Law legend F. Lee Bailey dies at 87

F. Lee Bailey, a onetime “Dream Team” lawyer tied to some of the most high-profile cases in recent history, has died, his former law partner told the Herald.

Kenneth Fishman said that after talking to Bailey’s son, the 87-year-old “passed this morning.”

Baily, who had to declare bankruptcy late in his career and was disbarred, was a high-flying attorney who defended stars and notorious criminals from OJ Simpson to “Boston Strangler” Albert DeSalvo.

He also defended Patty Hearst, the newspaper heiress convicted of bank robbery in 1976, and My Lai massacre Army Capt. Ernest Medina.

But it all started with his defense of Sam Sheppard, an Ohio physician convicted in 1954 of murdering his wife. The movie “The Fugitive” starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones was said to be based on that case.

Bailey told the Herald in 2018 he was attempting to recast his reputation with a book intended for a generation too young to have lived through Simpson’s “trial of the century.”

“There has been a polarization as bad as I’ve ever seen,” said Bailey. “A lot of white people have berated me for prostituting my talents; blacks were happy with the outcome (of the trial). I finally decided millennials are large in number. I can reach them.”

This is a developing story … 

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3g62V7w