Gerry Spence, the buckskinned legal maverick who called himself America’s best trial lawyer and dramatized that claim with a white Stetson, a dazzling courtroom record and a score of books that gunned down his opponents all over again, died on Wednesday at his home in Montecito, Calif. He was 96.
His son Kent Spence confirmed the death.
Mr. Spence often boasted that he had never lost a criminal case with a jury trial, as either a defense lawyer or a prosecutor, and that he had not lost a civil case since 1969. That was not actually true, but it was not far off. Several of his notable civil verdicts were overturned on appeal, and in 1969, when he was said to be drinking heavily because of marital troubles, he lost three cases in a row.
But in the tradition of Perry Mason, he seemed unbeatable — not only to courtroom foes but also to lawyers who attended his seminars, and to Americans who read his best-selling books and tuned in to his television programs and network commentaries, most notably on the O.J. Simpson murder case.
He sometimes poked fun at his own cowboy imagery — the snakeskin boots and 10-gallon hat, the long silvery-blond hair and buckskin-fringed jackets that conjured up Buffalo Bill Cody.
But he exploited it all, often in seemingly hopeless criminal cases.
A man who shot his former wife in front of eight witnesses: Not guilty. The white supremacist charged with killing a federal agent at Ruby Ridge in Idaho: Not guilty. Imelda Marcos, the widow of President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, accused of looting the Philippine treasury of $200 million for a lifestyle that included thousands of pairs of shoes and real estate in Manhattan: Not guilty.
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The post Gerry Spence, Courtroom Showman in Buckskin, Dies at 96 appeared first on New York Times.
