So when you have incredibly high profile infamous crimes carried out by criminals who become household names but aren’t particularly rich, who represents them in court?
The likes of John Wayne Gacy, Ramzi Yousef, Sirhan Sirhan, Charles Manson, Timothy McVeigh, etc. Are they represented by a random public defender, or whichever local small town lawyer they can afford? Or are there high profile big criminal firms that will take the cases for little or no money because it will be such a famous case, and it will get their name associated with it?
In some cases lawyers will take cases on a pro-bono basis (no cost to their client). This can be because they believe in the cause (e.g. 9/11 victims) or it is a high profile case that will gain the attorney a lot of media coverage and fame (e.g. I think Gloria Allred has done a few of those).
If you want “infamous” I know there were many lawyers who represented Guantanamo detainees on a pro-bono basis. There was no chance the detainees could pay.
For the likes of John Wayne Gacy I cannot imagine attorneys lining up to defend him so, I suspect, if he could not afford his own attorney then one was appointed and he got whatever came out of that grab-bag process.
From what I read, Charlie asked for the most obstructionist attorney and people recommended Kanarak.
Gacy was defended by a friend who took the case before Gacy had admitted his guilt. It was his first case in private practice.
Pretty good book:
John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster
Jeffrey Dahmer probably was middle-class, at best; after all, he was a factory worker.
He was defended by two lawyers: Gerald Boyle was the lead attorney, who was hired by Dahmer’s father to defend his son. Boyle apparently was at least somewhat questionable – he later was reprimanded for several ethics violations, before having his law license suspended in 2015.
His other lawyer, Wendy Patrickus, was just 25 when she worked on the trial, and was a recent law school graduate at the time. (I know her; she’s the older sister of one of my friends from grade school.)
So, in Dahmer’s case, it doesn’t look like he had great representation: his primary lawyer was apparently ethically shady, and his secondary lawyer was fresh out of law school.
Many of the people listed in the OP were represented by federal public defenders.
That is a terrible article - it indicates Mark Chmura was “found innocent” which is not a possible outcome of a criminal prosecution in the US. Anyway, from all indications Boyle’s problems with the bar have nothing to do with actual ethics violations. His problem is that he continued practicing beyond the age where he was mentally capable of doing so. But maybe there’s a pattern here - Tim McVeigh’s appellate lawyer was also disbarred. Attorney who represented Oklahoma City bomber disbarred | AP News.
Nitpick: many journalists used to (and I guess, still do) use the term “found innocent” because too many readers/listeners simply skipped right over the “not” in “not guilty.” Lawyers complained about it, but news organizations felt it better to have a few dozen lawyers calling them out on a technicality than to have an anchor or reader miss the word “not.”
My Associated Press Stylebook is 20 years old, but it says:
Use innocent, rather than not guilty, in describing a defendant’s plea or a jury verdict, to guard against the word not being dropped inadvertently.
I’m not going to try to dig up whether the AP has changed it’s rules in the last 20 years, but I’ll bet a lot of news organizations still find the exception worthwhile, despite the lawyers’ complaints.
Update: Apparently the Associated Press did change from “innocent” to “not guilty” but not every news outlet follows the guideline.
All they have to say is “was not convicted.”
Still have the same concern with “not.”
I’d say that’s worse. I’d interpret that as the jury didn’t reach a verdict at all, either guilty or not guilty
F. Lee Bailey made a name for himself by defending by defending Sam Sheppard in an appeal of his murder conviction. In a notorious case Sheppard was found guilty of murdering his wife at his first trial. I don’t know if Sheppard had any money left to his name after the conviction, but Bailey definitely was looking for a high profile case to work. Bailey widely exposed what was already suspected to be a trial overly influenced by publicity around the case. That defense was not overly costly though, the mistakes at the original trial were there for Bailey to base the appeal on and overturn the original conviction. However, he did introduce expert testimony to show that the testimony by prosecution experts during the original trial included specious conclusions, and Sheppard’s original attorneys did a poor job defending him.
Even if a big name lawyer offers to represent him, will the criminal choose him? While he may be big name in a lot of places will the criminal have heard of him? Or will the criminal choose the local lawyer who got him off previously on a minor crime or one of a have dozen local criminal lawyers his friends and acquaintances have dealt with?
Also, in many states, lawyers/law firms are expected (required?) to do a certain amount of pro-bono work, as part of retaining their law license.
Often, firms meet this by assigning their newly-hired lawyers to put in time doing pro-bono work. It’s good relations for the firm, and cheaper costs than their more experienced lawyers.
This helps with the overload of public defenders, and it gives experience in the local courts to these lawyers. But it also means many are defended by rather inexperienced lawyers.