[ Upbeat music plays ]

>> The only time I ever played

golf before I retired was in

1972, and I got a telephone call

from my friend the lawyer,

Sarita Waite.

The Alameda County Clerk's golf

tournament was coming up, and

she really wanted to play in it.

And she'd gone down to the

clerk's office to register for

it, and they refused her

registration 'cause she was a

woman.

She had decided she was gonna

file a lawsuit and asked me if I

would attach my name, and I

said, "Of course I will."

But of course that meant I had

to play golf.

So, I went out, and I took one

lesson.

Well, the newspapers reported

that Penny Cooper had shot the

highest score ever on the golf

course, with the headline,

"Women Teed Off So Are the

Men."

[ Chuckles ]

You judge a society by how it

treats its worst, and

constitutional rights are

meaningless unless they apply to

the worst in society.

I really wanted to be a trial

lawyer, and I wanted to fight

for the people, and I wanted to

fight for their -- the causes.

I have to say, from the first

day that I walked into the

Public Defender's Office as an

employee, I really thought I'd

died and gone to heaven.

Everybody was just fabulous.

I loved the excitement of

figuring out people's problems,

going to court.

>> She was really feisty, and

the clients loved her.

At that time, there were 12

lawyers in the

Public Defender's Office in

Alameda County -- covered the

whole county.

So we learned how to try cases.

[ Psychedelic rock music plays ]

>> One of the most memorable

cases I had was sort of a tale

of the times.

There was a man in Berkeley who

was charged with possessing LSD,

and he announced to the whole

community that he was going to

be, on a certain day and a

certain time and place, carrying

LSD in his cross on his neck.

And of course he did that, and

he was promptly arrested.

And I was assigned his case.

During the trial, the prosecutor

asked why he was carrying this

LSD in his cross, and

"Charlie Brown" Ortman said,

"Well, I heard voices."

And Stacey Walthall said to him,

"You hear voices?

Are you hearing voices now?"

And I yelled out, "Objection!

Hearsay!"

And that was just a huge hoot,

you know, made the papers,

softened the judge, and he just

got a tongue-lashing.

[ Soft music plays ]

I grew up in Denver, Colorado,

and I became very much aware of

the fact that I was Jewish

because I was singled out for

it.

Myself and the only other Jewish

kid in the class, we were sort

of segregated.

All the other kids sat

alphabetically but myself and

my friend.

We sat at the back.

I did go to religious school,

which required me to get from

school onto a yellow school bus

with Hebrew letters on the side

every Wednesday afternoon.

And everybody would see us on

this weird bus that had these

Hebrew letters.

My father was born in Poland and

came over to the United States

when he was about six, with his

family.

They were extremely poor.

His father basically sold rags

from a horse cart.

My mother's father was a tailor,

and he had a tailor shop in

Downtown Denver.

My dad did not have a

high-school education, and

neither of my parents had a

college education.

They were of the era that

believed that everything they

did should be for their

children.

My dad decided, when he was in

his mid 30s, to enlist in

World War II.

And the reason he did that, even

though he had two children at

the time, was he felt like the

Jews weren't doing enough for

the World War II effort.

And he lost his leg.

The amputees were awarded the

first Hydra-Matic Oldsmobile car

so they could drive a car

without having to shift gears

and use the clutch.

And that was a big highlight in

our neighborhood, our little

blue Hydra-Matic Oldsmobile.

I got a scholarship to the

University of Colorado because

my parents really couldn't

afford an out-of-state college.

And I had always loved

San Francisco and the Bay Area

because my aunt and uncle lived

here and this is where we would

go on vacations.

It was always that bright spot

at the end of the road, and I

just thought this was the

greatest place in the world.

Following graduation, I came out

to Berkeley to go to law school.

I was at Boalt from '61 to '64.

The school was headed by

Dean William Prosser, who had

written the key textbook on

torts, and he was nationally

famous.

And he didn't believe that women

should be in a law school at

all.

He would just make fun of women

in the class.

So he announced very early on

that he was going to treat the

men and women equally, and in my

section, there were like 85 men

and 3 women, and he said, "I'm

just gonna call on you, 'man,

woman, man, woman,'" and that's

how he did it.

