F. Lee Bailey, Lawyer for Boston Strangler, Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson, Dies at 87

F. Lee Bailey, Lawyer for Boston Strangler, Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson, Dies at 87

F. Lee Bailey the criminal lawyer who became one of America’s first TV-famous celebrity lawyers has died at 87.

He represented some of the highest-profile defendants in American history -- Patricia Hearst, O.J. Simpson, the Boston Strangler, the army commander at the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam and other notorious cases.

Bailey died on Thursday in Atlanta.

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The New York Times reports:

His son Bendrix confirmed the death, in hospice care, but did not specify the cause. He said his father had been in poor health in recent years and living in Georgia to be near another son, Scott.

Mr. Bailey flew warplanes, sailed yachts, dropped out of Harvard, wrote books, touted himself on television, was profiled in countless newspapers, ran a detective agency, married four times, carried a gun, took on seemingly hopeless cases and courted trouble, once going to jail for six weeks and finally being disbarred.

But to a generation of Americans who grew up with courtroom dramas on television, he was the stuff of celebrity legends: an audacious, larger-than-life defender in the traditions of Clarence Darrow and Edward Bennett Williams, producing lawyerly entertainment long before Court TV or reality television shows.

His consulting firm's website writes, "Mr. Bailey is well-known to the public for his activities as a private investigator, military and civilian pilot, boat and yacht manufacturer and captain, trial counsel in many well-publicized cases, writer of 20 books, and prominent lecturer and keynote speaker. He was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1933."

"He did not always win, however. He failed to keep Patty Hearst, the kidnapped publishing heiress, out of prison for her role in a bank robbery. He lost his insanity defense of the confessed Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, and could not save himself from contempt of court citations, humiliating handcuffs and disbarment in 2001 for misappropriating millions," added the Times.