Druce defense lawyer called a quiet, effective idealist

Geoghan murder trial is latest in notable career

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff, 9/25/2003

Framingham lawyer John H. LaChance and his wife were at a friend's lakeside house in New Hampshire on Aug. 23 when they spotted a television news crawl reporting that defrocked priest John J. Geoghan had been strangled and beaten to death in prison.

As one of the state's most widely respected criminal defense lawyers and husband of a practicing Catholic, LaChance had more than passing interest in Geoghan's sexual molestation trial last year and the sweeping clergy sexual abuse scandal it helped spark.

Still, he didn't give the stunning turn of events much thought until a couple of days later, when the state Committee for Public Counsel Services called, asking him to represent Geoghan's alleged killer, inmate Joseph L. Druce.

LaChance, one of some 200 private lawyers certified by the committee to represent indigent accused murderers -- a pool of lawyers on the so-called murder list -- said it didn't take him long to say yes.

"I suppose I thought about it for a couple of seconds," the 57-year-old lawyer recalled in his office last Wednesday, two days before he escorted Druce to his arraignment in Worcester, where the prisoner pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

"But, you know, instinct sort of tells you this is a guy who really needs a lawyer right now."

In many ways, Druce epitomizes the kind of defendant to whom LaChance is drawn.

"A lot of times with court-appointed cases, the people you end up representing are poor, uneducated; some have mental problems or personality disorders, and some are inarticulate and unable to communicate their own stories effectively," he said. "They don't know how to negotiate the system. That becomes our job."

Given Geoghan's role in the scandal that rocked the Catholic Church, the Druce case may be the biggest of LaChance's 31-year career. But the former federal prosecutor, whose client is already serving a life sentence for murder, is no stranger to high-profile criminal cases.

Since he left the US Attorney's Office in 1982, he has represented a Framingham lawyer (and childhood friend) charged with trafficking cocaine; a convicted felon charged with bludgeoning a 13-year-old boy to death in Haverhill; a reputed Mafia lieutenant; a retired Boston police officer accused of helping his gangster brother, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, hide an arsenal of weapons; and a Worcester man charged with beating to death his 5-week-old son, among others.

He also assisted in the murder trial of John C. Salvi III, who was accused of killing two workers and shooting five others at two Brookline abortion clinics in 1994. LaChance was appointed by the court to help Salvi's attorneys argue that Salvi was not competent to stand trial. The court rejected the motion, and Salvi was convicted of first-degree murder. He later committed suicide in his prison cell.

Despite his role in such prominent cases, LaChance hardly fits the stereotype of the flashy criminal defense lawyer. A member of the Bowdoin College debate team and winner of several public speaking awards, the stocky, bespectacled attorney talks in a down-to-earth manner that befits an affable Rotarian more than a defender of notorious mobsters and killers.

But his views are marked with a bright streak of idealism, particularly when he explains why he gravitated to criminal law after a few years of civil litigation following his 1971 graduation from the University of Virginia School of Law.

"I've always believed that defending liberty is more important than defending money," he said.

He cited as an example a case in which he helped win the acquittal more than a decade ago of a young man who was accused of molesting an adolescent boy while baby-sitting. The alleged victim told a "wild, unbelievable story" in court, LaChance said, and the jury rejected it. After the verdict, LaChance's client got his life back and fulfilled a dream of joining the Marine Corps.

"You think it's kind of a schlocky story, and it's not like defending Enron and getting millions of dollars in fees," he said. "But the satisfaction out of that particular case was enormous, because the kid's life was basically changed."

LaChance, who works alone but shares office space with several other lawyers, showcased his idealism as the president of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in the late 1990s. In that capacity, he publicly criticized a US Supreme Court ruling that expanded police power to search cars without a court warrant. And he deplored new police investigative practices, such as DNA tests on genetic material obtained without permission after a criminal suspect smokes a cigarette or takes a drink of water during questioning.

Despite such positions, he has won praise from prosecutors such as Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley, who said LaChance is "zealous on behalf of his clients, but fair."

LaChance, who gets $54 an hour to represent indigent clients (compared with the $300 that defense lawyers can get from paying defendants), was already busy when he acceped the Druce assignment. He was representing a Wellesley woman, Sheryl Sidman, who allegedly carjacked an Audi and led police on a wild, high-speed 33-mile chase on Route 128 in July, and a Framingham woman, Claire Harfield, accused of stabbing her 72-year-old husband to death with a steak knife two years ago.

Still, several of LaChance's colleagues said the Committee for Public Counsel Services was wise to select him. They described him as an indefatigable and thorough advocate who works 13- or 14-hour days while on trial. Although his subdued demeanor might not dazzle a courtroom, they said, it is often more effective than the legal pyrotechnics of his more flamboyant brethren.

J. W. Carney Jr., a well-known Boston criminal defense lawyer who represented Salvi, recounted how LaChance used his low-key manner and superb timing to skillful effect when Salvi erupted in the courtroom at the end of his competency hearing. Court officers lifted Salvi from his chair and carried him back to the lockup as he screamed, in an irrational outburst, that he did not have any traffic tickets on his record.

"Salvi's voice echoed down the corridor as he was carried back to the jail cell by four court officers," Carney recalled. "With perfect timing and understatement, John [LaChance] said to the judge, `Your honor, that concludes the evidence.' "

Peter Ettenberg, a Worcester criminal defense lawyer who represented a codefendant with LaChance in a 1998 federal trial of nine men charged in a violent plot to seize control of the New England Mafia, said LaChance's experience with the insanity defense is all but certain to prove crucial in the Druce case.

"What else are you going to do when the guy confesses?" Ettenberg said.

Druce allegedly killed Geoghan in the defrocked priest's cell at the maximum-security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. After Geoghan's slaying, Druce told investigators he had planned the murder for at least a month, plotting how to jam Geoghan's cell door shut with part of a book, tie him up with a T-shirt, and use socks to strangle him after lunch, Worcester District Attorney John J. Conte said last month.

After his arraignment, Druce, whom LaChance said had been sexually abused as a child, drew raucous cheers from prisoners awaiting court appearances when he shouted: "Let's keep the kids safe. Hold pedophiles accountable for their actions."

In the interview in his office, LaChance seemed already to be laying the groundwork for a defense that focuses on Druce's mental state. But if LaChance does mount an insanity defense, he has no illusions that it would be easy to persuade a jury.

Whatever legal strategy he uses, LaChance said, his aim is to make sure that his client -- worthy of sympathy or not -- has the best defense available and that the state is made to prove its case.

"Our job is to do the absolute best we can to protect all of their rights and make [certain] the Commonwealth basically comes through us to get at them," he said. "So if somebody is convicted, it won't be because they were powerless against the system."

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.