Spence’s defense of Cantrell was a major case in his storied career

If Gerry Spence went looking for a client to advance his reputation as one of the country’s best trial lawyers, he couldn’t have found a better one than Ed Cantrell.

The Rock Springs police chief killed Michael Rosa, one of his detectives, by shooting him between the eyes two days before he was scheduled to testify at a state grand jury in Cheyenne in 1978. Few people in Wyoming gave Cantrell any chance of beating what looked like the most open-and-shut murder case imaginable.

When Spence died on Aug. 13 at his home in Montecito, California, he left a remarkable legacy of never losing a criminal jury trial or civil case from 1969 to his 2010 retirement. He took on many deep-pocketed opponents, including McDonald’s and Penthouse magazine, winning millions of dollars for clients. 

The civil case that put Spence in the national spotlight was a $10.5 million judgment he won for the family of Karen Silkwood, a chemical technician and whistleblower who was contaminated at Kerr-McGee’s Oklahoma plutonium plant. She died in a mysterious car accident on her way to see a reporter.

The case was made into the award-winning movie “Silkwood.” Like several of Spence’s cases, the verdict was overturned on appeal. An out-of-court settlement of $1.3 million was reached.

The Silkwood trial was sandwiched between Cantrell’s preliminary hearing and trial. Spence frequently discussed the case with reporters at Cantrell’s hearing.

I still think his defense of Cantrell was Spence’s most significant win. Against all odds, he saved a man from either a long prison sentence or the death penalty, which he was eligible for because he killed a police officer. But his acquittal meant no penalty options were presented at the trial. There were several aborted attempts to make Cantrell’s story into a film, too.

I was a reporter for the Wyoming State Tribune in Cheyenne, and I didn’t expect my assignment to cover Cantrell’s preliminary hearing in Rock Springs to last long.

These proceedings were typically perfunctory because prosecutors just needed to show a judge that a crime occurred and there was enough evidence against the defendant to hold him for trial. But Spence, with his Western drawl, trademark buckskin jacket and cowboy hat, immediately took over the courtroom and treated it like a stage.

Three weeks later, Justice of the Peace Nena Stafford, looking exhausted after enduring this legal marathon, declared that Cantrell was bound over for trial. It is still the longest preliminary hearing in Wyoming’s history.

It coincided with temperatures plunging to 22 below. It was in the days before cell phones and laptops, so I used the only pay phone outside the courthouse, shivered and dictated my stories by my noon deadline.

There was no time for lunch, because if reporters wanted to get a seat in the packed room, we had to stand in line with everyone else who wanted to see history in the making. 

One afternoon, I scored a front-row seat near the county attorney’s table. Before the hearing got underway, Spence walked by. He took one of the prosecution’s documents, then handed it to me.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” he asked, peering over his glasses, then walked away. I didn’t even have time to read the damned thing before the prosecutor leaned over and read me the riot act. He demanded to know my name and who I worked for. I was terrified, even before he loudly declared that what I did could result in a mistrial.

Spence rushed over, admitted he had taken the document and absolved me of any untoward behavior. It took a minute but the other attorney dropped it, though he gave both of us a weary, disgusted look.

Spence, who had literally thrown me to the wolves and then acted as my rescuer, apologized. But he had a big grin on his face as he went back to work. 

Despite getting consistently good media coverage, Spence wasn’t happy with reporters. In “Gunning for Justice — My Life and Trials,” the first and best of his 20 books, Spence complained that the minds of the state’s entire population were “altered by the poison of the press” that had already declared Cantrell guilty.

Spence labored to poke holes in the state’s theory, which was that Cantrell deliberately shot Rosa to permanently silence him. The Rock Springs police department had been under the microscope for alleged corruption since the previous year, when Dan Rather of “60 Minutes” profiled the boom town for allowing prostitution, drugs and gambling to flourish.

Cantrell had summoned Rosa to the unmarked police car. The other two detectives who were already in the car testified they didn’t see Cantrell pull out his .38 caliber pistol and shoot Rosa. 

Chief Detective Joe Callas said after he heard the deafening shot and saw Rosa’s bloody body, he shouted, “My God, Ed, what have you done?” He said Cantrell returned his question with a “cold stare.”

Callas told investigators he talked to Cantrell the night before the shooting and said his boss was angry at Rosa. “At one point [Cantrell] said words to the effect of, ‘Maybe we ought to just take the son-of-a-bitch out and kill him,’” said Callas, who added he didn’t take the threat seriously.

Spence maintained Cantrell was the real victim, and portrayed the Puerto Rican Rosa as an out-of-control druggie who had a vendetta against Cantrell and made the mistake of trying to outdraw him.

A lot of time at the hearing was devoted to examining crime scene photos of Rosa, who had a wine glass in his lap that was three-quarters full. Rosa had a gun, but it was still in his holster.

The state said the evidence showed Rosa made no effort to reach for his gun. But Spence said Rosa’s glass was in his lap to keep his hands free to shoot Cantrell.

I was pumped up to cover the trial, which was moved to Pinedale because it would be difficult to find impartial jurors in Rock Springs. But I became editor of our Sunday edition and had to give up my plum assignment.

Spence fine-tuned his defense to perfection. On the stand, Cantrell said he thought Rosa was reaching for his gun: “I could see in his eyes he was going to get me. It was him or me.” Was this happening in Pinedale or Hollywood?

My friends who covered the trial said the highlight and turning point was two fast-draw demonstrations Spence used to show Cantrell was so quick with a gun that it’s no surprise that once he feared for his life, he killed Rosa before the detective could even reach for his weapon. 

The jury bought it all, deliberating less than three hours before finding Cantrell not guilty. But throughout his career, Spence liked to describe himself as a “warrior for justice.” Was this in any way justice?

I don’t think so. Neither does Rone Tempest, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Los Angeles Times (and later WyoFile co-founder), who wrote a riveting book in 2020 about Cantrell based on his examination of previously unearthed documents. The title spells out how Tempest sees it: “The Last Western, the Unjustified Killing of Michael Rosa by Ed Cantrell.”

Former Wyoming U.S. Attorney Kip Crofts wrote a long critique of Cantrell’s case and apologized to Rosa’s family for the lack of a fair trial and Rosa’s depiction by the defense as “a villain and a criminal intent on murdering his boss for no good reason.” Wyoming should officially apologize.

In their books about the trial, Spence and Tempest both related a conversation the attorney had with Cantrell shortly after his acquittal.

Spence asked Cantrell if he was worried people would think he was found not guilty because he was represented “by a smart lawyer.”

A defiant Cantrell shot back, “Fuck ‘em, I’m free.”

Spence wrote that years after the trial, people would chastise him for defending a man who was so clearly guilty. Everyone accused of a crime is presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial under the U.S. Constitution.

Forty-seven years later, I think Cantrell won the lottery when he landed the attorney who declared himself “the best trial lawyer in the nation.” They needed each other: one to stay alive, and the other to put Spence’s career on a path that reached astounding new heights.