YOUNGSTOWN Lawyer: Defending accused in cop killing will be thankless

Ed Sowinski said he was just doing his job, though it was unpopular with police.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A judge says some local defense lawyers are already expressing an interest in being appointed to defend the man accused in the death of a city police officer.
Edward Sowinski says they might want to think again about defending Martin L. Koliser Jr.
Sowinski defended the last man accused of killing a Youngstown police officer some 16 years ago.
"To be honest with you, I didn't know what the hell I was getting into," said Sowinski, who has since retired.
William T. Dawson Jr. was accused of shooting Patrolman Paul Durkin in September 1987.
Dawson, now 35, was convicted of murder in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court and sentenced to life in prison. His next parole hearing is in November 2010.
Sowinski said he'd known Durkin and many other city police officers while working as city prosecutor for seven years.
He liked Durkin, but agreed to take the case as Dawson's court-appointed defense lawyer.
"I'm an attorney; an officer of the court," said Sowinski, 70, who now lives in Florida. "I was just doing my job."
Entitled to defense
He said everyone, even those accused of such unpopular crimes as killing a police officer, is entitled to a legal defense and a day in court. But Sowinski later found out that doing his job would cost him friends and cause him to be reviled in the community and on local talk radio.
"It did not help me at all," he said. "It hurt me in a lot of ways."
Local cops with whom he'd once worked side-by-side "had it in" for him after the trial, Sowinski said.
"Some of them still do," he said. "There are some who would walk up to me to this day and call me every name in the book."
He recalled off-duty police officers walking up to him at political functions and deliberately bumping him, trying to provoke him to fight. Longtime friends turned their backs on him when he ran unsuccessfully for common pleas court judge in 1990.
"They didn't want anything to do with me," Sowinski said.
Sowinski believes the resentment toward him was not so much because he defended Dawson, but because of the way he went about it. He portrayed Durkin as a cop with a propensity for violence who was actually trying to rob Dawson when the shooting happened.
That didn't sit well with Durkin's colleagues, or with a public that respects police officers.
"But I had to cast those aspersions," Sowinski said. "There is still no question about it in my mind. It was self-defense."
Despite all the hardships it caused him, Sowinski believes he "conducted the case well," and said he would do it all again if he had to. But he would not encourage any local lawyers to take up the case of Koliser, who faces the death penalty after being indicted last week in the shooting death of Youngstown policeman Michael Hartzell.
Not good publicity
"A lot of people think you make a big name by doing that, but you don't," Sowinski said. "You might get publicity, but it's not good publicity."
Judge James C. Evans of common pleas court said there is a limited number of lawyers who have the required state certification to accept court appointments in death penalty cases. If a lawyer is appointed and would rather not take the case, judges would most likely let him or her step aside.
Although he declined to name them, the judge said he's already been contacted by some lawyers who've said they'd like to have the case if a court appointment is required. A decision won't be made until after Koliser is arraigned.
If no local attorney wants to represent Koliser, Judge Evans said someone from the Ohio Public Defender's Office would probably be appointed.
bjackson@vindy.com