Lee Davis Has Seen Positive Changes In The Administration Of Justice, He Tells Civitans

It’s normal for an American citizen to tune in to a high-profile case to learn “what this scoundrel has done,” but Lee Davis, who is the Walden mayor and a prominent criminal defense lawyer, said he urges jurors to throw out preconceptions.

“You can see the transformation with the jurors, one by one,” he said, speaking to the Chattanooga Civitan Club Friday. Serving on a jury, a duty second only to military duty, he said, is an opportunity to transcend the individual and aspire to something better as a community. A juror must arrive at a verdict with a “moral certainty” that survives many years of memory to remain something “he or she can be proud of,” he said.

Attorney Davis, who earned a J.D. at Boston University School of Law, laid out a dramatic example of his first international case from the 1980s. A young American woman had been accused with her Swedish boyfriend of possessing $7 million worth of hashish in Spain. She had been held in prison for seven weeks before attorney Davis, hired by her family, arrived to represent her.

At that time in Spain, he said, the accused was presumed guilty and must appear in person before several judges to answer their questions. She may speak with a lawyer but must answer the questions herself.

Attorney Davis built an aura of power by sending and receiving telegrams containing the day’s weather to and from the U.S. Embassy every morning and every night. The client stayed on the top floor of a fancy hotel while he, also a young man, stayed on the bottom floor. Lawyer and client never left the hotel unless in impeccable dress.

Finally, he told Civitans, he met with Spanish lawyers who relayed that Moroccan informants had mentioned that no woman had been involved in the deal. He said it was the fashion at the time for the Moroccan drug rings to set up foreigners to get caught and then use them as bargaining chips for their own members. And so the case against his client fell apart in one minute, the two went straight to the airport and flew home, and the boyfriend got 27 years in Spanish jail.

Attorney Davis praised the U.S. justice system in which everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty and is guaranteed the right to legal counsel in his trial, even if he cannot afford it.

This 6^th Amendment right did not filter to state courts until Gideon v. Wainwright of 1963 – within the lifetime of many Americans, he said.

“The law is moving,” attorney Davis said. “It’s sort of an arc, moving forward.” Many good things that happen all the time now were once rare, he said.

Gideon v. Wainwright meant that Hamilton County got its own public defender’s offices.

“In Hamilton County, we’re very fortunate,” attorney Davis said. he said the county’s district attorney’s office, public defender’s office and judges are “excellent,” all three.

An accused person is like someone with an injured arm, he said. Denying legal counsel is like denying that person a doctor just to read the X-ray and tell him if his arm is broken or not.

Attorney Davis launched into another story starring Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman, who appointed him to represent Sgt. Tim Chapin’s murderer in 2011. The father and police officer was killed by a pawn shop burglar carrying two weapons.

“I found myself representing Mr. Mathews in a death penalty case, and it cost me a number of friendships,” attorney Davis said. Half of the Chattanooga Police Department officers would not even speak to him, he said, though the other half understood.

He represented Jesse Mathews for two years and visited him in jail every Tuesday at 8 a.m. to build a relationship that would lead to trust.

Because of that trust, attorney Davis convinced Mathews to accept life in prison without the possibility of parole in a 15-minute conversation, when the time came. He said death penalty cases glorify the defendant and take forever, causing the victim’s family anguish. Sgt. Chapin’s father had feared the trial and subsequent appeals would not end in his lifetime and had led his family to accept the deal, too, attorney Davis said, which afforded some closure and peace after two years.

“That is a great outcome in my opinion,” attorney Davis said.  

In this part of the world, attorney Davis said, “people can get justice.”

Attorney Davis served as assistant district attorney in Hamilton County from 1994 to 1998. He has served as mayor of Walden since 2020. He announced in June he will seek re-election Nov. 5.

The Civitan Club’s annual fundraiser Fall Fling is Friday, Sept. 13, at McCoy Farm & Gardens at Walden. To purchase tickets, call Kim at (423) 356-0354.