the death of the other Lionel Hutz
Haynes Lee
died last December a number of months before Phil Hartman.
Though he was probably more like Ned Flanders than Lionel Hutz.
Electronic Telegraph
December 27, 1997
SIR Lionel Luckhoo, the flamboyant Guyanese barrister who has died
aged 83, was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's
most successful advocate, with 245 consecutive successful defences
in murder cases.
Known as the "Perry Mason of the Caribbean", Luckhoo was also a
highly respected High Commissioner in London for both Guyana and
Barbados, a candidate for prime minister, and later in life a
globe-trotting evangelical preacher, founder of the Luckhoo Mission
in Dallas, Texas.
Lionel Alfred Luckhoo was born at New Amsterdam, British Guiana, on
March 2 1914, the second of three sons. His Indian grandfather,
Lokhooa, had been "recruited" to work on a sugar plantation
in British Guiana while sightseeing as a boy with his two brothers
at Lucknow, in 1859. The recruiter painted a bright picture of the
prospects in a strange land called "Damra Tapu" (Demerara, a
province in British Guiana), where in five years they could make a
fortune, before returning home.
Lokhooa and his brothers, aged 13, 11 and seven, crossed the Indian
and Pacific oceans aboard the Victor Emanuel, and were assigned to
a sugar plantation as indentured labour. Lokhooa converted
to Christianity, thereafter calling himself Moses Luckhoo. When,
after years of hard work, he had saved enough to buy his way out of
his indentures, he qualified as an interpreter. He went on to
open several provision stores, eventually becoming one of New
Amsterdam's richest merchants.
Lionel's father, Edward Alfred, one of Moses's six sons, became the
first East Indian solicitor in the colony in 1899, and later Mayor
of New Amsterdam.
Young Lionel was educated at Queen's College, Georgetown, before
coming to London to study Medicine at St Thomas's Hospital.
Realising that he could not stand the sight of blood, he switched
to Law, and was called to the Bar by Middle Temple in 1940. He left
for home on the day of Dunkirk, to set up in legal practice with
his brother as Luckhoo & Luckhoo, in Georgetown.
As his record suggests, Lionel Luckhoo was extraordinarily
persuasive with juries. He was incisive in cross examination, and
got straight to the nub of a case. Between 1940 and 1985, when he
finally retired, almost all his clients were acquitted at trial.
The few that were not had their convictions overturned on appeal to
the Privy Council.
One such case, Noor Mohamed v R (1949), remains an authority on
so-called similar fact evidence. The defendant, a goldsmith, was
accused of murdering the woman he lived with by causing her to
take cyanide, a substance which he used for his trade. There was no
direct evidence that he had caused her to take cyanide, and some
evidence that she had committed suicide.
At the trial, the prosecution led evidence that the goldsmith had
previously killed his wife with cyanide on pretence that it was a
cure for toothache. On appeal, Luckhoo successfully argued that
the prejudicial effect of this evidence outweighed its probative
value, so it had been wrongly admitted.
After independence, Luckhoo argued for keeping appeals to the Privy
Council, feeling that its legitimacy could not be easily replicated
in the Caribbean. He took Silk in 1954, and was appointed CBE in
1962.
During the early 1960s, Luckhoo acted for the maverick cult leader
Jim Jones on a child custody case. Jones held sway over a great
many Guyanese, duped by his fake healing ceremonies and seduced
into adopting his free-love lifestyle. In 1978, Jones orchestrated
the mass suicide of some 900 people in his commune known as
Jonestown. Luckhoo later admitted that dissuading the deeply
unstable Jones from committing suicide on an earlier occasion was
one of his greatest regrets.
In the meantime, Luckhoo had served as a member of the State
Council, 1952-53, and as Minister without Portfolio, 1954-57. He
was Mayor of Georgetown in 1954, 1955, 1960 and 1961.
In the late 1950s, he stood for prime minister against the
coalition led by Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham. Cheddi Jagan's
Progressive People's Party appeared so pro-communist in 1953 that
Britain suspended the constitution for four years and dispatched
troops.
As well as being a staunch Anglophile, Luckhoo was fiercely
anti-communist, but his National Labour Front expounded
conservative ideas for which the country was not yet ready, and he
failed to garner enough grass roots support.
When his country gained independence as Guyana in 1966, Luckhoo
became its first High Commissioner in London. That autumn he also
became Barbados's first High Commissioner (he was friendly with the
Barbadian prime minister, Errol Barrow), thereby pioneering the
cost-saving system of joint representation that has since been
adopted by many small countries. His motor car carried two flags,
and not infrequently two places were laid for him at official
banquets.
From 1967 to 1970, Luckhoo also represented Guyana and Barbados as
ambassador in Paris, Bonn and The Hague. He was knighted in 1966,
and appointed KCMG in 1969. But he gave up his diplomatic career in
1970 and entered chambers in the Temple, returning to Guyana in
1974, after the failure of his first marriage. Until retiring in
1980, he concentrated on appeal work.
Luckhoo was very attached to the Turf. The first horse that he and
his brothers owned was called First Luck; it went on to win 33
races in Guyana and Trinidad, financing a string of 10 horses. He
later had several in training in England with the late Sam Hall,
one of which, Philodendrun, won the Liverpool Summer Cup in 1960.
He was a regular attender of Royal Ascot, and in 1960 published
The Fitzluck Theory of Breeding Racehorses in the American Blood
Horse magazine.
Luckhoo was always immaculately attired, and had a short, sharp
step and gait. Everything was done in a slightly hurried way. He
was a brilliant off-the-cuff speaker, and an accomplished
magician, joining the Magic Circle.
He had always been a Christian, but in later years he became, as he
put it, "an ambassador for Jesus". He founded his mission in 1980,
preached around the world, and wrote pamphlets with such titles as
Dear Atheist and God is Love.
Luckhoo married, first (dissolved 1972), Sheila Chamberlin; they
had two sons and three daughters, who survive him, with his second
wife, Jeannie.
eof