Longtime criminal defense attorney Michael Lukehart dies
Aug. 19—He was an overachiever at the Kern County Public Defender's office for 26 years where he won the statewide defender of the year award before striking off on his own as a private attorney in 2008.
Opposing prosecutors described him as a formidable opponent who was also ethical and upright to a fault. Judges appreciated him for his high level of preparation, his love for and knowledge of the law, and his economy of language in the courtroom.
Michael Lukehart, one of the most highly respected criminal defense attorneys in Kern County, died Tuesday after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 67.
"This a great loss for the legal community and a huge loss for the larger community," said Kern County Superior Court Judge Brian McNamara.
"Michael thought about every aspect of the law. He loved the law. He respected the law. He was an advocate for the law."
Even if sometimes Lukehart's inner fire may have burned a little too brightly.
McNamara recalled the now-infamous day in August 2009 when Lukehart suffered a serious heart attack. He was 55 at the time.
But before he checked himself into a hospital, Lukehart went to court where he gave his closing argument in an attempted murder trial he was litigating.
By that afternoon, Lukehart was in a hospital bed with a stent inserted in a major artery.
"My chest was throbbing so bad — but I don't think the jury noticed," Lukehart told The Californian from his hospital bed that day.
The jury had already spent more than a week in selection and trial and Lukehart said he didn't want to force a postponement.
"That, I'm sorry, is Mike," McNamara said, laughing at the memory. "I told him he was an idiot — as a friend — but he couldn't understand what I was saying."
When a reporter suggested to Lukehart that it might be an opportune time to consider retirement, the question hung in the air for a few seconds before the lawyer responded.
"Do you know who you're talking to?" he said. "Not in this life."
Born in El Paso, Texas, Lukehart was often seen wearing a Stetson hat when walking between his office and the downtown courthouse.
He was clearly at home in Kern's courtrooms.
"He always wanted to be an attorney," said his wife of four decades, Alexis Lukehart.
"He would play hooky from school, get on his bike and pedal down to the courthouse," she said.
There he would sit, enraptured by the proceedings, the judges, the well-dressed attorneys and by the mysterious language of the law.
The couple met in night school at Southwestern University Law School. They married in 1981 and moved to Bakersfield in 1982 where the newly minted lawyer hoped to gain some trial experience.
"When we came up here, he was planning to stay 18 months," Alexis Lukehart remembered. But those months turned into a lifetime.
Lukehart had job interviews at the Kern County Public Defender's Office, the County Counsel's Office and the District Attorney's Office — all scheduled for the same day.
But when then-Public Defender Bill Weddell offered the young attorney the job, that was it. He didn't bother to go to the other interviews.
It wasn't long before he was getting that trial experience he wanted.
What he immediately recognized, Alexis said, is how crucial it was for every person charged with a serious crime to have an advocate before the law.
"It's the individual against the power of the state," she said. "And that's a terrible power."
Michael Yraceburn, a retired supervising deputy district attorney, said he and Lukehart were not personal friends, and never faced off against each other in a serious felony trial, but they interacted on several occasions.
Yraceburn remembers Lukehart as always competent, always a gentleman, and a strong legal advocate for his clients.
They also had something else in common.
"We were both follicly challenged," Yraceburn said of their bald heads. "We both wore hats."
Following Lukehart's departure from the Public Defender's office in 2008, then-Public Defender Mark Arnold lauded the veteran attorney.
"He's an outstanding trial lawyer, fully conversant with the law and masterful in the courtroom," Arnold told The Californian. "He's brilliant, creative, determined and competitive. I would say he's our top gun."
When Lukehart talked about the law, about the U.S. Constitution's vital protections for the accused, it was easy to see the depth of his reverence for the American justice system.
But he worried that Kern's traditional law-and-order stance sometimes resulted in injustice.
One case he handled involved a low-income man whose bedridden wife died essentially as a result of bed sores.
The man faced criminal charges in the case.
"We treated it as a crime, whereas in many other counties, they would have treated it as a failure of the health care system," he recalled in that interview. "We have shifted a tremendous amount of public resources into the criminal justice system."
As a result, he said, we tend to address the symptoms rather than the root causes of society's problems — with ever more expensive police, courts and prisons.
"For the cost of that case," he said, "we probably could have hired a couple of public health nurses to help care for the man's wife."
On Wednesday, longtime defense attorney David Torres said Lukehart's passion to do right by his clients, his determination to mentor young attorneys, and his belief that family came before career, were his legacies.
"Michael was the quintessential attorney, smart, prepared, aggressive and ethical beyond reproach," Torres said. "More importantly, he was a wonderful and caring human being and a father dedicated to his children.
"Whether sharing a meal or cocktail while discussing our cases, Michael's conversations ultimately gravitated to his daughter and two sons. As long as I knew Mike, I was thoroughly aware of his children's educational and community achievements as he would proudly discuss their successes."
His words of praise for his wife were also common is those conversations.
"Indeed Michael was a lion in the courtroom and a mentor to many; and this will be his legacy. Despite his prowess as a trial lawyer, Michael reminded me in each conversation we shared the importance and significance of family above all else. Michael, the loving husband and father, is the person I knew and loved as a friend."
But in the rarified atmosphere of a courtroom, Lukehart was transformed.
"When I'm in trial, I'm in a different state," he told The Californian in 2008. "In trial I'm almost hyper-alert. Things move in slow-motion at times.
"The first time I stood in front of a jury defending a real human being against the government," he said, "I knew I was home."
Reporter Steven Mayer can be reached at 661-395-7353. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @semayerTBC.
