More than anything, Manuel Paul Guerrero would want to be remembered as the lawyer who wanted to give people a chance to succeed in life, his family said.
Guerrero, 78, died Tuesday of a heart attack, the day before he was scheduled to have a quadruple bypass, said his son Todd Guerrero.
In his 50 years as a lawyer, Guerrero dedicated himself to helping others succeed, particularly those in the Hispanic community, his family members said.
As the first child in his family to graduate from college, Guerrero knew the value of education, his son said.
Nothing illustrates that more than his efforts to help a young man named Angel Hernandez. In 2000, the former Latin Kings gang member from Willmar was charged with threatening a mall security guard and store employee who suspected he had shoplifted. Guerrero took the case and persuaded the judge to sentence Hernandez to college instead of prison.
“One of my dad’s friends said that if (my dad’s) done anything in his life, that’s one thing that’s worth a lifetime,” Todd Guerrero said.
Manuel Guerrero took on another case that made the headlines, defending Olga Franco in a 2008 traffic crash with a school bus in Cottonwood, Minn. Four children were killed and 16 others injured. Franco was later charged and convicted of criminal vehicle homicide in the case.
“When he first contacted me and told me that he was going to represent Olga, I thought he was out of his mind,” said Thomas Gilligan, Guerrero’s son-in-law. “He was unconcerned about the fact that the case was politically charged and that the public had essentially made up their minds.”
The anger and hatred directed toward both Franco and Guerrero was difficult to read and hear, Gilligan said.
“He was undaunted in his defense of Olga, because he knew that she had no one. He handled her cause with zeal and he handled the criticism with grace. Manuel’s defense of Olga Franco represents the best that my profession has to give. He was a lawyer’s lawyer,” Gilligan said.
Along with education, Manuel Guerrero felt his role as a mentor in the Hispanic community was crucial. He mentored many students who have now become lawyers and judges, said Todd Guerrero. Throughout his career, he focused his practice on criminal law and his clients were primarily Latinos and Latino immigrants in rural communities across Southern Minnesota.
Guerrero, who was known for wearing a signature silk bow tie, loved living in St. Paul’s Cathedral Hill neighborhood, where he could see the Catholic landmark from the deck of his condo.
He started his mornings having coffee with his wife of more than 20 years and then visited the treadmill at the YWCA on Selby, his daughter Clare Vivier said.
He was passionate about keeping his neighborhood clean and could be seen with his long-handled tongs and a trash bag while walking his dog, Auggie, she said.
On Fridays, he’d meet up with his “Old Geezers” club, a group of intellectual pals, at W.A. Frost, Vivier said.
Todd Guerrero said his father was a sharp dresser and enjoyed the finer things in life, such as good wine, great restaurants and dressing with style.
Despite his accomplishments in life, nothing mattered more than his family, his children said. His perfect day would be spent “in a backyard surrounded by family and grandkids with no agenda, no time schedule, having a drink and beans, rice, and tortillas. Anywhere with his family,” his son said.
Guerrero grew up in a four-room house in Marion, Ind., that he shared with his parents and eight siblings. He was the third-oldest child and the first one in his family to go to college.
He attended the University of Notre Dame on a baseball scholarship and graduated from Franklin College of Indiana and the Indiana University School of Law. He was elected a Grant County circuit court judge at age 29. After serving six years as a judge, he left the bench to run for U.S. Congress.
In 1973, he taught criminal law and juvenile justice at the University of Minnesota and chaired the Chicano Studies Department. He was awarded a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship and attended Georgetown University to obtain a Masters in Law. He practiced law in Indiana and Arizona before returning to St. Paul, where he became Director of the Chicano Latino Resource Center at the University of Minnesota, in 1990. He founded and was the first president of the Minnesota Hispanic Bar Association.
He is survived by his wife, Elaine Vargo; sons Dan, Mike, Todd and Chad; daughters Ann Gilligan, and Clare “Angie” Vivier; a stepson, Wes Peterson; 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
