This week, one of Baltimore's most vociferously aggressive defense lawyers, Warren A. Brown, stood in a circuit courtroom shouting and preaching to a judge about his right to shout and preach.

A city prosecutor had filed a motion to gag Brown, saying his public rhetoric in the headline-making case of a 10-year-old boy shot in the neck could endanger a witness. The motion was temporarily denied by a judge, but not before Brown, who has a diminutive stature and a booming voice, got up on his soapbox.

"The state wants to control the defense, and it is absurd, outrageous, obnoxious," Brown said, elongating the last three words for effect.

It might be easier to halt the flow of a river than stop the 49-year-old Brown from spouting off to the bench, his legal adversaries, and - perhaps most of all - the television cameras about his many high-profile clients who have been charged with murders, shootings and drug dealings.

He has a knack for painting defendants as sympathetic victims, even when they're accused of shootings that shock the conscience: a child struck in the neck; a priest gunned down with three bullets; a group of police officers shot in the line of duty.

This week, less than 24 hours after four officers were shot in a North Baltimore rowhouse, Brown called a news conference to say Lewis Cauthorne, 26, accused in the shooting, thought he was protecting himself and others from burglars. He argued that Cauthorne's father was killed in a taxicab 12 years ago and that "that was in his psyche" when he shot at officers raiding his house for drugs.

It's not unusual for a seemingly outraged Brown to land on the top of the local television news hour for two or three stories in a row, wearing tailor-made suits and representing separate clients. In the past five months alone, five of the city's most notorious criminal suspects have used their jailhouse phone call to contact Brown.

The flashy image he maintains now is a far cry from many he has had: the young son of a Baltimore meter repairman with modest means; stepfather of a girl who later became an actress and the wife of megastar actor-rapper Will Smith; a cocaine addict whose life seemed to be crumbling; and most recently, a controversial candidate for city state's attorney.

He never seems to be without a real-life story to tell. Tomorrow, he's marrying his fifth wife, 33-year-old Donyelle Parrish, a Washington, D.C., fashion model he met through a friend.

"I've grown up to live my dream as a child," says Brown, saying that above all else, his childhood dream was to become a lawyer like Perry Mason. "The success I've achieved wasn't imagined back then."

His success often comes with the help of publicity. This week, for instance, Brown garnered media attention for the Cauthorne story, as well as the latest development in the story of Dontee D. Stokes, a man charged with shooting a priest he says molested him as a child.

Stokes is Brown's highest-profile client, the one who landed him on 60 Minutes II last month. Brown sat with anchor Vicki Mabrey and pleaded Stokes' case to America, saying his client "was not capable of understanding what he was doing."

Even Brown jokes about his love for publicity.

"If I don't have a comment about a case," Brown says, "I'll call a press conference to say I don't have a comment."

But not everyone is enamored of Brown's methods. Among them is Gary McLhinney, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, who is sometimes at odds with Brown, such as when four officers were shot this week.

"I question his tactics, sometimes, of a press conference a day," McLhinney said. "I respect the guy and his abilities, but I just couldn't sleep at night if I defended drug dealers and murderers for a living."

Alienating some

At times Brown has been known to alienate not only his legal adversaries, but also those he is paid to represent.

Over the summer, he stood on the steps of the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse and, bullhorn to his mouth, hurled insults at prosecutors for their handling of the Stokes case.

He was agitated because the priest who his client is accused of shooting, the Rev. Maurice J. Blackwell, had not been charged with sex abuse.

The stunt vexed the Stokes family enough that they insisted Brown tone down his rhetoric. But the family refused to abandon him as their counsel - even after Brown legally tried to sever himself from the case.

Brown's maneuver raised the eyebrows of some, such as longtime Baltimore civil rights lawyer A. Dwight Pettit.

"I wouldn't have gone that far," said Pettit, who called Brown an "excellent" lawyer. "I wouldn't have gone out with a bullhorn. I don't think you try your cases on the sidewalk; you try them in the courthouse."

But Baltimore Circuit Judge Clifton J. Gordy said it was typical of Brown.

"He can be pushy and professionally persnickety. Persistent and insistent," Gordy said. "His aggressiveness is what his clients pay him for."

