David Manter's career as a public defender began when he was 3.

That's when he bit the leg of an older boy who was bullying his sister.

For most of his life, however, he did his fighting in the courtroom, taking on prosecutors whom he perceived as bullies, his family said.

"He couldn't stand the idea of anybody being railroaded into prison when there wasn't proof they were guilty," said sister Carolyn Ansari, 80.

When asked about the possibility his client might be guilty, Ansari said Mr. Manter would always answer, "Well, they're going to have to prove it."

"He loved the fight," said daughter April Manter, 50.

Mr. Manter died of heart failure on Feb. 25. He was 78.

Born on Feb. 22, 1929, in Waltham, Mass., Mr. Manter was a feisty and ornery boy who tried to steer "bad" children in the right direction, Ansari said.

"He was just attracted to kids who had problems, as he was as an adult," she said. "He was attracted to people who had problems."

After graduating in 1947 from a prep school in Waterville, Maine, he headed west to study geology at the Colorado School of Mines. He transferred to the University of Colorado, where he earned bachelor's degrees in political science and psychology in 1953.

Mr. Manter married Barbara, a nurse at Children's Hospital, in 1955 after a two-month courtship.

"Oh, he was just such a real person," she said. "There was nothing phony about him."

After a brief stint as a seismologist, Mr. Manter earned his law degree from the University of Denver in 1961.

It didn't take long for Mr. Manter to challenge the law enforcement establishment.

In 1966, his first year as a public defender, he accused the district attorney's office of trying to rush two of his clients to trial.

"While we appreciate the district attorney's desire to give us a speedy trial," Mr. Manter was quoted as saying at the time, "I think this is a reflection not of his protection of the rights of these defendants but a desire on his part to punish these defendants by rushing them to trial."

The work he did wasn't always profitable.

"The people he'd take on as clients didn't have any money, so he took whatever they gave him," Ansari said.

Sometimes that included watches and radios.

"He had so many radios he didn't know what to do with them," Ansari said, often joking to him that "with the clients you have, they're probably hot."

When Mr. Manter resigned from the Denver public defender's office in 1971, he did so questioning the state's "unprogressive policies and unresponsiveness to the Denver office's efforts to defend indigent clients," according to a Rocky Mountain News story.

But after eight years in private practice, he returned to the public defender's office and stayed there until 1998.

Fitting, his family said, for the man whose favorite T-shirt had the Bill of Rights emblazoned on the front and back and whose hero was Don Quixote.

"Tilting at windmills," April Manter said, showing a picture in his office of windmills in Spain.

"That was my dad," said son Doug Manter, 45.

"It was all his instincts," April Manter said. "He was feisty, and he could argue. It was a perfect fit for him."

Besides his wife, daughter, son and sister, Mr. Manter is survived by another son, Charles Manter, of Windsor, and two grandchildren.

A memorial service was held at his home March 2. Donations in Mr. Manter's honor can be made to the Southern Poverty Law Center at splcenter.org or the Galgo Rescue International Network at galgorescue.org.

morenoi@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2895

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