Dick DeGuerin (born February 16, 1941 in

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

) is a

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

defense

attorney Attorney may refer to: * Lawyer ** Attorney at law, in some jurisdictions * Attorney, one who has power of attorney * ''The Attorney'', a 2013 South Korean film See also * Attorney general, the principal legal officer of (or advisor to) a gove ...

based in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

, most notable for defending

Tom DeLay Thomas Dale DeLay (; born April 8, 1947) is an American author and retired politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1985 until 2006. He was Republic ...

, Allen Stanford,

David Koresh David Koresh (; born Vernon Wayne Howell; August 17, 1959 – April 19, 1993) was an American cult leader who played a central role in the Waco siege of 1993. As the head of the Branch Davidians, a religious sect and offshoot of the Davidian Sev ...

and Robert Durst. In 1994, DeGuerin was named Outstanding Criminal Defense Lawyer of the Year by the

State Bar of Texas The State Bar of Texas (the Texas Bar) is an agency of the judiciary under the administrative control of the Texas Supreme Court. It is responsible for assisting the Texas Supreme Court in overseeing all attorneys licensed to practice law in Te ...

Criminal Justice Section.

Education

He earned a law degree in 1965 from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

and that same year, he was admitted to the State Bar.

Career

Early in his career (1971–1982), he was an associate with

Percy Foreman Percy Eugene Foreman (June 21, 1902 – August 25, 1988) was a criminal defense attorney from Houston, Texas. Foreman was born near Bold Springs, Texas. Foreman moved to Livingston, Texas when he was six years old. He was the son of Ransom Pa ...

. In 2005, he defended former

House Majority Leader Party leaders of the United States House of Representatives, also known as floor leaders, are congresspeople who coordinate legislative initiatives and serve as the chief spokespersons for their parties on the House floor. These leaders are ele ...

Tom DeLay in DeLay's defense against

indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felony, felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concep ...

s for

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

and

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...

, brought by Texas

prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...

Ronnie Earle. DeGuerin, a

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

, previously prevailed over Earle in a case involving misconduct charges against U.S. Senator

Kay Bailey Hutchison Kay Bailey Hutchison (born Kathryn Ann Bailey; July 22, 1943) is an American attorney, television correspondent, politician, diplomat, and was the 22nd United States Permanent Representative to NATO from 2017 until 2021. A member of the Republi ...

. DeLay was found guilty, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. He also represented bankers involved in fraud cases tied to the

Enron Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional companies. ...

collapse. He represented

Waco, Texas Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the ...

leader David Koresh during Koresh's standoff with the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

and the

ATF The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), commonly referred to as the ATF, is a domestic law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice. Its responsibilities include the investigation and preven ...

agents. DeGuerin used a self-defense argument, and won, when he represented New York real estate heir Robert Durst, who admitted to killing and then dismembering the body of Durst's 71-year-old neighbor Morris Black, bagging the body parts and tossing them into

Galveston Bay Galveston Bay ( ) is a bay in the western Gulf of Mexico along the upper coast of Texas. It is the seventh-largest estuary in the United States, and the largest of seven major estuaries along the Texas Gulf Coast. It is connected to the Gulf of ...

. DeGuerin once again represented Durst at his arraignment in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

on March 16, 2015 for the murder of

Susan Berman Susan Jane Berman (May 18, 1945 – December 23, 2000) was an American journalist and author. The daughter of mobster David Berman, she wrote about her late-in-life realization of her father's role in organized crime. In 2000, Berman was f ...

in 2000 (which arose out of the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

miniseries special The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst). Other cases include participating in the Congressional impeachment hearing of U.S. District Court Judge

Samuel B. Kent Samuel B. Kent (born June 22, 1949) is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, whose term ended in resignation in 2009 following charges of sexual abuse. Kent served in the si ...

. He represented

Celeste Beard Celeste Beard Johnson (born February 13, 1963), more commonly known as Celeste Beard, is an American convicted murderer who is serving a life sentence at the Lane Murray (SHU) in Gatesville, Texas, for the 1999 murder of her millionaire husban ...

, Senator

, David Mark Temple, convicted of killing his wife, who was 8 months pregnant, Allen Stanford, and Billy Joe Shaver. He is an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...

at The University of Texas School of Law, teaching

criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...

Personal life

DeGuerin is the older brother of attorney Mike DeGeurin, despite the different way they spell their last names. A 2008

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With it ...

article about the brothers mentioned that Dick DeGuerin is married to his third wife.https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Houston-brothers-shine-in-legal-spotlight-1656519.php

References

External links

DeGuerin & Dickson law practice homepage

Dick DeGuerin's campaign contributions

{{DEFAULTSORT:Deguerin, Dick 1941 births Texas lawyers People from Austin, Texas Living people Criminal defense lawyers People from Houston