Dead Lawyer's Office Probed

SAN FRANCISCO - Less than a day after prominent defense lawyer Michael Metzger shot himself to death, federal agents - accompanied, at a judge's insistence, by a colleague of Metzger's - searched his offices for evidence in a drug case.

The official explanation for the searches Wednesday night and early Thursday morning is contained in court documents that remain sealed. But fellow lawyers say federal prosecutors in Seattle wanted to know whether Metzger had advance knowledge of a 1992 hashish shipment in which at least one of his clients was under investigation.

An angry Ann Moorman, who was a friend of Metzger's and is also a lawyer in the Seattle case, called the search a "fishing expedition" and questioned its timing. Prosecutors in Seattle declined comment.

Metzger, 57, a veteran defense lawyer and fierce antagonist of federal prosecutors in San Francisco, returned to his home in rural St. Helena drunk Tuesday night and shot and wounded his wife, Kyle, a shooting she described as an accident. He then killed himself.

At the time of his death, he was appealing a six-month suspension from federal practice imposed in 1992 by a judge who cited his goading and threats against prosecutors. The judge also ordered him to get psychological counseling.