It's late spring and the old courthouse in Delaware, Ohio, is getting warm. Farmer, a Columbus lawyer, is anxious to start the court hearing.

Former convict turned lawyer Derek Farmer in his Columbus office. (Enquirer photo/Michael E. Keating)

A witness in the drug case he's handling here has hinted that someone - possibly Farmer - altered a legal document.

When the hearing finally begins, Farmer digs up the original paperwork and calls on a notary to verify it. They confirm he did nothing wrong, and he leaves the courtroom feeling vindicated.

But he's not happy.

"This is the type of thing I go through all the time," Farmer says. "They think because of my background they can tell any lie, say any thing, and I am suspect."

Five years after leaving Cincinnati, Derek Farmer is still struggling with his past.

He is the only person in Ohio to become a lawyer after serving time in prison for murder. And while he hoped to rebuild his life around his law career, he remains bound to the crime he committed three decades ago.

He blames his past for the uproar that drove him out of Cincinnati in 1999, and he believes it's why his problems continue in Columbus.

His law practice is in financial trouble, his health is poor and his career is in jeopardy because of disciplinary charges that accuse him of botching a federal case last year.

"I'm always a target," Farmer says. "This will be with me the rest of my life."

Some say that's the way it should be. They question whether a man with Farmer's history should be out of prison, let alone permitted to practice law. And some critics, including a federal judge, see his recent troubles as proof his character flaws have not vanished over time.

Farmer may be a success story to his friends and supporters. But to others, he's just an ex-con who beat the system.

"His past keeps coming back," says Seymour R. Brown, the lawyer Farmer considers his mentor. "No matter how much he wants to escape it, there are some people who won't let him."

A terrible history

Farmer keeps a videotape at home that reminds him why people have been slow to forgive, or to forget.

The tape is from a Dayton TV station that aired a story about his life a few months ago. It includes footage from March 4, 1974, the day he was arrested. He was 16.

The video is difficult for Farmer to watch, but he still plays it from time to time.

The grainy footage begins with an image of the Dayton jewelry store that he robbed that morning with his 18-year-old nephew, Calvin Farmer.

The camera pans to the sidewalk, where civil rights activist William S. McIntosh lies dead. McIntosh, known as "Mac," had gestured for the boys to stop as they ran out of the store with bags of jewelry.

Farmer's nephew shot him through the heart.

"For no reason, they shot Mac," a frightened witness says into the camera.

The video cuts to an apartment complex. A shot rings out and another body is on the ground, this time it's Police Sgt. William K. Mortimer. Calvin shot him in the head after the officer ordered the boys to stop.

When Farmer watches the video now, he barely recognizes himself as the skinny, angry kid whom police handcuffed and hauled to jail that day.

He is no longer that person, he says. He's a married man who runs a business and lectures troubled kids about making better choices than he did.

"I thought I was the victim," Farmer says. "I didn't kill anyone. But what difference does that make to a family when someone tells them their father has been killed?"

He knows remorse is not enough. Many will always see him as the kid in the video, a criminal who cared more about getting some drug money than he did about the lives of two good men.

"Anybody who could lose control to that extent, I don't think you could be sure they wouldn't again," says Lee Falke, the former Montgomery County prosecutor who helped send Farmer to prison for 18 years.

"Maybe we have to give people a second chance," he says, "but I don't think this is one of those situations."

Learning the law

Farmer's law office is a testament to the past he is fighting to overcome.

The college degrees he earned while he was locked up hang on the wall. Around his desk are photos of family and friends who stood by him all those years. And on his office door is a favorite line from the Bible: "With God, all things are possible."

"All of the stuff you see here, none of this is something I had a right to," Farmer says, motioning to his degrees. "I have an obligation to do something with this opportunity."

When Farmer talks about opportunity, he means freedom. By law, he could still be in prison serving a life sentence.

He could just as easily be dead.

He was the youngest inmate at Lucasville, the state's toughest prison, when he arrived at age 17. He weighed 125 pounds and had not started shaving yet.

To survive, Farmer lifted weights and studied martial arts. He learned to defend himself, but that wasn't enough. He knew how much his crime had cost him: an education, respect and a comfortable life with a good family.

"He was angry," recalls Ed Hogan, a former Lucasville inmate. "There was a lot of shame in coming to prison."

Hogan says the turning point came when Farmer took over his own appeals and started studying law books. Instead of ranting about prison conditions, he began filing grievances and lawsuits to fix them.

He was a constant irritant to prison officials. But unlike most jailhouse lawyers he actually won a few cases, including one that allowed inmates to get vegetarian meals and another that gave them better access to legal journals.

"That interested him in the law," Hogan says. "Before that, he always saw it as a weapon used against you."

'A tough life'

After he was paroled in 1992, Farmer didn't talk much about his criminal history. He yearned to be a lawyer and knew his past would not be an asset.

