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Charles N. Guthrie

When Charles N. Guthrie was a San Diego Police Officer he wrote The Palace Guard which is an allegory about the administration of police departments.

When the book originally came out in 1974, Guthrie telephoned one of the largest book stores in San Diego, asking how his book was doing. The clerk told him that they had placed the book in the front window and it was selling like hot cakes. In fact, the clerk wasn’t sure they had
any left because they had sold so many. Then the book store clerk suspiciously questioned whether Guthrie had really written The Palace Guard. “Of course I wrote it,” Guthrie indignantly responded and drove down to see his book in the front window of the book store. When he arrived and looked in the display window he didn’t see his book and instead saw a strange looking book entitled The Palace Guard. To his
disappointment, The Palace Guard in the display window was not the book he had written. It was a totally different Palace Guard, written by someone named Dan Rather.

Since then, Guthrie’s Palace Guard has been used in police administration classes, public relations classes, and as a gift to police officers for over 30 years. Idealistic, honest police officers hold our society together. At two o’clock in a dark alley it’s the police officer for a few moments who could if he wanted play the role of god, king, and jury. Society extends the trust of upholding the law to these young men and women. The Palace
Guard is about the environment and motivations that make police officers tick.

Charles N. Guthrie, is an author who lives and writes in Southern California.

He is a trial attorney in state and federal court. He has BA and MS Degrees in Criminal Justice Administration from San Diego State University, and a J.D. in Law. He wrote his Masters Thesis on Police Response to
Domestic Disputes which was used in formulating the present day laws pertaining to domestic dispute crimes. He was a San Diego Police Officer for 7 years, and an acting Sergeant before leaving police work to finish law school.

For two years, along with officers Randy Swanson and Lee Curtis he manned a police car named “21-X” which responded exclusively to domestic and neighborhood disputes. He left police work after working assignments in patrol, ambulance unit, undercover, jail, and supervision.

He received numerous commendations for arresting robbers at gun point, report writing and suspect vehicle identification techniques. In law school he received the prestigious Am Jur Awards for studies in Torts and Remedies. He has been an attorney for over 30 years and has practiced in multiple fields of law
including family law, bankruptcy, products liability, medical malpractice, and criminal law.

He has argued over 100 jury trials from common drunkenness to murder as well as automobile negligence and dangerous conditions on land.

In criminal trials he has either hung the jury or received “not guilty” verdicts in one out of every three cases.