Obituary: F. Lee Bailey

 If you were a guilty person, there was no better attorney in the country than F. Lee Bailey (the "F." stood for Francis, which is why he didn't use the full first name) to get you off.  Just ask O.J. Simpson about him.  If you were a kidnap victim, there was no better attorney to represent you when you were charged with a crime than F. Lee Bailey.  Just ask Patricia Hearst.  On the other hand, don't because he botched her defense.  If you were truly innocent of murder, there was no better attorney than F. Lee Bailey.  Just ask Sam Sheppard.  On the other hand, don't ask him for he is long since dead.  Like Sheppard, who was completely exonerated of the 1954 murder of his wife thanks to DNA (and long after his death), Bailey also died, albeit today, a week before his 88th birthday.

Bailey with one of his guilty clients.

Bailey himself could never stay out of the news.  There were battles with alcohol, battles in divorce court with a slew of ex-wives (three out of his four wives with the last having died), and there were the inevitable battles with various bar associations, at least of couple of which disbarred him.  In recent years he mostly stayed out of the news.  As mentioned in the article linked, he felt the lowest time of his life was when his last wife died.  That was over 20 years ago.

Snip:

"Bailey was so committed to his clients that he really adopted the notion of their innocence," former Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Kenneth J. Fishman, who worked for Bailey as a young law student in 1975, and stayed in practice with him for nearly 27 years, told CNN.

"He was truly a remarkable man. He was the quintessential criminal defense lawyer."

Fishman, who called Bailey his friend, said the two had authored multiple law books together, including a 2019 manual on what Fishman called "the art of cross examination."

When I worked at a law library a couple of decades ago, I remember there were legal treatises written or co-written by Bailey. His books are considered standard works in the legal profession.