"You are not supposed to do this," his older brother, James Farmer, told him when he entered law school. "The press will eat you alive."

But Farmer got into the University of Akron's law school and, while his grades were average, he quickly defined himself as a tenacious student.

"In terms of where he came from, it was tremendous," says J. Dean Carro, a law professor who befriended him. "His work ethic, his doggedness, really defined him."

Carro took Farmer under his wing and helped smooth out the rough edges chiseled from nearly two decades in prison.

The first time he had Farmer over for dinner with his family, he ate like a prisoner - finishing in about five minutes - and used only a spoon and fork.

At first, only a few people knew about his past. He told his future wife, Sandra, only after they'd known each other for a few months.

"I was pretty shocked," she says. "But I knew him. I knew he was a different person than he was when he was 16."

But not everyone did. Carro warned Farmer that when he left law school, he'd also be leaving behind his anonymity. He would never be just another lawyer.

It's a lesson Farmer learned well when he moved to Cincinnati after law school in 1999 and promptly became the center of controversy. Police and prosecutors were outraged, talk radio hosts howled in protest and a judge barred Farmer from his courtroom.

Farmer left town within a year.

"It's going to be a tough life," Carro says. "He recognizes that, but I don't think he realized it was going to be this hard."

Poor health, finances

His experience in Cincinnati left little doubt in Farmer's mind that his past would always be a liability.

So after moving to Columbus, he came up with a plan to protect himself: From now on, he resolved, he would take cases from all over the state.

"Once people find out who I am, a prejudice thing develops," Farmer says. "With my background, it's difficult to practice locally. Most people have an opinion about me."

The strategy turned him into a vagabond lawyer who sometimes drives hundreds of miles to meet his clients. But three hours of driving for an hour of paid work isn't good for the bottom line, especially if those clients pay late, or not at all.

"He's in financial trouble now for doing things for people who can't afford to pay," says James Farmer, a corporate executive in Michigan. "He's a nice human being, and he's sensitive.

"But he's not a good businessman."

The long hours and travel have taken a toll on his health, too. In late March, while walking to meet a client in Dayton, Farmer's right leg and the right side of his face suddenly went numb.

His doctors said his diet and schedule were wreaking havoc on his body. They put him on medication and ordered him to cut back his hours. Sandra, who's also his law partner, sat him down for a talk.

"You didn't get out of that hell hole for nothing, to get used up," she told him. "You need to stop."

"You're right," he said. "You're right."

Accused of negligence

For a while, Farmer heeded her advice. He took fewer cases and considered doing more work close to home.

Then, in early August, a letter arrived from the Supreme Court's Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline. It contained the findings of an investigation into Farmer's handling of a federal drug case.

The investigation began when U.S. District Judge James L. Graham wrote a letter to the Columbus Bar Association raising "serious questions" about Farmer's competency.

It was the second time he'd been investigated for disciplinary reasons. In 2002, the disciplinary counsel investigated a complaint that Farmer had suggested to a client his friendship with former parole board chairman Margarette Ghee could influence a parole case.

He was scolded for his behavior but cleared of breaking ethics rules.

He wasn't so lucky the second time. The letter listed eight disciplinary charges in all, ranging from inadequate preparation to negligence.

A formal hearing later this year will decide his fate. He could be cleared, suspended or stripped of his law license.

To Farmer, the charges are an example of "selective persecution."

"I've had judges all over treat me like dirt," he says. "Many judges don't think I should be practicing law. I think that's Judge Graham's motive."

But while Farmer is focused on his past, the complaint against him takes aim at his behavior on the job.

He's accused of ignoring the wishes of his client, Melvin Tucker, and failing to pursue a plea deal that could have shaved years off his 27-year sentence.

Graham did not respond to an interview request and Tucker, now in federal prison, could not be reached.

"I am left with the distinct impression," Graham wrote in his letter to the bar association, "that Mr. Tucker has suffered greatly as a result of his attorney's willful obstinacy."

Sick and tired

Whether Farmer's past truly is a curse, or whether it's a convenient excuse for his shortcomings, the constant worry has exhausted him.

"He's getting tired of it," says Brown, his mentor. "He's sick and disappointed."

He has other options. He does fund-raising for his Pentecostal church and he's done some preaching too, usually to students or inmates he visits while traveling with church groups.

"If God worked a miracle for me," he tells the crowds, "he can do it for you."

Farmer enjoys the work. In jails or schools, his past is an asset. It's an inspiration.

He says that will never be true in his law practice.

But as he sits in his office, surrounded by the degrees he earned while in prison and on parole, he says he can't seriously consider quitting. Thirty years after the worst mistake of his life, he says he's earned the right to be here.

"When I got my license to practice law, it didn't say, 'Derek Farmer, former inmate,'" he says. "I got mine like everyone else."

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E-mail dhorn@enquirer.com