Some of Bailey’s other high-profile clients included Dr. Samuel Sheppard — accused of killing his wife — and Capt. Ernest Medina, charged in connection with the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.
F. Lee Bailey was also a defense lawyer for the Boston Strangler. He wrote several best-selling books, appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek and wrote a novel, “Secrets,” in 1978.
Sheppard was acquitted, and Mr. Bailey was hailed in The New York Times as “easily the shiniest new star in the criminal law field.” He was a riveting courtroom performer, a stocky badger-like man with a cleft chin, intimidating blue eyes and a widow’s peak that refused to recede with the rest of his hairline.
“I got blamed for O.J.’s acquittal.” Bailey was disbarred in Florida and Massachusetts in 2001 and 2003 for misconduct while defending Claude Louis DuBoc, an accused marijuana dealer. He declared bankruptcy in 2017.
Bailey was disbarred by the state of Florida in 2001, after The Florida Bar filed a complaint alleging that the mishandled some $6 million in stock owned by a former client, convicted drug dealer Claude Duboc.
Simpson was acquitted of killing Nicole Brown Simpson, his former wife, and waiter Ronald Goldman in 1994. O.J. Simpson (C) listens to the not guilty verdict with his attorneys F. Lee Bailey (L) and Johnnie Cochran Jr (R). Simpson was found not guilty of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
Bailey was also among the first defense attorneys to regularly use press conferences as a tool, Fishman said. "The phrase was that he was 'flamboyant,'" Fishman said of Bailey 's reputation in the media.
Bailey also spent 6 months in federal prison for contempt of court over his handling of Duboc's stock. In 2000, he told Greta Van Susteren, then a CNN Legal Analyst, that he initially was going to pursue a career as a writer. "I was going to Harvard, majoring in English," he said.
Bailey , an avid pilot, best-selling author and television show host, was a member of the legal “dream team” that defended Simpson, the former star NFL running back and actor acquitted on charges that he killed his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, in 1995.
Bailey helped win an acquittal at a second trial. Bailey also defended Albert DeSalvo, the man who claimed responsibility for the Boston Strangler murders between 1962 and 1964. DeSalvo confessed to the slayings, but was never tried or convicted, and later recanted.
Bailey earned a law degree from Boston University in 1960, where he had a 90.5 average, but he graduated without honors because he refused to join the Law Review. He said the university waived the requirement for an undergraduate degree because of his military legal experience.
Bailey earned acquittals for many of his clients, but he also lost cases, most notably Hearst’s. Hearst, a publishing heiress, was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army terrorist group on Feb. 4, 1974, and participated in armed robberies with the group.
F. Lee Bailey was also a defense lawyer for the Boston Strangler. Robert F. Bukaty/AP. He wrote several best-selling books, appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek and wrote a novel, “Secrets,” in 1978. The ego-driven attorney was behind one of the key moments of Simpson’s “trial of the century” for the deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown ...
Known for his flamboyant style and bulldog courtroom tactics, Bailey’s cadre of high-profile clients also included the Boston serial-killer Albert DeSalvo, heiress Patty Hearst and neurosurgeon Sam Sheppard, whose arrest for his wife’s murder inspired the 1993 blockbuster “The Fugitive.”.
But Bailey said he was snubbed by his peers and persecuted after he defended “The Juice.”. F. Lee Bailey died Thursday in Georgia. He was 87.
He declared bankruptcy in 2017. He was last known to live in Maine, where he worked as a consultant in an office above his longtime girlfriend Deborah Elliott’s beauty salon. In the 1960s, Bailey hosted “Good Company,” a celebrity interview show.
American judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (1998–2010)
Chinese judge and President at the International Court of Justice (2003–2010).
American lawyer and jurist (United States District Court for the District of Maine).
Filipino lawyer and Chairperson of Philippine Commission on Human Rights (2015-2022)
F. Lee Bailey, Lawyer for Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson, Dies at 87. With theatrical courtroom flair, he was involved in a host of notorious criminal cases, including those of the Boston Strangler and a Vietnam War massacre. F. Lee Bailey during the murder trial of O.J. Simpson in 1995. His withering cross-examination of a Los Angeles police ...
Image. Mr. Bailey in a news conference in Cleveland in 1965 with Dr. Sam Sheppard, left, who was convicted of murdering his wife. Mr. Bailey succeeded in having the conviction reversed. Credit... Associated Press.