Cindy Sheehan, a well-known Denver lawyer who gave half her time to helping those who couldn’t pay, died at a Denver hospice July 16. She was 48.
She had fought cancer for more than two years, said her husband, John Norgren.
A service is planned at 10 a.m. Sunday at the Daniels Cable Center, University of Denver.
Sheehan won a case in 2002 before the Colorado Supreme Court when she defended Derek Lavan Jackson, who was a passenger in a car and was forced to answer police questions, although he wasn’t wanted for anything. Sheehan won the case by using the Fourth Amendment, which disallows unlawful searches and seizures.
“She was an absolutely great lawyer,” said David Lane, also a criminal defense attorney.
“Everyone, in judicial, criminal defense and prosecutors, had the highest regard for her. She was quietly tenacious and didn’t antagonize,” he said. “She could be tough as nails, but she never took out the switchblades.”
Sheehan had the distinction of having the same name as a California woman who protested the Iraq war after her own son’s death, often camping out at then-President George W. Bush’s Texas ranch.
The Denver Sheehan wrote to the other woman and said that if she needed representation, she would be glad to oblige, said Norgren.
“Cynthia was a very dangerous opponent for the other side,” said former Jefferson County District Judge Leland Anderson.
“She practiced law like a ballet dancer with grace, poise, balance and timing. She seemed to have a serene calmness and to be in control of herself, her emotions and the case,” said Anderson, now a judicial mediator.
Sheehan showed the same poise whether she won or lost and “never whined or griped about a verdict,” said Anderson, of Golden.
Sheehan had been an alternate defense counsel, and Anderson often appointed her to cases.
She specialized in death-penalty cases, “which doesn’t win you any popularity contests,” said Anderson.
Cynthia J. Sheehan was born in Willimantic, Conn., on Feb. 17, 1963.
She earned a political science degree at York University in Toronto and her law degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
She married John Norgren on Aug. 4, 2004.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by her parents, Bernie and Nancy Sheehan of Surrey, British Columbia; two sisters: Cathy Sheehan of Penticton, B.C., and Maureen Sheehan of Victoria, B.C., and a brother, Jeff Sheehan of Port Coquitlam, B.C.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