And then he would say, "Stand up

like a man and answer the

question."

It's hard to be a

criminal-defense lawyer.

Really, everybody's against you.

And you have to have a certain

resilience and, I believe, a

certain sense of humor in order

to be successful.

I was in court, and the opposing

district attorney was somebody

who had been in my law-school

class.

And while I was arguing a point

in front of the judge, he yelled

out to the judge, "Don't mind

her, Judge.

She's on the rag."

And I just was really...floored

and said, "First of all,

Judge, it's not true.

And secondly, he should be held

in contempt for this."

And the judge just brushed it

off.

>> [ Chanting ] Hell no!

We won't go!

>> The anti-war movement was

rampant all around the Bay Area,

everywhere else, too.

And about seven or eight of us,

at least, decided to march in an

anti-war parade in

San Francisco.

John Nunes, who was the public

defender, called the group of us

into the office.

I remember his quote.

>> "I'll take steps," meaning he

was gonna try to fire us.

>> For exercising our civil

rights, which is what we were in

business for!

>> And from that point on, the

jobs that I was given were less

than desirable.

I had been dating Jim Newhouse.

We were very close, and we were

both very much aligned on this

issue.

And we had sort of made

tentative plans that we would go

out on our own eventually.

We opened our private practice

in March of 1969.

Two weeks later, "People's Park"

hit.

[ Sirens wailing, indistinct

shouting ]

So Jim and I went to this church

where all of the "People's Park"

defendants had gathered.

And we basically told these

people that, if they wanted to

hire us, we would do their cases

for $100.

And the firms in San Francisco

were charging $1,500.

So we got about a hundred

clients our first month.

We were always able to get the

charges down to something

reasonable so that their futures

weren't affected.

We would come to court on Monday

mornings to discuss cases, and

we would go into chambers, and

everybody would be talking about

the football games -- every

single guy.

And I felt I was really at a

disadvantage not knowing about

football, so I talked to Jim

about it, and we got season

tickets to the Oakland Raiders

so that I could talk football.

And then I learned baseball and

all of it, and now I actually

enjoy watching it all the time,

and I talk baseball, football,

basketball with all the guys.

Eventually, Jim got a

girlfriend, and I got a

girlfriend, too.

And I had finally come out.

And we continued to practice

together, but eventually, his

interest was more where his

girlfriend was, which was in the

southern part of the county and

in Carmel.

And my interest was in making a

big career here in the East Bay.

>> Her mother adored her, and I

think she probably had a very

strong foundation, and she

became a very confident person

early on.

>> Never bothered her a whit to

go wherever you had to go, and

she'd just...go.

She goes to Puerto Rico, goes

into court, and everybody's

talking Spanish.

And she -- "Wait a second.

I thought this was a U.S.

Federal District Court?"

So she calls the associate

counselor and says, "You better

get your ass into chambers here

'cause these people are talking

Spanish and I don't know what

they're talking about."

>> The judge said to me, "And,

Ms. Cooper, the next time you

return to my courtroom, you will

wear a dress."

And so I did.

And I stood in front of the

judge who pronounced the

judgment upon my client of a

year in jail.

I said, "But, Judge, I wore a

dress for you."

And he looked down, and he saw

the dress, and he said, "That's

right, Ms. Cooper," banged his

hand down, and said, "That'll be

six months."

The last time I wore a dress in

the courtroom.

[ Soft music plays ]

It just was a natural sort of

evolution for me, realizing that

I was really more attracted and

much more companionable with a

woman.

Coming out to my close friends

was difficult, and one of the

women who was a part of this

group was just absolutely

horrified.

And she just said, "Oh, my God.

I just feel so sorry for you,

Penny.

I feel so sorry for you.

I think your problem is you just

haven't met the right guy yet."

And I really enjoy this story

because right now she's on her

fifth husband, so apparently she

hasn't met the right guy either.

>> I met Penny because we had

this mutual friend who thought

we would like each other 'cause

we were the only two people she

knew that were both interested

in contemporary Italian design.

>> And we realized that our

common interest in contemporary

art was one of the ties that

bound us.

