Lawyer who defended OJ Simpson, F. Lee Bailey, dies at 87

F. Lee Bailey, a Texas criminal attorney known for defending O.J. Simpson and Patty Hearst among others, died at the age of 87, according to The New York Times.

According to the Times, Bailey’s son Bendrix Lee Bailey said that the lawyer died in hospice care in Georgia Thursday morning, though he did not elaborate on the cause of death. 

Bailey was born in Waltham, Mass., and attended Harvard University. However, he dropped out of the Cambridge school to join the U.S. Marine Corps. He eventually graduated from Boston University law school in 1960.

Before his work with Simpson, Bailey faced some tough defeats in the court room. 

Known for his theatrical style in the court room, Bailey defended the Boston Strangler but lost the case. The man tried in the case, Albert DeSalvo, had confessed to Bailey separately about being the strangler who was sought in the killing of 13 people in the 1960s, according to The Washington Post. 

He also failed to win a case brought against Patty Hearst, a publishing heiress charged and convicted in connection to a bank robbery. 

However, the attorney gained national attention in 1966 after he succeeded in reversing the murder conviction of Sam Sheppard, an osteopathic doctor from Ohio. Sheppard was convicted in 1954 of bludgeoning his wife, but claimed that he was knocked out after fighting with the alleged killer when he came home, according to the Times. 

The case was eventually reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court and a second trial was held, at the end of which Sheppard was acquitted. 

Most famously, in the mid 1990s, Bailey joined the defense team of former NFL star and actor Simpson, who was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman, according to the Times.  

Bailey’s cross-examination of former Los Angeles police officer Mark Furham became a key turning point for the defense of Simpson. 

O.J. Simpson shared his well wishes to Bailey on Twitter, calling him “one of the great lawyers of our time.” 

I lost a great one. F Lee Bailey you will be missed. pic.twitter.com/6s8JI3OQVB

— O.J. Simpson (@TheRealOJ32) June 3, 2021

The attorney was barred from practicing law in Florida in 2001 after transferring assets from a client into his own, personal bank account, according to TMZ.