By Jo Mathis
Legal News
On his last day of work, Wayne County Prosecutor Auggie Hutting sat in his 12th-floor office overlooking the city he worked so hard to protect, and reminded himself that leaving makes sense right now.
"My time has come," he said. "I'm ready to turn it over to the younger kids."
There was a time Hutting thought he would never retire; that he would always be preparing for the next morning in court. But he hadn't counted on a cancer diagnosis last fall, or the fact that the tumor would grow significantly in April and May.
"I said to myself: I don't know how much time I have. And why should I lose this summer?" he asked, sitting at his old wooden desk stacked with files he still needed to sort. "Who knows what I'll be like next summer? I might not be able to function. I might not even be here."
That's a sobering thought to the many who've worked with Augustus Hutting over the years.
Hutting has tried around 350 homicides since the day he walked into the office 35 years ago at the age of 30.
Not only did Hutting thoroughly prepare his cases, said Tim Baughman, chief of research, training and appeals for the Wayne County Prosecutor's office. But he understood his cases, inside and out.
"If he had a legal issue he wanted to discuss, he would tell you the story of the case like it was a Raymond Chandler novel," said Baughman, noting that Hutting was well prepared both with the facts and the legal issues. "Not just, 'I have this evidence, and these witnesses who will say this,' but the story of the case -- the reality of it. "
Baughman is in the office most Saturday mornings, and said Hutting would usually be there, too, often interviewing witnesses for upcoming trials.
"One like Auggie, and with his accomplishments, will not pass this way again," said Baughman.
Growing up in Michigan's thumb, Hutting considered becoming a priest for a while. Instead, he became a caseworker for eight years at the Department of Social Services. One day, he asked himself where he wanted to be when he was 55.
It was not at the DSS.
So he did what some of his buddies were doing: He went to law school, graduating in 1975 just before law school attendance soared. Armed with new analytical skills and feeling fortunate to be just ahead of the curve, he got a job in the paternity division (his theme was "no child without a daddy for Christmas"). A few months later, he moved to the prosecutor's office.
"It was fate that brought me here," he said.
Judge Timothy Kenny, who has known Hutting since they were young trial lawyers 35 years ago, said Hutting can take pride in being the champion of the down-trodden and the powerless.
"He has been the voice for those victims with no one else to speak on their behalf," said Kenny, who believes Hutting's litigation skills are a match for any defense attorney in the country. "He has fought for those who could not fight for themselves ... Auggie Hutting represents everything admirable in prosecuting attorneys -- skillful, knowledgeable, fair, and honorable."
Hutting's first trial was that of Windsor knife salesman Gerald Brissette who was convicted of murdering his wife after they'd gone to Joey's Stable restaurant to celebrate their anniversary in 1984. Come to find out, he'd recently forged her signature on life insurance policies totaling $810,000.
The late Ken Cockrel Sr. was on the other side.
"Kenny used to say, 'If you're really a trial lawyer, and you try the case the way a real trial lawyer is supposed to try the case, when you leave the courtroom for the last time, you leave a little part of yourself on the seat,'" he recalled. "I thought, 'You know, Ken? You're absolutely right. That's the way I feel. As you get older, that little piece feels more like a chunk."
Hutting said he would be mentally and physically incapable today to try a case such as the St. Aubin Street Massacre of 1990. He tried three defendants at once before three separate juries. They had gone to rob a crack house, and ended up killing six people.
"Trials are a young man's game," he said.
As he recalls a handful of old cases, it's clear Hutting's memory is as sharp as ever, as he can recite dates, addresses, and the middle name of a defendant's no-good cousin.
Some of the details -- not to mention crime photos -- Hutting would be just as glad to forget.
Nonetheless, Hutting kept his faith in the inherent goodness of mankind.
"Defendants are people, too," is one of his mantras. Another is: "Defendants' families are people, too."
"I don't get calloused about that," he said. "I try to keep everything on a professional level. I never get personal with a defendant or the family of a defendant. I prosecute them as hard as I can, especially when I have the evidence that absolutely convinces me that they're guilty. But you have to respect that."
Often, a victim wasn't altogether innocent himself.
There were times he'd go into court and realize that the victim on his side of the table that day was the defendant on the other side of the table the week before.
"Not everyone is a Christina Comito," he says, recalling the young woman ("a golden kid") who in 1995 was struck and killed by a drugged-out driver on Eight Mile. It was a gorgeous day in October, Hutting recalled, and Comito was heading to coach a basketball game when a truck slammed into her.
Because the jury was hung on the main count the first time around, he had to try the defendant twice before getting a conviction.