And we were becoming really

consumed by it, so we would read

magazines, we would go to

museums, and we would go to

exhibits.

And we decided that it would be

important to support women

artists.

We've been together 36 years.

We chose to get married the

first day that it was officially

legal in the state of

California.

Our collection is a mix of what

you would call emerging artists,

mid-career artists, and many

artists who've reached heights

of any artist's career.

Our collecting would be

circumscribed by how well I had

done that year 'cause often I

waited till the end of the year

to see if we had any money that

we could spare, and whatever we

had, we used to buy art with.

>> My role with Penny has really

shifted a lot over the years.

When she was working, you know,

a million hours a week, I would

take care of a lot of the things

around the house.

>> I would usually go to court

in the morning.

And then, at noon, I would show

up in the office, wait for

clients, and handle all those

matters, and then back in the

office after afternoon court and

normally in the office till 7:00

or 8:00.

I worked most weekends.

I worked lots of nights all the

time because I had a lot of work

and I was really interested in

being over-prepared.

>> I'd really never been with

anybody that had worked such

long hours, and it gave me a lot

of time to be by myself, which I

love.

>> Rena is a published poet, and

there was never enough time for

Rena to be able to write.

>> No matter how hard or long

Penny worked, she loved to sit

down and have a really nice

dinner, and we'd talk about the

day.

And I loved her energy.

>> I had been asked to represent

the great ceramic artist

Peter Voulkos, who had some

issues with drugs.

In lieu of paying a fee, I asked

him to give me a piece of his

work which I thought was really

beautiful, called a "stack."

It was a huge ceramic piece.

After I had the piece for a few

years, I decided that it didn't

fit in our collection because

it wasn't a piece by a woman,

and I also became aware of the

fact that the

Berkeley Art Museum did not own

a piece of this incredible

artist's work.

So I donated the piece to the

Berkeley Art Museum, and soon

after that, I was invited to be

on the board.

>> Back in 1994, I wanted to do

an exhibition that was

potentially controversial on the

theme of the resonance of gay

and lesbian experience in

20th-century American culture.

There had been very little

occasion for museums in America

to look at this particular

theme.

You know, who's gonna put their

money behind an exhibition like

this?

And spontaneously, Penny Cooper

said, "If you can't raise the

money from other sources, I will

underwrite this exhibition."

And I just remember feeling so

relieved and so grateful and

thinking, "This is precisely how

trustees should behave."

You always want to be with Penny

because she's just gonna help

you get through.

[ Folk music plays ]

>> There's nothing I like better

than seeing art with Penny.

>> I've always really loved

contemporary art.

I love contemporary artists.

I love their thoughts.

I love the way they approach

issues.

I love the way they translate

what they think onto whatever

their surface might be.

Artist's way of thinking is

really almost completely

opposite from the way that I

learned to think.

[ Up-tempo symphony plays ]

>> I had been at the

Federal Public Defender's Office

for two years, and I was gonna

go out somewhere, and I thought

I was gonna go with this very

well-respected criminal-law

firm.

She said, "Come on over to my

house for dinner," and we did a

lot of talking and laughing and

hanging out.

And at the end of it, she said,

"You shouldn't go with those

guys.

You should come with me.

Come with my firm, and in a

year, I'll make you a partner."

>> There is a 15-year age

difference, and that made it

really good for me also because

I really had an intense desire

to pass on what I knew could

happen in the courtroom.

>> So, I didn't do any cases or

anything else.

I just went where Penny went for

a month.

Wherever we went, everybody

would brighten up because Penny

came.

Because she'd be talking about

sports or telling a story about

a client or remembering

something funny that happened,

and in the meantime, she was

getting what she wanted.

And she could, in an instant,

get tough.

>> She would often say, you

know, "The prosecutor, I mean,

he's lying through his teeth.

I mean, it's unbelievable what

they're getting away with."

You know, so by the time I go to

court with her, I've just got

steam blowing out my ears.

And we march into court, and the

next thing, I look around, and

she's got her arm around the

prosecutor.

You know, everybody else's blood

pressure is up to 200.

