- The Washington Post He robbed banks and went to prison. His time there put him on track for a new job: Georgetown law professor.
^ Rosenblatt, Joel (June 27, 2016). "F. Lee Bailey, lawyer for O.J., files for bankruptcy". The Detroit News. Retrieved April 3, 2018. Earlier in his life, Bailey won a scholarship to Harvard College and left in 1952 to join the U.S. Marine Corps as a fighter pilot, according to West's Encyclopedia of American Law.
"F. Lee Bailey, defense lawyer for the famous and infamous, dies at 87". Washington Post. ^ a b c d e Collins, Louise Mooney; Speace, Geri J. (1995). Newsmakers, The People Behind Today's Headlines. New York: Gale Research Inc. pp. 20–23. ISBN 0-8103-5745-3. ^ a b "Bailey, F. Lee". Notable Biographies. ^ McFadden, Robert D. (June 3, 2021). "F.
Shon Hopwood: Well, that's because the bank robber's long been dead and gone. Hopwood was born here 42 years ago in the small farming community of David City, Nebraska, surrounded by cornfields and cattle.
Shon Hopwood is an Associate Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, where he is an expert on federal courts, criminal procedure (including federal sentencing), and prisoners' rights.
2. Whether or not you know about his background, Shon Hopwood is a remarkable lawyer—and not just because he became a member of the U.S. Supreme Court bar in June. He earned a law degree in 2014 at the University of Washington School of Law, where he was named a Gates Public Service Law Scholar.
four moreHis friend suggested sending the money back, with a note. Instead, Hopwood went on to rob four more banks. At his sentencing, 30 family members stood behind him, most of them crying. He was 23 years old.
Hopwood pled guilty on Oct. 28, 1998, to robbing several banks in Nebraska and was sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay $134,544 in restitution.
Hopwood was released from the custody of the Bureau of Prisons on April 9, 2009 and later earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Washington School of Law, where he was a Gates Public Service Law Scholar before clerking for Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the United States Court of Appeals.
Steve Kroft: So this is one of your banks?
We get letters from them every week. Tonight, we are going to introduce you to Shon Hopwood, who is arguably the most successful jailhouse lawyer ever—having had one of his cases argued before the U.S. Supreme Court while serving a 12-year sentence for armed bank robbery. Since his release he's built a resume as a legal scholar, and been published in top law journals. We met him at one of the nation's premiere law schools where he's become its newest professor -- a tale of redemption as improbable as any you're likely to hear.
Shon Hopwood: I would be sitting in my cell reading a federal reporter, which is a compendium of federal court of appeals cases, and I would just read that cover-to-cover as if it was a novel, just for fun.
Yes. The irony isn't lost on him or his students who know that he's a convicted felon and that less than a decade ago was an inmate at the federal correctional institution in Pekin, Illinois. Steve Kroft: You're a professor at one of the finest law schools in the country.
Professor Steven Goldblatt is the faculty director for the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law. Steven Goldblatt: To have somebody who's a credible voice who actually lived the experience, who understands what it's like to spend a day in prison, much less 11 years, is highly unusual.
Steve Kroft: It's easier for me to imagine you as a Georgetown law professor than it is for me to imagine you as a bank robber.
Shon Hopwood: I did. Lawyers had made really bad mistakes, and it really cost their clients sometimes, you know, a decade or two in federal prison.
18 U.S.C. 2113. 1 That statute creates and defines several crimes incidental to and related to thefts from banks organized or insured under federal laws.
A grand jury returned a two-count indictment against him. The first charged the robbery offense; the second, entering the bank with the intent to commit a felony. Petitioner was convicted on both counts, and the district judge sentenced him to 20 years for robbery and 15 years for entering.
Two larceny provisions were enacted: one for thefts of property exceeding $50, the other for lesser amounts. Congress further made it a crime to
Congress provided for maximum penalties of either a prison term or a fine or both for each of these offenses. Robbery remained punishable by 20 years and $5,000. The larceny penalties were set according to the degree of the offense. Simple larceny could result in 1 year in jail and $1,000 fine, while the maximum for the more serious theft was set at 10 years and $5,000. No separate [352 U.S. 322, 327] penalty clause was added for the crime of unlawfully entering. It was simply incorporated into the robbery provision. 6
It is unnecessary to do so in order to vindicate the apparent purpose of the amendment. The only factor stressed by the Attorney General in his letter to Congress was the possibility that a thief might not commit all the elements of the crime of robbery. It was manifestly the purpose of Congress to establish lesser offenses. But in doing so there was no indication that Congress intended also to pyramid the penalties.
It is a fair inference from the wording in the Act, uncontradicted by anything in the meager legislative history, that the unlawful entry provision was inserted to cover the situation where a person enters a bank for the purpose of committing a crime, but is frustrated for some reason before completing the crime.
