The Last Hippie

Matt Welch | August 8, 2005

The L.A. Times this weekend ran a very entertaining profile on 70-year-old San Francisco defense lawyer J. Tony Serra -- a man who has represented Huey Newton and the Symbionese Liberation Army's Sara Jane Olson, among others -- and who was just sentenced to 10 months in the pokey for continuing his lifelong refusal to pay federal income taxes.

Serra had hoped to avoid prison but conceded that "from another perspective, didn't I get a light sentence? I haven't paid taxes for 40 years -- my whole career!"

He pledges not to come out until he has written two novels, including a Platonic dialogue set on an island in World War II that has been "in my pen" for years.

It goes on and on like that. Whole thing here.

Comments

Jeff|8.8.05 @ 2:27PM|#

The Last Hippie. What a beautiful phrase.
Can we hunt it?

|8.8.05 @ 2:32PM|#

I once watched him try a case, defending accused marijuana growers from Mendocino County. I was externing in federal court at the time, so it was easy to pop in and watch him. He lost badly, but hewed to the old dictum "when the facts and the law are against you, pound the table," and he's a very dramatic character.

|8.8.05 @ 2:41PM|#

Quite the contrary, Jeff: Too many suits, not enough hippies. Begin the cloning of J. Tony Serra!

|8.8.05 @ 2:56PM|#

10 months is a pretty light sentence. Especially considering all the money he's saved in his forty years as a career lawyer. Kind of makes me want to evade my federal taxes for life. Ten months? I'm definately considering it now.


....Then again, I'm sure his lenient sentence has something to do with who he knows in the legal business as well as professional connections.

|8.8.05 @ 4:56PM|#

Wow! I didn't know Tony Serra was the inspiration for the guy in True Believer.

Wow! I didn't know Richard Serra and Tony Serra were brothers.

The institution of non-violent resistance lives on.

|8.8.05 @ 5:06PM|#

He pledges not to come out until he has written two novels

That reminds me of a recent episode of "Reno 911," when the entire sheriff's department was sent to prison.

Officer Junior: "There's an upside to being in prison. You have time to do a lot of things that you've never had time to do on the outside. For example, I've started my first novel.

"It's Christine, by Stephen King ..."

|8.8.05 @ 5:23PM|#

Reno 911 is one of my favorite shows, and Travis Junior is truly an under-rated deputy!

|8.8.05 @ 11:02PM|#

Deputy Travis Junior: "Getting two tickets to an execution is like getting two tickets to NASCAR, except you know Jeff Gordon's gonna die."

From the Reno 911 us.imdb.com quotes page.

Not on the quotes page yet is this exchange I remember from a recent episode:

JUNIOR (to cute female Peace Corps recruiter): I really admire the things you do, like teaching little Orientals how to play basketball.

PEACE CORPS RECRUITER: We do a lot more than that. Actually, they like to be called "Asians." You would call something like this jade pendant of mine "Oriental." "Oriental" refers to things.

JUNIOR: Well, I don't like to think like that. I like to think of them as people.

Junior is great. My favorite character is probably Officer Jim Dangle, though. The thing about this show, though, is that you have to watch it a while and figure out the characters before it really becomes funny.

|8.9.05 @ 6:25AM|#

I'm sure his lenient sentence has something to do with who he knows in the legal business as well as professional connections.

Maybe, but maybe it has something to do with his being 70 years old -- you generally don't see many people that age & over being sentenced to long terms, no matter what they may have done.