Denny LeBoeuf,  Chair,  OIDP  (Former Director La. Capital Post Conviction Project)

I've been trying to write about Neal all day. I have some adjectives: valiant, eccentric, private, industrious. He had a truly deep, analytic mind. He was pretty left-brained but once he’d marched from start to finish through a case he had it whole, for good. He had good ideas and good instincts too.

When Neal argued before the state Supreme Court, which he did many times as the head of the Capital Appellate Project, every decent appellate lawyer in  town went if they could get away. He was brilliant, brave, conversational, persuasive, and unflinching. It was a master class, every single time. He  won too, in some pretty unfriendly courts, more often than almost any of us.

I've known him a long time, since he came to town in ‘91. He and Nick both interviewed me for my job at the Loyola Resource Center. He said: she's tried some cases and she knows some music, we should hire her. In our first
digs we were all sharing offices - Jack and Nick on the phone in the same room at the same time, how did they do that? - and me and Gary in one room, Barbara practically in a hallway - but Neal had a door that he could close.
That was the private Neal. He would shut that door and work for days, then come out and do an imitation of an opponent or a witness or one of us - and we would fall down laughing.

One night, under warrant, Scalia’s clerk called to ask when we were going to file the latest cert petition. When Neal said he didn’t know - Nick and I were in federal district court at the time - the clerk called back to warn him that there would be no single-justice stay from Scalia. “Oh sure, take all the suspense out of it, why don’t you” said Neal.

He was implacable and fearless in a trial court. I have seen him take the state’s witness all the way down, whimpering, crawling off the stand, and turning, no doubt, to drink for oblivion. It wasn’t personal, and I rarely saw him lose his cool. If you got between him and the life of his client, you had to go. Going hard or going easy, that wasn’t his problem.

He could pick at the state’s case endlessly, until one that looked just  awful started to unravel. He really got mitigation, knew the power and the science of mental health evidence. He was a great teacher.

When the Resource Centers were killed off Neal headed the Louisiana Capital Appellate Project. He was also trying cases with Clive Stafford Smith, his dear friend, at Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, LCAC. When Clive left, Neal took over as Director. He was one of the finest capital defenders in the country, in the opinion of many who have earned the right to that
opinion.

He was fair. He was funny. He was masculine. I can’t believe he’s dead. He loved New Orleans. He did not romanticize his clients or his friends, didn’t feel the need, but he might have had rosy glasses looking at this city. He was a fixture at zydeco dances, he drove to Opelousas on weekends for the music, he played a fine blues harmonica. I have a poster of one of
his gigs, a show at Moma’s Blues on Rampart Street. “You can see the Zulu king, down on Rampart on Dumaine” sings Professor Longhair. Neal and I listened to Fess one night in the office, and I think I introduced him to Fess’s last bass player at JazzFest.

He turned his love for the city into action after Katrina. Here’s what Pam Metzger wrote:

"Neal was one of those brave few lawyers who stayed on after Katrina. Along
with Phyllis Mann and others, Neal spent those first unspeakable weeks after
Katrina combing the jails across the state. He freed, literally, hundreds
of prisoners. He has saved lives across three decades. He was a gentle
giant in our small criminal justice community. I do not know how many more
deaths this little group can take before we are too diminished to continue
fighting as Neal would have."

As sad as I feel, I cannot imagine how bereft Neal’s clients feel. People at LCAC, the office he headed, bravely and wisely decided to go to Death Row to give them the news in person. There was much love for him there, and he will be truly mourned.

Neal was in Kentucky for years, he and Kevin McNally worked side by side. Their old friend Gary Johnson said people used to think they were brothers. Much pain in Kevin’s voice Tuesday, but I asked him if he would write something. Maybe he can.

I went to my storage unit today, dug into the boxed remainders of my old office on Elk Place, (never reopened after Katrina). I found the picture taken at the LACDL banquet one year - mid-90's, I guess - the very first Sam Dalton award for capital defense, it went to all of us at the Resource Center, which was also, at that time, the very beginning of what became
LCAC.

Eight of us. Nick Trenticosta, David Utter, Clive Stafford Smith, Gary Clements, me, Carol Kolinchak. No Barbara Warren, Kim Watts, or Jack  Holdridge, although in my memory they were there that night. And Marie LeBoeuf Campbell, and Neal Walker, may they both rest in peace.

I'll bring the picture to the party.

Denny LeBoeuf
700 Camp Street
New Orleans, LA 70130