ACLU Losing Legal Director
By J. Sebastian Sinisi
Sunday June 11, 1995 - Mile High Report
(Recent photos below)
Most lawyers wouldn't exactly jump at the chance to represent someone like
the Ku Klux Klan's Shawn Slater.
Least of all on a nonprofit basis. David Miller [1969], a few years
out of the University of Denver Law School, with one foot on the yuppie fast
track, had no way of knowing he would be doing just that when he took over as
legal director of the Colorado American Civil Liberties Union at 32, agreeing
to a three-year commitment.
That was 12 years ago. Now, after working on free-speech and prison-reform
class-action cases whose effects will be with us for decades, Miller is ready
to move on.
Miller, who gave notice last month, actually won't be leaving for about three
more months. But ACLU executive director Jim Joy already misses him.
"David has a truly brilliant legal mind," said Joy, who has been with the
Colorado ACLU for 20 years. "He was our first legal director, and it's hard
to picture anyone matching what he's done over the years. The work he did on
prison reform will affect us for generations to come."
"He regularly puts in 75-hour weeks. He's also my closest friend and a
wonderful person. But -- remember -- he's a lawyer. So maybe you have to
qualify all that with a grain of salt," Joy said in jest.
In truth, lawyers were never America's favorite species, and the interminable
O.J. Simpson trial has done little to buff their image. But Miller, who took
a 67 percent pay cut when he joined the ACLU in 1983, has run against the
grain of the fast-lane, high-perk "L.A. Law" life expectation that flooded
America's law schools for nearly a decade in a trend that slowed only last
year.
During his ACLU tenure, Miller made a genuine difference, beginning with the
Ramos vs. Lamm case in the early 1980s. It led to restructuring the state
prison system in terms of removing the "cruel and unusual punishment"
practices the case challenged.
Similar issues were the basis of this year's Gilliam Youth Center class-action
lawsuit, dealing with squalid conditions at the youth center.
Along the way, Miller fought Colorado's anti-gay amendment 2 with Evans, et
al vs. Romer, a case that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this
October.
Other cases Miller has taken on run from Colorado's first "right to die" case
to Bock vs. Westminster Mall, which extended the right to pass out leaflets
in malls. He challenged athletic drug testing at the University of Colorado
all the way to the state Supreme Court and won in 1992.
There was also Slater vs. Romer.
In that case, Miller got a federal judge to uphold the right of a hate group
-- the KKK -- to demostrate on the steps of the state Capitol on Martin
Luther King Day after the governor had said no.
"Representing Slater -- who really didn't have a clue -- was the most
difficult case I've handled," said Miller at the ACLU's Denver headquarters
last week. "I get the `misfit' cases, because you can't ask volunteer
lawyers to take on cases that are going to drag out for years. This is more
than a full-time job. It never really ends, and Barb (his wife) and I have
other things to do."
His decision to step down was hastened by surgery he underwent in 1990 for a
brain tumor "the size of an orange. I came out of it intact, with no loss of
abilities, although some people would dispute that," he said wryly.
"For me, this has been the best job in the world. But something like that
surgery makes you re-evaluate and realize that life is short. I don't mind
the 75-hour weeks. But at some point, you need to step back emotionally."
Exactly what he and Barb will do isn't quite certain yet. He also realizes
the "private sector doesn't work the same way the ACLU does." Barb Shaw and
Miller have been together since shortly after a meeting at a 1975 Denver
Halloween Party when Miller dressed as the host's ex-wife. They have been
married four years.
The same year Miller left the French, West, Wood & Brown firm in Breckenridge
to join the ACLU in Denver, Shaw co-founded Project Safeguard for battered
women. She still is active in that organization and co-chairs the Family
Peace Task Force, which deals with domestic violence, within the state
judicial department.
When Miller took an ACLU sabbatical in 1992, they went to Borneo to volunteer
with Birute Galdikas' Orangutan Foundation, which seeks to save orangutans
threatened by the destruction of the rain forest in Borneo.
They went back last October and will return this November to assist with what
Barb calls "an amazing project that's basically one woman standing between
the rain forest and loggers." "She needs all the help she can get."
Update from David - February/March 1997:
After I left the job described by the paper, my wife Barb and I took a
lengthy sabbatical. We organized a project with the assistance of some
wonderful folks at the DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and we
went to Borneo, to the rain forest orangutan research site of Prof. Birute
Galdikas -- the world's leading authority on those apes (despite the sound
of her name, she's a Canadian who has been doing on-going orangutan and
rain forest research in Kalimantan Tengah for over 20 years). We've been
going there each year for the last few years, to try to help the professor
with her work. On each trip we do a small project. On this one we built
a small (1Kw) solar powered station 20 miles up a small black-water river
on the south coast of Borneo. The system provides her local Dayak
assistants with light so they can write up their research notes at night.
It also is used to power a battery recharging system, to cut down on
the disposal of spent batteries. A report on that project made the
Internet this summer or fall at the Orangutan Foundation International's
website.
After we got back, I along with some friends, set up a 4 lawyer firm that
does only civil rights, constitutional law and criminal defense work. The
practice is going great and we are involved in some amazing cases.
My wife and I recently met with one of the world's leading authorities on
compost trash "technology." We are putting together a project to solve
problems of trash disposal in the rain forest research camp. This summer
we're going back to install a trash recycling/removal system at her
research camp, 20 miles up a black water river from nowhere on the south
coast of Borneo. Coincidentally, we'll be there at the same time they are
filming a movie (staring Isabella Rosellini) about Prof. Galdikas' work
for the orangutans (based on her recent book: "Reflections of Eden").
This picture with my wife Barb and I is set in front of the completed 1 KW
station that provides light to the camp researchers and powers a battery
recharging system for their flashlights so they won't be faced with
continually running through D cells where there is no way to safely dispose
of them in the rain forest.
This picture of me and an adult female orangutan named "Siswi" holding a tape
measure, was taken while we were building the cage to keep the orangutans
from dismantling the solar collectors.
Finally, this is me with a sick baby, ex-captive orangutan named "Tosido"
who was being nursed back to health for eventual release into the jungle.
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