Bruce McIntyre was scheduled to start a trial on the first Monday morning in October. He hadn't much time to prepare on Friday; he had to get to Suffolk County on a state court case. Driving back to Brooklyn, he stopped by the U.S. Attorney's Office to pick up his 3500 material, crossed the Brooklyn Bridge to his downtown office, opened up his load of 3500 material (it was a tax case) and died of a heart attack. He was 55.Bruce was a criminal defense lawyer of rare attributes. He did most of his work for indigent clients, as a member of the Criminal Justice Act Panel. In that regard alone, his loss is profoundly felt. He was one of just a handful of African-Americans on the CJA panel. Of course, Bruce would have given me grief about writing that last sentence. He never leveraged race. His noble life was a strong enough testament to the power and promise of his community.
Bruce began living this quiet life of righteousness simply enough: in Queens. Raised by a middle-class family who scrimped and saved for his education, he even attended Julliard to study trumpet. Bruce's closest friends never knew that he was an accomplished musician, nor did many know that he went to Columbia and Yale, so carefully did he avoid pretense.
I wonder whether he would admit that the turning point of his professional life was his showdown with Charles J. Hynes, the District Attorney in Brooklyn, who hired Bruce to be an Assistant District Attorney. In 1990, Bruce was assigned to "second seat" the racially-charged Yousef Hawkins trial (remember those hot summer NYC days right out of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing?). Shortly before the trial began Bruce quietly resigned. His resignation letter to Hynes contained no hint of political agenda. Nor would he return the hundreds of press calls or give a single interview confirming what was "widely reported" by the New York Times and others: that he was resigning because he refused to be leveraged as a token black man at the prosecution table.
When he left his prestigious position as a homicide DA, Bruce become a criminal defense attorney. He took on the most unpopular cases at court-appointed rates, representing alleged terrorists and Chinese gang members, always bringing calm to the table. But as anyone who tried a case with him knew, it was his thunderous, preacher-like summations that often turned the tide of prejudice away from his maligned clients. In 1998, my husband Mike Padden and I tried the "Subway Bomber case" with him, and against huge odds, his client was acquitted of all counts of terrorism and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. The jurors didn't acquit Bruce's client because they were soft on terrorism; Bruce simply appealed to their sense that guilt by association was just plain wrong. ''Is it because he's from Palestine that he's supposed to be guilty?'' Bruce challenged the jury.
At his funeral service, Bruce's colleague and dear friend Gary Villanueva spoke of Bruce's love of movies, especially the really cheesy ones wherein the hero lives a life guided by a code of honor he need not advertise, so obvious was the code to others. A quote from one of his favorites, Gladiator, is that "what we do in life echoes in eternity."
Echo on, Bruce.
MEMORIAL SERVICE IN HONOR OF BRUCE MCINTYRE WILL BE
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2009, AT 5:00 P.M
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2009, AT 5:00 P.M
THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
225 CADMAN PLAZA EAST, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
COURTROOM TO BE POSTED AT THE COURTHOUSE.
