Longtime Sacramento attorney Clyde Blackmon, 86, a fierce advocate for his clients, dies
Sacramento attorney Clyde Blackmon, who spent a 50-year career defending clients accused in a variety of crimes ranging from Ponzi schemes to immigration fraud to death penalty cases, died Nov. 26 at home in Sacramento. He was 86.
“After he celebrated our best Thanksgiving ever, he waited until the following evening and then passed away,” said Karen Cornell-Blackmon, his wife of more than 20 years.
Blackmon was known as a versatile attorney who could handle everything from driving-under-the-influence cases to political corruption charges, and one who ended up spending more time working for clients for free than ones he billed for his services, friends said.
“I have never met a lawyer — and I’ve worked with a lot of great lawyers — but I have never met a lawyer who cared more for his clients and was more deeply devoted to his clients than Clyde Blackmon was,” said U.S. District Judge Dale Drozd, who was Blackmon’s law partner for 12 years. “He recognized that he and everyone working with him were responsible for guiding those clients through what was probably the most difficult period of their lives, and he took that responsibility incredibly seriously.”
Drozd recalled Blackmon as a lover of fine art, the Constitution, poetry and Cal athletics, and as a lawyer with legal victories many people never heard about.
“A lot of his best wins, the biggest wins, were in cases where he got in early enough to convince a prosecutor never to bring a charge at all, and of course you cannot talk about those because they never saw the light of day,” the judge said. “But he was really effective if he could get in early enough at doing a parallel investigation to convince a prosecutor they didn’t have enough evidence to proceed on.”
U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller, chief judge of the Sacramento-based Eastern District of California, wrote in an email to The Sacramento Bee that “when Clyde Blackmon appeared in my courtroom everyone’s standards went up a notch.”
“His lanky, relaxed stance and understated manner could catch the uninitiated off guard,” Mueller wrote. “But it didn’t take long to figure out he knew exactly what he was doing, fully respecting the institution of the court and going to the mat vigorously and responsibly for his client.
“I always looked forward to seeing him, whatever matter he appeared on. The quality of his advocacy and his dedication to the rule of law — the rule of just law — has left its indelible mark on our court’s dockets.”
Malcolm Segal, a former law partner, recounted Blackmon’s unusual habit of leaning against the back wall of judges’ chambers in state court when a judge would summon attorneys with cases on the calendar.
“He would not say a word until the judge addressed him,” Segal said. “He said being a lawyer was not being an eager beaver to get the judge’s attention, but instead to figure out the way things were going that day and finding a way to do your best for your client.”
Clyde M. Blackmon was born in July 14, 1935, in Coalinga and graduated from Placer High School before serving in the Marines for four years. He graduated from UC Berkeley in 1961 and earned his law degree from Cal in 1964 before moving to Sacramento.
Segal, a lawyer for 50 years, said when he first came to Sacramento as a federal prosecutor he learned that Blackmon was considered one of the city’s best lawyers.
“I quickly learned that the judges respected him, the lawyers trusted him and that his clients loved him,” Segal said. “When I had an opportunity to become his partner a half a dozen years later I found out why everyone felt so strongly about him.
“He was one of the most decent and caring individuals in the practice of law I have ever met, and almost every day I learned something from him not just about being a lawyer but about being a good person.”
Segal recalled returning from lunch one day when Blackmon stepped out into traffic on J Street to cross over and hand a few dollars to a man sitting on the sidewalk.
“He said to me at the time, ‘I don’t care what this guy does with the money, but I do care that he needs it,’” Segal said.
In one case from 2011, Blackmon represented the Delta city of Isleton, which had been targeted by the Sacramento County grand jury for an investigation into the city’s effort to bring a private medical marijuana growing operation to town.
No charges were filed in that probe, which at one point included the grand jury summoning the entire city government to court and ended with the city abandoning the venture.
He represented Roni Deutch, the self described “tax lady” whose commercials made her a household name, in a contempt of court case. And, at one point, Blackmon represented former Army officer Harrison Jack, who was accused — and later exonerated — of charges he plotted with others to overthrow the government of Laos.
Blackmon fought unsuccessfully to save Darrell Rich, the Shasta County serial killer known as the Hilltop Rapist, from being executed in 2000 at San Quentin State Prison.
And, after a long fight, he won a forgery case filed against conservative Orange County Republican Assemblyman John Lewis, who was accused in 1986 of approving a campaign mailer using the unauthorized signature of former President Ronald Reagan.
The 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled the state’s forgery law at that time did not cover political documents.
“John Lewis was a conservative Republican assemblyman,” Drozd said. “Those obviously weren’t Clyde’s politics, but none of that mattered. Both John Lewis and Clyde recognized that they worked really well together because the only thing that mattered to Clyde was providing the best defense.”
In addition to his wife, Karen, Blackmon is survived by brother Kenneth; sons Griffith and Craig; stepsons Scott and Adam McChane; and three grandchildren.
Services for Blackmon will take plan next year, his wife said.
“We’re going to have a celebration of life in the spring time, probably in Curtis Park,” she said Tuesday.
This story was originally published December 8, 2021 at 5:00 AM.