Meet Earl Rogers (1869-1922)

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Earl Rogers was an American trial lawyer and professor. He became the inspiration for Erle Stanley Gardner’s fictional character Perry Mason in the TV series with the same name from 1957 to 1966.

Earl Rogers was a brilliant and prominent criminal defense lawyer whose courtroom skill was remarkable and widely known. Sadly, he was afflicted with alcoholism and died at the age of 52.

His courtroom life was depicted by his daughter, Adela Rogers, in her book “Final Verdict.” She shares with her readers that Jack London told her, “Never forget that this man, your father, is an authentic legal genius.”

In court, Earl Rogers combined drama and compassion. He creatively used visual aids and reenactments to highlight his points when appropriate. It was said that he once remarked, “As long as there is such an inhuman and godlike law as capital punishment, I will defend with my last breath any person who might be its victim.”

His style in court was both very dramatic and compassionate. In one case, he represented the defendant, Al Boyd, for a murder that occurred during a card game. In defense of Boyd, Rogers brought into the courtroom the card table and chairs where the defendant and witnesses were sitting when the murder by shooting occurred. The prosecutor objected, arguing strenuously that the furniture should not be allowed.

Earl Rogers responded:

My learned opponent speaks eloquently of his obligations to the People of the State of California of which we are all aware. May I remind him that my mandate from the People is no less clear and powerful as is his own?

The People insist that this boy whom they instructed you to presume to be innocent shall have the ablest, boldest defense possible to give him.

They have decided in their might and majesty that the burden is with the District Attorney. I am his qualified, duly accredited counsel for the defense as truly as he is their counsel for the prosecution. In their hearts the People are passionately anxious that no injustice shall be done in their name. No innocent man convicted and hanged unfairly to haunt their peaceful slumber….If this is the first time a man’s counsel has produced for the jury the exact scene of the crime, does that entitle the prosecution to call it a trick? I have a right, a duty. I have a right, and duty to reconstruct the scene, and ask him there to reconstruct the scene of the crime.

The jury should see for itself what occurred, decide whether to credit the testimony of Johnson or not. If this be theatre, it is the enlightened theatre of the Greeks or Shakespeare tragedies.

I ask your Honor’s permission to question the prosecutor’s witness in the physical setting of the crime. He was an eye witness as he said he was, or the murderer.

Rogers went on to say: “If this is the first time a courtroom has been arranged to turn into the very scene of the murder, others through the years who are innocent may have cause to bless Your Honor’s name.”

Rogers prevailed in his argument and won his case but not before pulling out a pistol from his pocket and pointing it at Johnson, the prosecution’s witness, who screamed before he crashed his chair. He asked what Johnson did after the gun was fired that night.

Johnson testified that he went to the washroom.

Q: Did you wash the powder off your hands? (implying that the witness, not his client, may have been guilty of the shooting)

A: Did I, did I.

The jury was out 20 minutes and returned with a verdict of not guilty.

It came as no surprise to both the bar and the public that Clarence Darrow chose Rogers to represent him in his first trial for jury rigging. It also came as no surprise that Rogers won.

Here is an excerpt from Rogers’ cross-examination of the primary witness against Darrow in the first of two trials for allegedly bribing witnesses:

Q: The district attorney told you he did not want you? We wanted Darrow; is that not what he said?

A: They said if Darrow had been in this, they wanted me to tell them.

Q: And you said he had not?

A: At first I did.

Q: Well then you said he was in it?

A: Yes.

Earl Rogers enjoyed a prolific legal career in Los Angeles, spanning 21 years and ending in 1918. Notwithstanding his amazing accomplishments in the courtroom, Rogers suffered from alcoholism and died in 1922. He was posthumously inducted into the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame located at Temple University Law School.

(Sources: Final Verdict by Adela Rogers (Muriwai, 2017); The Fine Art of Trial Advocacy (ABA, 2021)).

Paul Mark Sandler is recently retired from the firm of Shapiro Sher. He can be reached at [email protected].