University of Virginia Library

F. Lee Bailey To Lecture Wednesday

The Student Legal Forum of the
University Law School announced Friday
that it will present as its next speaker the
well-known defense attorney, Mr. F. Lee
Bailey, Jr. Mr. Bailey will speak in the
Cabell Hall Auditorium on Wednesday,
March 11, at 8:30 p.m.

Mr. Bailey established his reputation
as one of the country's great criminal
lawyers by his performance in the defense
of several well-publicized murder trials.
Mr. Bailey's talent for winning the
seemingly "hopeless" case was perhaps
best demonstrated in his handling of the
defense of Dr. Sam Sheppard, a Cleveland
osteopath convicted of the murder of his
wife.

Mr. Bailey took the appeal with no
promise of a fee, meticulously poured
over more than 9,000 pages of briefs and
testimony, and succeeded in winning a reversal
from the Supreme Court on the historic ground
of "prejudicial publicity." In November 1966
on retrial, Mr. Bailey won the final round for
Dr. Sheppard, getting a jury to acquit him of
the murder charge.

Other of his famous defenses include the
successful defense of Dr. Carl Coppolino on a
murder charge, the defense of Albert De Salvio,
the self-styled "Boston Strangler," and the
defense of the four suspects in the biggest cash
heist in the nation's history, the $1,551,277
Plymouth, Mass., mail robbery.

A Harvard dropout after his sophomore
year, Mr. Bailey entered the Marines as a fighter
pilot. In the Marine Corps he began his legal
career as a legal officer with responsibility for
some 2,000 men at Cherry Point, N.C. At that
time it was unnecessary for a legal officer to
have a law degree.

With credit for his time in the service, Mr.
Bailey was allowed to skip further
undergraduate study and was admitted to
Boston University Law School.

Mr. Bailey received his law degree in 1960,
graduating number one in his class but without
honors since he had refused to join the Law
Review. It is characteristic of Mr. Bailey that
his reason for refusing law review was a greater
involvement in another area. While a student,
he started and managed his own detective
agency, putting in some 60 hours a week.

His agency handled over 2,000 cases for
practicing criminal lawyers and served as the
school where Mr. Bailey developed his key skill
- indefatigable investigation. Mr. Bailey credits
pretrial investigation as the major source of his
successes in court.

The Boston lawyer's most newsworthy
murder case of late involved the defense of
Capt. Robert Marasco, one of the six Green
Beret officers charged with the murder of a
South Vietnamese double agent.

Mr. Bailey has described himself as "the
only lawyer in the nation who specializes in
homicide cases on a full-time, interstate basis."
However, his latest client of note is on the civil
side. Mr. Bailey has acted as counsel for the
Professional Air Traffic Controllers
Organization in their fight to establish safer and
more efficient controls in the aviation industry.

The title of Mr. Bailey's speech Wednesday
evening will be "The Defense Never Rests." The
speech will be open to the general public.