"Every case that comes in here is unique," he said. "Somebody has been hurt. Lots of times, somebody has died. They're looking for somebody to represent them, OK? Not just to be passed along as another piece of paper in the system, or have their file shuffled from one prosecutor to another."
There were only a handful of cases in which he wasn't convinced of the defendant's guilt. And there were those he knew he couldn't win right from the start.
"One-on-one identifications are very tough, when you only have one person saying, 'That's the guy.' You know going in that you stand a good chance of going out," he said. "It's discouraging. I feel bad. But that's the system. When the jury speaks, that's what it's about. And you have to accept that and move on."
Still, there were a few times when he would look at the jury after an innocent verdict and think: "You're stupid! I don't know what you were thinking in there!"
When he started out, an unlisted phone number was enough to guarantee privacy, and he's never feared retribution from defendants or their families.
"If you don't get personal, generally the defendant and the defendant's family will at least respect that. Even if they don't like what you do."
Nor has Hutting had problems with defense attorneys.
"They work hard for their money, and you have to recognize that," said Hutting, who admires any defense attorney who is prepared and ready to do a good job for his client.
He's also a big admirer of Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy.
"She recognizes that we have to do more than just try our cases," he said. "So she has developed some very good programs that try to stop the violence before it gets started. Obviously you save a whole lot more if you can prevent something from happening as opposed to coming in at the end and having to deal with a crime."
The Kwame Kilpatrick saga was interesting to watch unfold, but Hutting was glad not to play a part in it.
"Murder's more my bread-and-butter," he said, smiling. "But Kym put together a great team, and the team did the job."
The professional admiration is mutual. Calling him one of the county's iconic prosecutors, Worthy said Hutting was not only well respected, but very much liked by everyone from the staff to the defense bar to the bench.
"It's a great loss to the office that he's leaving," she said. "We certainly get why, and we're wishing for a miracle."
Except during the summer when he loves to play golf, Hutting would drive from his Grosse Pointe home to the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice downtown on Saturdays and Sundays for a few hours. It was quiet, and he could work on cases.
"I come down here til two (on weekends)," he said. "At three, the PGA tour comes on, and I watch golf. It makes for a good Saturday and Sunday. Especially in the winter when it's ugly, nasty and miserable outside."
Though he'll miss the challenge of each new case, he may still play a helping role now and then when he consults with daughter Andrea, one of the 150 or so attorneys in the very office he's just left.
Andrea Hutting, 31, works in the Child and Family Abuse Unit of the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office. Her sister, Alex, 26, just finished her first year of grad school at Wayne State.
Andrea Hutting's family jokes that she parlayed Take Your Daughter to Work Day into a career. She said she wanted to become a prosecutor because she wanted to work with her dad, and make a closing argument as poignantly and cross-examine a witness as effectively as he had.
She hasn't had a chance to miss him yet, as he's still showing up to clean out his office. And she's still visiting him at lunchtime, when she finds his brown bag in the refrigerator and makes sure he eats.
"We joke that he doesn't know what to do with himself on weekends, especially if there's no golf game on the calendar," said Andrea Hutting, "He's so attached to this place, he'd always find some reason to come in on the weekends."
She said that until his diagnosis in October, she and her father would take long walks with his dog, talking about their cases. She misses those walks, and says the family is taking his illness one day at a time, hoping each day he'll feel good.
"Some days are more difficult than others," she said.
The diagnosis came after Hutting suddenly started losing weight last fall. By the time he'd dropped about 25 pounds, a CT scan showed a thickening in the pleural cavity of his right lung.
He was told he had an aggressive form of mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer usually caused by exposure to asbestos.
"It was devastating," said Hutting, who figures he was exposed to asbestos during summer jobs at one or possibly two Michigan foundries more than 40 years ago.
Chemotherapy ultimately didn't work. But now he's part of a clinical trial, and so far is happy with the effects of his new medication.
In fact, despite a fairly consistent cough, he's feeling so good he thinks he might be able to take his wife to Italy for two weeks in September after all.
He talked it over with his wife of 37 years, Martha, a home health care worker at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, and she decided to retire now, too.
First on their retirement bucket list: The Huttings are going to clean out the garage. If he feels well enough to play golf, he'll be out there.
Asked if he's bitter, he shrugged.
"A little bit," he said. "Sure, I want to be healthy. I was looking forward to traveling and playing golf, and that's not going to be easy to do."
"But when you go to U-M (for infusion) and see the kids who are there -- how can you complain? That's the way life is."
He's had a good life, he said.
"And a great job," he said. "I wouldn't trade it for the world."
Published: Fri, Jul 8, 2011
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