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F. Lee Bailey, controversial defense lawyer in high-profile trials, has died
 [MSN] F. Lee Bailey, a swashbuckling, high-flying defense attorney whose celebrity often eclipsed that of even his most famous clients, but whose legal career ultimately crashed under the weight of financial fraud, personal bankruptcy, and disbarment, died Thursday in Georgia. He was 87.His death was confirmed by his former law partner, Superior Court Judge Kenneth J. Fishman. A Waltham native and Boston University Law School graduate, Mr. Bailey was for decades the model of the modern gun-for-hire criminal defender, a brilliant, pugnacious counselor whose courthouse presence all but guaranteed legal fireworks. Beginning in the early 1960s, he attracted a roster of clients whose names and deeds, alleged or proven, commanded front-page headlines. Prominent among this group were O.J. Simpson, on whose legal "Dream Team" Mr. Bailey served as co-counsel; Albert DeSalvo, who confessed to being the notorious Boston Strangler; publishing heiress and kidnap-victim-turned-bank-robber Patricia Hearst; Army Captain Ernest Medina, implicated in the Vietnam War’s infamous My Lai Massacre; and neurosurgeon Sam Sheppard, whose arrest after his wife’s murder inspired the television series and hit film "The Fugitive." Mr. Bailey’s courtroom countenance was striking, augmenting his reputation as a pitbull criminal defender. Of modest height and stocky frame, sporting bushy sideburns and custom-tailored suits, he projected an outsized personality. At the same time, he deployed an arsenal of legal skills — florid oratory, a near-photographic memory, an innate flair for theatrics — to maximum effect. There was little of the genteel Atticus Finch in Mr. Bailey, certainly. He was known to question witnesses mercilessly, battle with judges and prosecutors ferociously, and suffer from lack of ego rarely if ever, no matter the trial outcome or verdict in the court of public opinion. The Simpson case fit that template. Accused of two brutal murders, the former football star faced almost certain conviction, based on evidence collected at the scene of the crime and presented in court. That is, until his high-priced defense team set out to prove police bias. It fell to Mr. Bailey to interrogate Los Angeles police Detective Mark Fuhrman, and it was his punishing cross-examination of Fuhrman, boring in upon his history of using racial slurs, that helped sow enough doubt in jurors’ minds to secure a not-guilty verdict for Simpson. His surprising, if not shocking, acquittal cast a shadow over Mr. Bailey’s later career, however, even as he continued to insist years later that Simpson was innocent of the crimes. (He theorized that Nicole Brown Simpson, O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife, was the victim of a mistaken-identity drug-related hit.) Related: F. Lee Bailey: 2012-09-16 Yout charged with trying to blow up Chicago bar F. Lee Bailey: 2011-06-11 Militants flee after U.S. gives intel to Pakistan Posted by: Fred 2021-06-04 |
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