[ Up-tempo drums beating ]

[ Ethereal music plays ]

>> I think of Penny as like a

very friendly older sister to me

or like an aunt that was very

doting on me.

And yet, at the same time, I

could never really turn my back

to her, because she would slit

my throat in a nanosecond if I

didn't give her everything that

she wanted.

The case was

People v. Dan Mackay.

Dan Mackay was a nice guy,

Mormon guy, who beat his wife to

death with a baseball bat.

>> She was a very heavyset

woman.

He loved her.

He loved her anyway she looked.

But she decided at one point in

her life, in her early 40s, that

she was too fat.

And she took these drugs, and

according to her, it made her

really want to have sex with

young men.

They were just totally steeped

in the Mormon religion, and this

really began to drive him crazy.

She announced to my client that

she was gonna take the kids.

They were in an upstairs

bathroom.

The kids were all off at church

in the morning.

And he found himself in a wild

rage, looked in the closet.

He saw a bat, took a bat, and

beat the hell out of her.

And then he took her body --

dead body -- and he wrapped it

in a sleeping bag.

And he drops the body off, and

then he pulls off to the side of

the road, whereupon he's seen by

a Highway Patrol officer, who

sees blood coming down the rear

bumper of the car.

So it was really irrational what

he did, and it was really

terrible.

>> She just says, "Look, this is

what I'm gonna do.

This is how I'm gonna drive a

truck through your case."

And she proceeds to do that.

>> And he confesses in a

statement that's about two or

three hours long, that would

make anybody start sobbing.

>> My last name is Pinney --

P-I-N-N-E-Y.

So it's like Penny Cooper and

Paul Pinney -- There's all these

P's.

And we had all these lengthy,

lengthy interviews with

Dan Mackay that went on for

literally hours.

And so I would excise portions

of those and play those to the

jury.

So in her closing argument, she

would call me

"Pick-and-Choose Pinney."

She said, "He's

'Pick-and-Choose Pinney.'

He doesn't show you the whole

thing."

And I argued forcefully for

first-degree murder.

As it was, the jury came back

with a voluntary manslaughter.

She has good powers of

persuasion.

[ Mid-tempo rock music plays ]

>> We had a lot of clients who

would be impressed if you looked

good, if you had a nice new suit

on, or if you drove a fancy car.

>> I remember being really,

really super young, and I wasn't

quite sure what she did for a

living.

We got off the freeway to get

gas in the middle of nowhere on

our way up to the Oregon border,

and there were probably 500

motorcyclists.

Turns out they were a bunch of

Hells Angels.

They looked kind of mean, and I

was terrified.

In typical Penny fashion, she

gets out of her bright red

Mercedes, looks over at about 20

of them, and says, "Hi, boys.

Thanks for my car."

Later she tells me that was the

beginning of her great career,

representing the Hells Angels,

and they paid for her car.

>> It was a huge trial, and

there was lots of publicity, and

it kind of launched me into

another space.

[ Rock music continues ]

I had a name, Cooper, which

didn't strike people at first as

being necessarily Jewish.

And I can remember one time at a

celebratory party after somebody

had a victory in the

Public Defender's Office, and

one of the guys made some remark

in fun jest about me being

Jewish.

And the man who was the public

defender of the county, just

looked at me with the most

astonished face and insisted and

kept saying, "You're not Jewish.

You're not Jewish."

And the way he said that was he

didn't want me to be Jewish.

So even at that stage of my

life, it was, like, there.

And it did help me develop a

certain resilience that I needed

later, in terms of being an

underdog often in the

courtrooms.

[ Suspenseful music plays ]

Michael Blatt, who was a wealthy

developer in Stockton, had been

accused of ordering the killing

of a former business associate.

And the theory of the case was

that he had ordered two

ex-football players, that he

knew because of his association

with the UOP football team, to

kill Larry Carnegie.

And in fact, one of them,

James Mackey, did kill

Larry Carnegie by firing a

crossbow into him.

And the case was originally

tried by two Alameda County

lawyers.

It was a death-penalty case.

And these lawyers had the trial

and the case for a couple of

years.

Prosecutor was determined to

retry it.

