Kohring is guilty. His attorney likes them that way so he may indulge is his hobby: chess with live pawns. It's the game that counts...

  8     October 28, 2007 - 8:16am | xango_xango

OH NO

John may have became politically intoxicated from Vic's fumes and fell into the gutter. Somebody better go buy him a pair of extra tuffs to go with his bargain basement suits and highlights. Does this guy look like Jerry Springer to anyone else out there?

  7     October 28, 2007 - 7:39am | akcop

John Henry Browne

Well colorful or not, loud mouthed or not John Henry you are no Gerry Spence no matter how you blow your own horn.

It is always tough when you are defending the undefensible, so go on attack like the bull dog you claim to be. Alaskan juries are usually more attuned to the lack of truth and honesty of politicians than you can blow-hard in your smoke and mirrors.

  6     October 28, 2007 - 7:01am | huntfish

Attny Browne's comment

If I were a client of John Henry Browne, I would not be pleased with his closing comment, "I'd much rather represent someone I think is guilty," nor do I think, given at a time & in a situation like this, that comment shows great intellect on the part of Mr. Browne.

  5     October 28, 2007 - 6:45am | adn_20_antegrenkid

Kohring's Lawyer on Vacation in Alaska???

The toughest cases, he says, are when he really believes his client is innocent. If he loses then, it hits hard. "I'd much rather represent someone I think is guilty."

  4     October 28, 2007 - 5:55am | xango_xango

Kohring's Props= no work ethic

His no tax and spend mantra with his hand out the whole time, couch,crappy car & trailer, Little Abner Personality, step daughter, easter eggs, girl scouts,
perdiem....
Most people don't even like to ask for money for food for the table and this guy has no shame. He became politically intoxicated and fell into the gutter.

  3     October 28, 2007 - 4:46am | daveheriot

If he's a great lawyer...

If he's that good at getting people off then maybe the Linehan's should have hired him too.
(-;

  2     October 28, 2007 - 2:45am | wjd20062001

Explanation is insulting

I guess he thinks it will do Vic Kohring some good to show how many feds it took to take down our corrupt legislature. This reaches all the way up into our congressional delegation. Now he's saying that these cash handouts are really "gifts from friends"? Is that the best explanation this six-figure suit can come up with? This is an insult. He must think we're REALLY stupid up here in Alaska.

  1     October 28, 2007 - 1:05am | mcgraw

I have to laugh!

The Judge said "the news coverage had been fair."

It has been a witch hunt from day one.