In a high-profile Grafton County Superior Court case early on in his career, criminal defense attorney Charlie Buttrey resorted to an unorthodox legal strategy.

During his closing argument, Buttrey urged the jury to find his client guilty.

Just not of the felony charge the prosecutor had in mind.

After deliberating for less than an hour, jurors took Buttrey’s advice. They returned with guilty verdicts for a pair of misdemeanors — disorderly conduct and criminal mischief. But spared his client, a 27-year-old Canaan man, from a felony conviction — and a lengthy prison sentence — for simple assault in an altercation that then-Grafton County Attorney Ward Scott claimed was racially motivated.

At the time of the trial in 1994, the state’s hate crime law, which carried an “enhanced penalty,” had been on the books for four years, but never before had a New Hampshire prosecutor tried a case based on the statute, this paper reported. 

The defendant, who was white, had used the N-word multiple times during fisticuffs that began at a summertime carnival in downtown Lebanon and later spilled over to a nearby house party.

The other combatant, who was Black, testified that the N-word hadn’t played a part in the altercation. “It was a straight-up fight,” he said, noting that in his opinion, it was a fight he had won.

Both men had reputations as brawlers. Buttrey’s client, however, was the only one charged with a crime. “The ugly part about this is the state is playing the race card,” Buttrey told jurors. “It is not a crime to use offensive language.”

Following the first day of a two-day trial, the defendant turned to his lawyer. “My whole life I’ve fought with my fists,” he said. “I’ve never seen anyone fight with words.”

After 38 years of practicing law in the Upper Valley, Buttrey, 65, is taking down his shingle. “It’s time,” he told me this week. “I’ve taken the law as far as I can take it.”

As someone who spends a fair amount of time in courthouses, I know that he’ll be missed.

Buttrey worked on behalf of people society had written off as lost causes. “You’re advocating for clients who have no agency,” he said, adding that many of them grew up in abusive, neglectful households, where substance use ran rampant. “How do we expect these people to survive, let alone thrive?”

With many of his clients deemed indigent, Buttrey was paid through state contracts, which called for him to take over cases in which public defenders had conflicts. “It gave me a front row seat to the criminal justice system, and all its warts,” he said. 

Recidivism rates alone show “this system isn’t working,” Buttrey said. (In New Hampshire and Vermont, more than 40% of people return to prison within three years of their release, which is in line with the national average, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics.)

After graduating from Vermont Law School and spending a few years with a Norwich firm, Buttrey moved his practice to Lebanon in 1989, joining a firm that became Schuster, Buttrey and Wing.

The firm’s lawyers make a habit of critiquing each others’ court filings before submitting them and Buttrey is the “most fluent writer who I know,” Schuster said.

Outside of the courtroom, Buttrey was known for his local TV commercials, which had a humorous (and sometimes corny) bent. One commercial featured a skydiver (Buttrey) while another captured a sledder (not him) flying down an icy luge run. 

Buttrey used the commercials and his slogan “Not Just Another Lawyer” — to drum up business for the personal injury side of his practice.

About 80% of Buttrey’s practice was devoted to criminal defense, but it accounted for only 20% of his income. Personal injury cases “paid the bills and I was also able to help a lot of people,” he said.

Buttrey, who lives in Thetford and coaches Thetford Academy’s indoor track team, isn’t retiring to the sidelines, not completely. “I have not lost my enthusiasm for criminal justice reform,” he said.

He’s looking forward to volunteering with Orange County’s restorative justice program. He also wants to get involved with nonprofits that are working at the statehouses in Concord and Montpelier to eliminate life-without-parole sentences.

Last May, Buttrey earned a master’s degree in theological studies from Boston University, after taking weekly bus trips to attend classes for 3½ years.  

But he’s not planning to start preaching on Sunday mornings. “I’ve always been fascinated by religion and wanted to take a deep dive into the scholarly side,” Buttrey said.

For a paper in his final semester, he focused on the need for prison reform throughout the country. “Fully half of those incarcerated today have been convicted on nonviolent offenses,” he wrote. “Prisoners are overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately African American or Latino.”

“The American criminal justice system — and the prison-industrial complex which it has spawned — is beset with implicit and structural racism and classism,” he added.

In late December, I was in the gallery at the Lebanon courthouse while Buttrey represented a client pro bono on a resisting arrest charge. Buttrey had worked out a deal with the prosecutor that allowed his client to avoid a 10-day jail sentence, providing he stay out of trouble for a year. 

At the sentencing hearing, Buttrey mentioned to District Court Judge Michael Mace that it was likely his final court appearance.

Reaching down from the bench to offer a handshake, the judge smiled at Buttrey and said, “You’re an institution around here.”

Now, though, the defense rests.

Jim Kenyon can be reached at jkenyon@vnews.com.