David Lane Takes On the Government

David fought a very difficult case for me and won.  That didn't matter as much as the fact that his passion for my case and so many like mine truly validate those who are unable to fight for themselves...

The Denver Post
If the case is big and controversial and involves the government and the Bill of Rights — even, and maybe especially, if television cameras are around — Denver attorney David Lane is a good bet to end up in the middle of things.
He is the attorney who gets enough hate mail to fuel a nice bonfire — the attorney for Ward Churchill. And, now, he is the attorney for Richard Heene, the father of "Balloon Boy" — and he wasted no time speaking publicly about the case.
But don't be confused. He isn't a blow-dried, tassel-loafered television talking head. He's a courtroom grunt, an attorney admired for his workload and his intellect, a lawyer who isn't afraid of unsavory clients or worried about what anyone thinks of him.
And he's a true believer.
That everyone — everyone — deserves an attorney. That the horrors visited on his Jewish family in Nazi Germany could happen in the United States. That no criminal is as dangerous as a government that can do whatever it wants.
Some attorneys are loath to take on certain clients.
"I certainly believe that anybody accused of a crime deserves to have a lawyer — and that is constitutional — but there's nothing in the Constitution that says it has to be me," said attorney, talk-show host and former prosecutor Craig Silverman. "If a guy is a mad-dog vicious rapist killer, you can find somebody other than me to be his lawyer."
Lane sees redeeming value in everyone, a view that was forged during seven years spent as a public defender in Brooklyn, N.Y.
"When you're working as a public defender, and you see the things that your clients do, you can't help but understand — not necessarily excuse what they do — but understand how they got to where they got, and that's a life-changing insight," Lane said. "When you see the problems of poverty and race and just the despair in the ghettos of Brooklyn for seven years, you come away with different insights into the world than people who are not exposed to those things."