Sources of success

The younger of two boys who grew up in the small black enclave of Wilson Park - nestled between Govans and Northwood - Brown attended Polytechnic Institute before heading off to Carnegie Mellon University and Boston University School of Law. He began his career working for legal aid in Tennessee, and then in Baltimore, before becoming a city prosecutor and a federal public defender in the 1980s.

He has been in private practice since 1986. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what the formula for Brown's success has been - perhaps it's partly his giant "Warren A. Brown, Attorney at Law" billboards around town, or perhaps it's his frequent legal diatribes on radio broadcasts.

It may be word of mouth from former clients, or from jurors who ask him for his business card after a theatrical courtroom performance. Or it could be his demeanor, which is equally comfortable on the crime-hardened streets of Baltimore or the confines of a judge's chamber.

"They come to me because they want to increase the likelihood they won't go to prison," said Brown, sitting in his Lexington Street office, wearing a signature black suit with gold pinstripes, a gold tie and gold cufflinks. "A lot of it is notoriety, being visible and well-known."

He took on the case of Marlon R. Lynch, a Baltimore school system police officer accused of fatally shooting a 14-year-old boy outside a Northeast Baltimore school in April.

He is representing Edward Day, a 54-year-old man indicted in August on charges of killing David Stewart, 15, as the youth tried to steal a 10-speed bicycle from Day's West Baltimore yard.

Another client is John P. Garcia, a Dundalk man indicted in October in the strangulation deaths of several prostitutes in the industrial area of Canton.

In addition to frequently being in the news, Brown's voice can be heard on radio spots promoting himself and a gun buy-back program he sponsors.

Brown has gained some fame for his marriage to the mother of actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who grew up in Baltimore and is married to Will Smith. Pinkett Smith is the daughter of Brown's second wife, Adrienne Banfield.

Brown said his marriage to Banfield ended in 1986 because he had a cocaine problem. He's now going on 17 years without drugs and alcohol, he says.

"Life ain't simple," he said. "I'm one of the least judgmental people because I've been there."

His last marriage has landed him in court on numerous occasions. He has filed charges against his former wife, including harassment, stalking and violating a restraining order.

But his own legal problems haven't prevented him from going into a courthouse and taking charge as a lawyer. Professionally, he said, nothing he does in the courtroom is coincidental, from the clothes he wears to the expression on his face to the position of his body.

For example, if he is defending a black client to a black jury and notices that the prosecutor and judge are white, he'll try to use that to his advantage.

"I'll make it seem the judge and the prosecutor are teaming up on me," he said. "I'll look at the jury like, 'Help me out here.'"

His tactics have brought him success, winning him cases such as that of city Orphans' Court Judge Lewyn Scott Garrett, who was found not guilty in 1997 of sexual assault after Brown accused the alleged victim of fabricating the charges to get back at her former lover.

Brown's career has also been marked by occasional missteps. In 1999, two of his clients agreed to three-year prison sentences for stealing a police officer's gun. Six months after they signed the agreement, new evidence surfaced proving the men innocent.

His courtroom performances have made an impression on Judge Gordy, who wrote Brown a letter in 1999 after presiding over one of Brown's cases. He said Brown had a "God-given ability" in the courtroom.

"It is the courthouse story stuff of which I will spellbind my grandchildren someday," Gordy wrote.

Brown, who has six children ages 4 to 13 and coaches youth baseball and football, said he is consumed with family and business.

Late last year, Brown tried to make a career change and announced he was running for state's attorney, though he ended up making news instead.

He pulled out of the race five days after he entered, when reports of his personal and business problems were aired.

There were questions about personal income and business taxes he had failed to pay, and about 4-year-old twins he fathered with an ex-wife's niece.

Brown said that if he had won the election, it would have been a difficult standard-of-living change. "It was going to be a tight fit, my lifestyle and their salary," Brown said of the $115,000-a-year job.

Brown has a condominium in Guilford and an eight-bedroom house in Ashburton in Northeast Baltimore. He said he "historically" has driven red and black Porsches, but he now drives a 1989 cream Mercedes-Benz convertible. He also has a sport utility vehicle.

In the end, Brown admits that most of his clients are guilty of the crimes they're charged with, even though his standard mantra to the news media is that his client denies all charges.

"Most are not innocent. I hate the innocent ones. Give me a guilty one any day of the week," said Brown, who carries a copy of the Constitution in his briefcase. "My job is necessary, even though there are some bad people who shouldn't benefit from my zeal."