This case was tried by my

partner, Cris Arguedas, and

myself.

>> He was a big guy.

He had been a football player in

college.

He was a Fundamentalist

Christian.

He didn't like Penny and I.

I'm sure he didn't like it that

we were gay.

He didn't like it that we were

criminal defense lawyers.

>> This was his life, this case,

and his career, as it turns out.

>> Penny had read the trial

transcript, and she saw that

Blansett has a need to talk and

be listened to all the time.

Penny decides that what we're

gonna do is we're gonna not

speak to him -- ever, for the

whole trial.

And it drove him absolutely

insane.

>> And during one point in the

opening statement, Eual Blansett

got so frustrated that he

actually left the courtroom.

>> And went into the bathroom,

which was right next door in

this old courthouse, and would

be flushing the toilet during

her opening statement and then

make a big show of, you know,

coming through the doors like

this, and, you know, just to be

a distracting, obnoxious fool.

When he went, she stopped

talking.

She waited for him to come back.

And so she made him be the fool.

>> He objected to every single

thing, and it was really a

battle, and when James Mackey

went to testify, I actually

cross-examined this gentleman

for 20 days.

>> And the judge says to us,

"If you -- Counsel, if you

insult the opposing counsel one

more time, I'm gonna hold you in

contempt, and I'm gonna charge

you $100 for every time I hold

you in contempt."

She reaches into her pocket, she

takes out the wad, and she

counts out 5 $100 bills, and she

says, "Here's for this one, and

here's for four more!"

>> Towards the end, Cris was in

a hallway talking to a witness.

>> He says to me, "Move out of

here.

I'm talking to my witness here."

And I say, "I'm not moving.

I'm talking to my witness here.

It's a hallway."

And he says, "I said move."

And I said, "I'm not moving."

He kind of picks me up like an

inch off the floor and is kind

of walking me back like to move

me out of the way.

>> And Cris fell onto the floor

in the sight of some of the

jurors.

10 months later, the jury hung

11-1 for acquittal.

And the case was ultimately

dismissed, and Mr. Blansett lost

his job.

This article features the

unbelievable battle we had,

entitled "Culture Clash."

And that it was.

[ Upbeat music plays ]

>> One of the very great moments

in not only my legal life but my

life itself was being able to

argue for the defense in the

Unites States Supreme Court.

It was a very complicated matter

involving a probation search

that produced a large drug lab.

The problem was that the

defendant had never consented to

being on probation.

Court crier comes out.

Then the court members come out.

They sit, and the solicitor

general gets up to begin his

argument, and I am terrified.

The Honorable Thurgood Marshall

bellows into the microphone at

my opponent, "When did the

respondent here first know of

this probation business?"

The answer -- "He was told at

the door."

The justice -- "That don't give

you any problems, do it?"

The man's answer here -- "No."

The justice -- "Oh, so he lost

all his rights without even

knowing he lost them?"

[ Laughter ]

And then the justice groaned

uncontrollably, and I was

feeling quite calm.

It's not just the drama of going

to court and objecting and

winning or losing.

It's really managing people's

lives when they get into

difficulty or trouble.

A lot of people are critical at

what you do until they need you.

And when they need you, their

whole attitude about it is

totally different.

People don't get guilty people

off.

What you do is ease a situation

and try to reach compromises in

most cases that are meaningful

for both sides.

I've received hundreds of

letters from jail from desperate

people.

I read them all, I usually

respond, and occasionally, I

take the case.

My favorite letter of all,

written many, many years ago by

a prisoner -- At end of his

letter, he's saying, "Before

closing, I'd like to tell you

something about yourself."

[ Laughter ]

"If there is such a thing here

in our society, prison, your

name is a household word.

Everyone from the Bay Area has

been represented by you at one

time in the past."

[ Laughter ]

"You have many faces.

Sometimes you are described as

being about 50 and walk with a

cane."

I was about 25 then.

[ Laughter ]

"And at other times, you wear

large hats and colorful clothes.

You drive everything from a

Henry J to a Rolls-Royce.

Seemingly, the 'in thing' is to

have known you through your

profession at one time.

After all, without dreams and

fantasies, what else have we

here?"