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By Mike Lewis
Daily Journal Staff Writer
Sacramento – At first glance, it seems the most unlikely of professional pairings: The year's most sensational media event in the Unabomber case against Theodore Kaczynski matched with the staid, professorial U.S. attorney assigned to supervise its prosecution.
But, colleagues say, look closer at Charles J. Stevens, the U.S. attorney for California's Eastern District, and it becomes clear that the fit is perfect.
"He is extremely thorough, completely apolitical and entirely professional," said longtime friend and former colleague Joel Sanders, the partner in charge of the Bay Area offices of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, where the 39-year-old Stevens once worked.
Stevens, said Sanders, has built his career both in public and private practice on being a smart lawyer who never makes dumb mistakes. "This is exactly the kind of case that cries out for that kind of lawyer," Sanders said. "The last thing the government needs in a case like this, which is going to be high-profile with tons of media, is to have someone up in the front of the camera saying stupid things, making stupid mistakes or behaving in any way that is unprofessional.
"I think this case is tailor-made for him and his office."
In many ways, tailor-made is an apt analogy for Stevens, who is known for his precision, attention to detail and capacity to create an elegant case out of seemingly disparate shards of information.
"He's a tough litigator and he's very fair," said Anthony Capozzi, a Fresno defense lawyer who recently lost a massive, complicated fraud case prosecuted by Stevens. "He's not flashy at all. He presents his case extremely well, he knows his case extremely well, and he comes across very well to a jury."
Born in Cranford, N.J., to a lawyer-father (his grandfather was the town's judge for 28 years) and a homemaker-mother, pursuing law seemed like a natural for Stevens. "I guess I pretty much assumed I'd be a lawyer without ever analyzing it. It really was a foregone conclusion."
After Catholic grade school and public high school in Cranford, he attended Colgate University in New York, where he received his bachelor's degree in English. While in school, he spent a semester in San Diego where he met Ann Tarnovsky, who eventually would agree to become Ann Stevens. She wanted to complete her degree in urban studies at San Francisco State University, so Stevens chose Boalt Hall at UC-Berkeley for his law degree.
While attending school there, he met Sanders, his future colleague, who was immediately impressed. "He had balance in his life, even in law school."
Explained Sanders: "He had time for his studies, time for law review work, time for running, for recreation, for entertainment, and most importantly, time for Ann. He fit things together and didn't compromise anything."
Stevens – an avid cyclist and runner who rides 100 miles and runs more than 30 miles weekly – tacitly agreed when discussing his hobbies. "I'm sort of the cross-training fool," he said. "I'm hoping in the fall to do a marathon, which I've never done before."
Although he loves to run and ride, he has no desire to ride a "double century" (200 miles in a single day) or participate in the Western States 100, a grueling 100-mile foot race. As with his professional pursuits, he doesn't obsess. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he doesn't think of weekends as bonus workdays. In fact, he said, his priority starts with his family and four children who share Stevens' love of the outdoors.
"I'd like to think that I have a certain balance about things generally," he said.
At Boalt, he became interested in trial work and applied for a law clerk position at the U.S. attorney's office. Even working for free and with no class credits, he became hooked on the charged atmosphere. "It became clear to me that's what I wanted to do," he said.
After graduation, his first job at Los Angeles giant Gibson Dunn gave him the experience he needed to land a job in 1984 at the U.S. attorney's office for the Central District office, also in Los Angeles. "It was a terrific opportunity," he said.
Working for three years in the criminal division, Stevens found he enjoyed the larger, more complicated cases at the federal level. "I was drawn to white-collar crime prosecution," he said. The cases proved to be more challenging intellectually, he noted.
"Putting together one of those cases was like putting together a large, complicated puzzle," he said, adding, "You go up against some excellent criminal defense attorneys."
But after three years, Gibson Dunn lured him away to head its Sacramento office. From 1987 through 1993, he moved to the other side of the aisle, providing white-collar criminal defense as well as managing the office. In addition, he pulled dual duty by teaching white-collar crime and criminal procedure law at McGeorge School of Law.
A former student, who asked that her name not be used, said his teaching was "extremely detailed and thorough, but boring."
In 1993, however, the government called again. But this time the call was from the top, when President Clinton appointed him to run the Sacramento U.S. attorney's office with its 65 attorneys and a $10 million budget. "It is a great job," he said. "I love it."
During his tenure, he has made political corruption, hate crimes and fraud into the office's chief pursuits, filing some of the largest insurance fraud cases ever to pass through the Sacramento office, such as the $100 million MedLaw capping case, an ongoing joint investigation by the FBI, the state insurance commission and U.S. attorney's office into an alleged kick-back scheme by attorneys and medical providers.
But even with the substantial success he has had fairly early in his career, Stevens doesn't think he is a natural talented attorney. He places the credit squarely on hard work, determination and tenacity.
"I don't feel like I am a naturally gifted lawyer or thinker or orator. I feel like I have improved myself really by dint of hard work and practice," he said, calling himself an overachiever.
And what does the future hold for an overachiever? While Stevens said he doesn't know – although, if polling projections hold up for the presidential election, he has his next four years pretty well figured out – Sanders and Capozzi have a suggestion.
"He would make a great judge," Sanders said. Capozzi agreed, saying Stevens' work on both sides of the aisle frees him from the "tunnel vision" most prosecutors have. "He listens to both sides," Capozzi said. "He is a man of his word. I think he would be an excellent judge."
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