The question of interpretation is a narrow one, and our decision should be correspondingly narrow. The original Bank Robbery Act was passed in 1934. It covered only robbery, robbery accompanied by an aggravated assault, and homicide perpetrated in committing a robbery or escaping thereafter.
During a break in a basketball game to raise money for charity, Shon Hopwood told some of his Georgetown law students it felt different than the last time he was on a court: When he played basketball in federal prison, he had to carry a shank in case his team started to lose.
He was finding errors, often from overworked public defenders, like a young man sentenced to 16-and-a-half years for possessing less than a handful of crack cocaine because he had mistakenly been labeled a career offender. With Hopwood’s help, his sentence was reduced by more than 10 years.
But in the summer of 2000, a Supreme Court decision caught inmates’ attention: Essentially, Hopwood explained, “things that can increase your sentence need to be proven to a jury, or you need to plead guilty to them.” He had been sentenced based on guidelines for armed robbery, even though he had pleaded guilty to unarmed robbery. A technicality, maybe, but he began dreaming of getting out early. Among all the other reasons to leave, he had begun a friendship, by mail, with a girl from back home.
Federal bank robbery statutes provide enhanced penalties for assaults that occur through the use of a “dangerous weapon” during a bank robbery.
Writing for a unanimous court, Justice John Paul Stevens provided three reasons why an unloaded gun is a "dangerous weapon" under the federal bank robbery statute.
While defendant Albert DeSalvo was in jail for a series of sexual assaults known as the "Green Man" incidents, he confessed his guilt in the " Boston Strangler " murders to Bailey. DeSalvo was found guilty of the assaults but was never tried for the stranglings.
In 1954, Sam Sheppard was found guilty in the murder of his wife Marilyn. The case was one of the inspirations for the television series The Fugitive (1963–1967). In the 1960s, Bailey, at the time a resident of Rocky River, Ohio, was hired by Sheppard's brother Stephen to help in Sheppard's appeal. In 1966, Bailey successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that Sheppard had been denied due process, winning a re-trial. A not guilty verdict followed. This case established Bailey's reputation as a skilled defense attorney and was the first of many high-profile cases.
Bailey's high public profile came both as a result of the cases he took on and his own actions. In 2001, he was disbarred in the state of Florida, with reciprocal disbarment in Massachusetts on April 11, 2003. The Florida disbarment was the result of his handling of shares in a pharmaceutical company named Biochem Pharma during his representation of marijuana dealer Claude DuBoc. Bailey had transferred a large portion of DuBoc's assets into his own accounts. The stock, worth about $5.9 million, was supposed to be included in the forfeiture of assets that DuBoc made as part of a plea bargain. It had been held by Bailey because it would be sold immediately if it came into government possession, but it was expected to rise dramatically in value. Bailey later refused to turn it over, saying that it was payment of his legal fees and not part of DuBoc's asset forfeiture. In addition, Bailey said that the stock was collateral for loans that he had received, and so could not be sold until the loans were repaid. These arguments were rejected by the court; the stock rose in value to about $20 million, and Bailey then argued that, if he turned over the stock so that it could be sold, he was entitled to keep the difference between what it was valued at when he received it and its new, higher price. After Bailey was imprisoned for six weeks in 1996 for contempt of court, his brother raised the money that enabled Bailey to turn the stock over to the government, and he was released. He was later found guilty of seven counts of attorney misconduct by the Florida Supreme Court, and in 2001 he was disbarred. Massachusetts disbarred Bailey two years later.
Massachusetts disbarred Bailey two years later. In early 2003, a judge ordered Bailey to pay $5 million in taxes and penalties on income connected with the Duboc case, but the judge later reversed the decision, although Bailey still had an unpaid tax bill of nearly $2 million, which he disputed.
The prosecution of Patty Hearst, a newspaper heiress who had committed armed bank robberies after being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), was one of Bailey's defeats. In her autobiography, Hearst described his closing argument as "disjointed" and said that she suspected he had been drinking. During his closing argument, Bailey spilled a glass of water on his pants. Hearst was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. She served 22 months before her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. She was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001.
In 1966, Bailey successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that Sheppard had been denied due process, winning a re-trial. A not guilty verdict followed. This case established Bailey's reputation as a skilled defense attorney and was the first of many high-profile cases.
Korean Air Lines Flight 007. A strike to Bailey's credibility came when he took on the case of aggrieved families of passengers on Korean Air Lines Flight 007, which was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1983.
A local press report says responding officers connected French to the bank robbery by following footprints in the snow to a nearby tattoo parlor owned by French's brother. French, who authorities said stole $2,420, later pleaded guilty.
JERSEY CITY -- An attorney convicted of robbing a bank in Pennsylvania is one of two Hudson County lawyers disbarred last year, according to the recently released New Jersey Supreme Court's 2017 New Jersey Attorney Ethics Report.