Houston criminal defense attorney Mike DeGeurin trained under the legendary trial lawyer Percy Foreman. DeGeurin then tutored many others to be great lawyers, including David Gerger. His brother, Dick DeGuerin, is another legal force of nature.
For five decades, DeGeurin represented criminal defendants rejected by society. He used the law and courts to free innocent people wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. Just eight months ago, the brothers joined forces to convince a jury to acquit former Harris County Sheriff’s bailiff Renard Spivey of charges that he murdered his wife.
A 1971 graduate of Texas Tech University School of Law, DeGeurin died Friday from complications from heart issues. He was 79.
“Working with Mike was joyful,” Gerger, who worked with DeGeurin for a decade, told The Texas Lawbook. “Most days, a line would form in the office waiting room: truck drivers, politicians, tycoons. Mike would see them one-by-one in the order they arrived, into the night if necessary.”
“All of society — richest to poorest — passed through during the course of a week,” Gerger said. “They were equal in his eyes. And they all left the office better off than when they came in.”
Gerger said DeGeurin was “the Bumblebee.”
“He looked for the good in life and in people and he taught us that you will find what you look for,” he said. “In Judaism, there is a saying: One who saves a single life is considered as if he saved the whole world. Mike saved innocent people from death row, and countless others from the excesses of the criminal law system.
“He touched a generation of lawyers — we wouldn’t be where we are without his guidance,” he said.
DeGeurin was born in Austin, where he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas. He moved to Houston for a judicial clerkship and stayed to practice law. He gained an international reputation as a bold and effective advocate through many high-profile courtroom victories, including freeing Texas death row inmate Clarence Brandley, who was wrongly convicted in the 1981 rape and murder of a white teenage girl.
Over more than 49 years as a lawyer, DeGeurin represented clients around the globe and won nearly every award the legal profession offers.
His son, Michael DeGeurin, told the Houston Chronicle that his dad was working on cases right up until the end, even in the hospital.
“He didn’t have a mean bone in his body,” Michael DeGeurin, who practiced law with his father, told the Chronicle. “That’s why he was so good with jurors and witnesses. He was genuinely himself.”