By Tom Kirvan
Legal News
A man known as one of the premier criminal defense attorneys in Michigan for more than 50 years earned a royal salute April 18 for his tireless work on behalf of indigent defendants across the state.
Former Detroit attorney Frank D. Eaman was honored at a special ceremony in Lansing with an award fittingly named after him, recognizing his efforts that resulted in the creation of the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission to ensure the state’s public defense system is “fair, cost-effective and constitutional while simultaneously protecting public safety and accountability.”
A University of Michigan Law School alumnus, Eaman was feted at the ceremony by a distinguished group of speakers, including U.S. District Judge David Lawson; retired Barry County Circuit Judge James Fisher, now of counsel with Dickinson Wright in Grand Rapids; attorney Kenneth Mogill, a partner in the Lake Orion law firm of Mogill Posner & Cohen; Ann Arbor criminal defense attorney John Shea; and MIDC Commissioner Gary Walker, a former prosecuting attorney for Marquette County.
As the first recipient of the Frank D. Eaman Award for Excellence in Criminal Defense, Eaman waged a long and at times very lonely battle to provide effective legal counsel for indigent criminal defendants.
“Of the many issues Mr. Eaman has championed, securing the right to effective assistance of counsel for Michigan indigent defendants has been the closest to his heart,” said Judge David Lawson and Kenneth Mogill in their written remarks summarizing the honoree’s long list of legal accomplishments.
“For decades he was a driving force in the movement to ensure proper training and fair compensation for lawyers who take on the task of representing indigent criminal defendants. For much of this time, his was a lonely task; during those years, one could say that he was the movement.”
In fact, Lawson and Mogill wrote, on three occasions Eaman represented lawyer associations that sued judges for refusing to pay reasonable fees to lawyers who accept court assignments, appealing each of those cases to the Michigan Supreme Court.
“In one, he successfully appealed on behalf of a lawyer who was paid only $5 an hour for defending a man accused of first-degree murder,” Lawson and Mogill indicated. “On another occasion, he led a coalition of lawyers who sued the state, demanding equal justice for those without the means to pay for their own defense and highlighting that Michigan was one of only a handful of states that failed to provide any funds at all for public defense.
“In no small part as a result of Mr. Eaman’s dogged efforts and his effectiveness in bringing others into the fight, 10 years ago the (Michigan) Legislature passed the Indigent Defense Act of 2013,” Lawson and Mogill noted. “It was entirely appropriate that then-Governor Rick Snyder invited Frank to be present at the bill-signing ceremony. The act, which created the Indigent Defense Commission, has made an enormous difference throughout the state, including establishing a statewide public defender system and an oversight commission that sets standards based on the American Bar Association’s standards for indigent defense. Also fittingly, Mr. Eaman was appointed as one of the Commission’s inaugural members.”
Before retiring in 2018 because of health reasons, Eaman was actively involved in leadership and teaching positions with the State Bar of Michigan, the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan (CDAM), and the former Michigan Trial Lawyers Association (now the Michigan Association for Justice). In addition, for more than a decade Eaman was an adjunct professor at Cooley Law School as well as an instructor at the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan Trial College.
“He has taught literally hundreds of Michigan criminal defense lawyers the skills needed to be highly competent courtroom attorneys,” Lawson and Mogill said in praise of Eaman.
His grandfather, also named Frank D. Eaman, was one of Detroit’s foremost attorneys and a founder of the law firm now known as Butzel Long.
“Mr. Eaman’s grandfather was long a strong progressive force in the Detroit community, including serving as chair of the Michigan Democratic Party,” said Lawson and Mogill. “As Commissioner of the Detroit Police Department in the 1940s, Mr. Eaman’s grandfather removed corrupt officers, many of whom were later indicted, and brought civil service governance, racial integration, and order and respect to the Department. The era is known in Detroit history as ‘The Eaman Earthquake.’
“Frank’s career demonstrates that he shares not just his grandfather’s name, but also his forebear’s deep and abiding commitment to equal justice under the law,” Lawson and Mogill added. “As a young college student in the 1960s, he engaged in the civil rights movement in the North, including marching with hundreds of thousands of Detroiters in the 1963 march down Woodward Avenue with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He marched again in the 50th anniversary of that march in 2013.”
While in private practice, Eaman represented a number of high-profile criminal defendants, the likes of whom were highlighted in a recently published book about the history of Detroit. In a section about Detroit’s 10 most famous trials, Eaman was the lead defense attorney in three of the cases. No surprise there, wrote Lawson and Mogill.
“Equally unsurprisingly, in two of those cases, Mr. Eaman’s client was acquitted despite enormous adverse publicity before and during the trial,” they said.
Eaman established his own criminal defense practice in 2007 after working for three prominent Detroit law firms for 35 years.
During his storied career, he received a host of coveted honors from various bar associations and legal organizations, including the Arthur von Briesen Award from the National Legal Aid and Defenders Association and the Right to Counsel Award from the CDAM in 2004.
“He and his wife, Julie Kiefer Eaman, now spend their time between northwest Michigan and Florida, but the fruits of his labor – which could fairly be called ‘The Second Eaman Earthquake’ – live on every day in defender offices and courtrooms throughout the state,” Lawson and Mogill stated.
“Frank’s legacy is manifested every time a properly trained and prepared lawyer for an indigent accused person is able to present a competent defense that would have been impossible without his efforts.”
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