Even when he was mad - as he often was with me - he still returned the call.

He could be hostile, argumentative and condescending with reporters, City Council members and even, occasionally, the public. But he never forgot that the taxpayers signed his paycheck. He was a public servant's public servant.

Now, after 40 years as the legal brain of first Salt Lake City and later West Jordan, Cutler is retiring to serve a legal-services mission in Germany for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It must feel like coming home.

Former Mayor Deedee Corradini calls him "one of the best, if not the best, city attorneys ever." Cutler likes to tout his efforts to clean up Salt Lake City's red light district, his work keeping light rail on Main Street and his role in drafting Olympic legal documents.

But I think his most lasting legacy will be two cases that defined his career and branded his city with religion: one, a lawsuit challenging City Council members' practice of praying before their meetings, and the other, Salt Lake City's sale to the LDS Church of one block of Main Street and the public's free speech rights.

In 1991, the Society of Separationists and two local taxpayers sued Salt Lake City to stop prayers before government meetings, arguing the religious expression was unconstitutional. In oral arguments before the Utah Supreme Court, Cutler astounded those in the audience and some on the bench by arguing that the council's prayers were not religious, but offered instead for a moment of reflection and "lofty thought and high-mindedness."

The justices rejected his secular argument, but ruled for the city anyway, concluding that Utah's government bodies can open with prayer so long as Lutherans and Hindus have equal access. An LDS Church spokesman said church elders were "pleased" with the ruling; the separatists were stunned. Salt Lake City Council members no longer pray before their meetings, but legislators do.

In the second case, Cutler started with language drafted by LDS Church attorneys to create a public easement limiting behavior on a new Main Street Plaza - blocking sunbathing, skateboarding, loose dogs, and, most importantly, protests.

Despite warnings from civil liberties attorneys and the public, City Council members, on Cutler's advice, sold the property in 1999. The ACLU sued. Cutler and church attorneys appealed together to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2002, the justices declared the easement unconstitutional.

To resolve the mess, then-Mayor Rocky Anderson accepted a church-owned lot in Glendale for a Unity Center.

"Roger Cutler was very into political expediency regardless of the law," says Deeda Seed, one of two council members to vote against the sale. "On Main Street, he got it wrong. And the repercussions were enormously painful for the community."

Cutler is unapologetic. "I still think we were right," he said.

That's the weakness of a man who had an encyclopedic knowledge of municipal law and a blind spot when it came to religion.

"Should a city attorney act in support of the constitutional rights of the citizens?" asks Brian Barnard, the attorney facing Cutler in the prayer case, "or simply do what he is told to do by those who have appointed him, the elected city officials?"

Officially working for the church now, Cutler won't have to face that quandary anymore.

walsh@sltrib.com