Over the past 40 years, Tom Worthington and his team of lawyers and experts have handled many of the most controversial, complex, and difficult cases to arise in Central California. Beginning in 1974 with the successful defense of Inez Garcia and Alfred Medrano, when Mr. Worthington teamed up with the famed lawyer, Charles Garry to defend a woman who killed the man who raped her, and continuing most recently to defend a woman charged with murdering her husband in their bedroom in Soledad.
1974
During the infancy of the women's rights movement, when the violent nature of rape was often minimized in courts of law, Tom Worthington represented the accomplice in a case where a woman shot and killed her rapist. After a trial resulted in a hung jury, the District Attorney reduced the charge to manslaughter and the court granted probation.
1978
Four female family members, ranging in age from 6 to 74, were murdered in a blood bath chillingly reminiscent of the murders described in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. A 19-year-old male member of the family and his 14-year-old girlfriend were accused of the murder. The prosecution was at a time when law enforcement had just begun the regular-but amateur-use of hypnosis of witnesses in unsolved cases. The defendants made admissions about their involvement, but their motives and the possible involvement of at least one of the hypnotized witnesses left the true facts a mystery to this day. Tom Worthington represented the 14-year-old-girl and fought vigorously in her defense and the court treated her with compassion, sending her to a school for girls. Given a second chance, she earned a scholarship to the University of California where she graduated with honors, married and had children. Mr. Worthington worked tirelessly over the next ten years with California Attorneys for Criminal Justice to achieve a change in the law regarding the use of hypnosis in court cases. California law now strictly limits the testimony of witnesses who have had their memories "enhanced" by hypnosis.
1980
A young woman was charged with the attempted murder of her newborn infant. Mr. Worthington represented her and successfully invoked the "post-partum depression defense" at a time when the syndrome had only recently become a part of the medical/legal lexicon. The jury acquitted on the murder charge and rendered a verdict of manslaughter.
1983
Eight years after the end of the Viet Nam War, a refugee from that country was finally able to bring his wife and 7-year-old daughter to the United States where he had been living with their older daughter, then 8 years old, and a sponsor family in Georgia. During the final evacuation of Saigon he had managed to climb onto a helicopter and pull his infant daughter aboard but then a hail of gunfire forced the helicopter to accelerate, knocking down his pregnant wife with the propeller backwash, leaving her behind. After his wife and youngest daughter finally arrived in America, a Georgia State judge, over the objection of the family, established a legal guardianship of the oldest daughter in the sponsor family-leaving the man and his family only visitation rights with their daughter and again separating this family. Not knowing the laws of the United States, the man brought his family to Monterey, California where they had other friends. He enrolled his children in school and got a job. Within a week, the FBI tracked him down, picked up his children from the school bus stop, and arrested him on the charge of kidnap. Mr. Worthington was able to get the criminal charges against the man dismissed in California and he represented the family in the custody matter in Georgia. In the end, the family was reunited and returned to California where they all live today.
1987
A man was charged with the 1972 murder of a young woman in Carmel Valley. At the time, it was the oldest case ever brought to trial in California. Mr. Worthington represented the man and notwithstanding a supposed "jail house confession" the jury voted 10 to 2 for acquittal. The District Attorney later dismissed all charges.
1990
In Santa Cruz County, a transient man was charged with the brutal murder of a well-known dentist ad with assault and attempted murder of a houseguest of the dentist. The man's fingerprints were found at the scene and on multiple occasions he confessed to committing the crimes. In his representation of the man, Mr. Worthington gathered strong evidence showing the likelihood that another person actually committed the crime and successfully invoked the "Compulsive Confessor" defense. The jury acquitted on all charges
1994
On Christmas Eve a woman shot and killed her husband in front of their home in Hollister. Mr. Worthington and his co-counsel James A. Michael successfully invoked the "Battered Woman Defense." Having started with a charge of capital murder, the defense achieved a jury verdict of involuntary manslaughter.
1999
More than a decade after the disappearance of a 16-year-old boy, and after the gruesome discovery of his skeletal remains under the house of his mother and step-father, the stepfather was charged with the boy's murder. Mr. Worthington represented the step-father and after a two week trial, which featured the testimony of an FBI profiling expert, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
2001
An African-American man was charged with the rape of a white woman from Scotland. Mr. Worthington's defense of this man included an investigation which spanned two continents. From the information collected from other places the woman had traveled, the defense was able to present evidence at trial that she had made allegations of sexual assault on at least 19 previous occasions. After a trial that resulted in a hung jury, the District Attorney dismissed all charges.
2002
A man from a prominent Carmel family was charged with the rape of an eight year old girl. The girl, then 15, had not reported the alleged rape for 7 years and then only after claiming to have had "flashbacks" recalling the details. Mr. Worthington, along with the finest memory experts in the United States-Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, the leading authority on "recovered memory" and her colleague Dr. Jeffrey Younggren, a professor at UCLA who had begun his clinical practice of psychology when he was a Captain in Viet Nam treating soldiers who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder-were able to show that the claim of "recovered memory" could not be supported in this case and 10 days before trial, the District Attorney dismissed all charges.
2005
Mr. Worthington and his co-counsel, Carolyn "Charlie" Keeley, represented a young man accused of attempted murder in an assault on a person who had molested him. Mr. Worthington along with experts in the field of "Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome" and "Post-traumatic Stress Disorder" successfully mounted a defense, resulting in a reduction of the charges and a grant of probation.
