Attorney: I'm here on a mission of mercy for this poor innocent child, your honor.

Judge: How old is this 'poor child'?

Attorney: He's 23 years old, your honor . . . a babe in the woods.

Judge: If I recall, once you reach 18, you're not a child anymore.

Attorney: I have suits that are older, your honor.

Judge: You have speeches that are older. I've heard them all Mr. Gaer. Motion denied.

Ladies and gentleman, Sy Gaer, a little old man who is something of a giant in courthouse circles. Here is a lawyer who turns routine hearings into comedy theater, but also regularly wins trials, even though he refuses to prepare.

His lines are legendary in the Justice Building.

To Gaer, every case is a potential "miscarriage of justice, " all prosecutors are "persecutors" and every client a "poor innocent child" no matter how old, or how heinous the alleged crime.

He's been known to comment that a certain prosecutor had "his diaper wrapped too tightly." Gaer, 75, even has a favorite line for judges: "Just once before I die, I'd like to hear the word 'granted' in this courtroom."

"He's a throwback, almost a caricature. He practices law as it was practiced four decades ago, " said Circuit Judge Stanford Blake.

All humor aside, young prosecutors quickly learn not to underestimate the Korean War veteran from Queens.

"They see this bumbling Barney Fife type guy, and then he does a brilliant cross examination and they're shocked because they thought he was just a court jester, " said Circuit Judge Diane Ward.

For all his bombast in the courtroom, Gaer is humble in the hallway.

"I'm just a crippled, bent-over old man who can barely catch his breath, " Gaer said on a recent day.

He has the breathlessness of emphysema, the slow shuffle of a herniated disk and the paper-thin, liver-spotted skin of a man who has lived a long time. His suits hang crookedly on his thin, stooped frame.

Last year, he fought off colon cancer. But while he may be slowing down, Gaer shows no signs of giving up.

He'll do 15 hearings in a morning - a dozen more than most lawyers handling major crimes would ever schedule in one day. Gaer calls it "volume business." He charges less than most and handles more cases.

Gaer says he can do it because he doesn't prepare for trial like other lawyers do.

DIFFERENT APPROACH

"I don't take depositions. I don't visit them in the jails. I don't take collect calls."

Instead, he goes to court armed only with a little black book, where he scribbles his case information in tiny, left-handed script.

"If he takes depositions, he has to tell us his angle, " explained veteran prosecutor Susan Dannelly. "What better way to spring a witness on us. Of course, not everybody can pull that off."

"Trial by ambush, " says Circuit Judge Leonard Glick. "He will find a little hole and expand it a little larger, then find another one and expand that one and before you know it, the entire thread of the case has come unraveled."

Prosecutors Tama Koss and Carolina Corona were ambushed by Sy this month. The charge was attempted murder of an 83-year-old man. Gaer's client was arrested driving the man's car hours after the beating.

Gaer entangled the lead detective in his own department policies, asking him why he didn't tape the victim picking his client out of a photo lineup.

The cop said that's not normal procedure. Gaer had him get the police department policy. It says photo lineups should be recorded.

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