THE ONE WE LEFT OUT

 

Attorney Al Krieger- who became part of our local bar later in his career, commanded every courtroom he walked into. His cross examinations were conducted with a surgeon’s scalpel and delivered with a bulldog growl.  

He was born in Manhattan in 1923, attended New York University on a football scholarship, graduating in 1945. After a brief Army stint, he earned his LL.B. from NYU School of Law in 1949. And from there, he went on to have a sixty-year career in the law.

He started by defending OC figures in NYC including Joe Bonanno in the 1960s, and famously John Gotti in 1992. His cross examination of the turncoat/rat in that case was legendary.  

But to us, Al Krieger became the GOAT when he- pro bono- defended approximately 150 defendants of the American Indian Movement after they occupied Wounded Knee in 1973. He obtained dismissals or acquittals for nearly all defendants. This was an achievement that ranks as the very best in the history of American Criminal defense. From this point on Al Krieger was a superstar.

Al Krieger was a founding member and president (1979–1980) of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and also helped to establish the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia, in 1985, training generations of defense attorneys.

Al Krieger received the NACDL Lifetime Achievement Award and Robert C. Heeney Memorial Award, as well as the ABA Charles R. English Award.

Albert J. Krieger’s name remains synonymous with courage, integrity, and excellence in criminal defense—a “lawyer’s lawyer” whose advocacy helped elevate the defense bar to a position of national respect and influence.

So where do we put him?

He was every bit the trial lawyer of Lee Bailey(3)  and Roy Black (2). It’s like asking where do you put DiMaggio in an outfield of Mays, Aaron and Clemente?

So we leave you with this – the top three criminal defense attorneys of the last 50 years were Spence, Krieger, Bailey and Black. You figure it out.

NUMBER 1 AND 1A

 The top criminal defense attorney in the United States over the last fifty years can only be one person" GERRY SPENCE. 

1. Gerry Spence

The Wyoming philosopher-cowboy who never lost a criminal jury trial. He wore buckskins, spoke plain, and made jurors cry while the prosecutor clutched their exhibits like rosary beads. His closing in the Karen Silkwood case and his defense of Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge still teach us the gospel of story over statute. 

What Spence understood was that every case and every client is a story- and he was better at telling that story than anyone else. He understood that a story a juror could relate to was more powerful than any prosecution witness testifying that his client did something and the law prohibited it. Spence had the kind of talent and genius that could not be taught. He never lost a case, and he must be number one. 

BUT, then we realized we had a BIG problem. A massive bulldog of a problem because there is one obvious name left off this list. 

A criminal defense attorney who had broad shoulders and deep courtroom growl. A lawyer who never walked away from a fight for his client, and won most of them. He had a towering intellect, and despite his gruff appearance and demeanor, he was a true gentleman in every sense of the word. 

No, not Sy Gaer, who just missed our list at 11. And not Alex Michaels, who makes any top ten list of best criminal defense attorneys in Florida. And not the guy who works on top of a garage, because as talented and dedicated as he is, his story is far from over. 

So the attorney we have to somehow squeeze on to the top ten without removing anyone...

Will be revealed tomorrow. 

TOP TEN CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS 5-2

  Now we get to the superstars, the best of the best. And other than number one, the rest are really interchangeable based of the charge and the location. For example Lee Bailey would be our pick for a murder defense over every other lawyer except #1, while our own Roy Black would be our #1 choice for a federal drug conspiracy, and you'd be a fool to walk into a court in Texas without Dick DeGuerin if you could get him.  And that brings us to #5 ...

5. Dick DeGuerin

Texas born, steel-eyed. Walked Robert Durst out of a Galveston murder charge on self-defense. Faced down the Waco inferno and the Tom DeLay circus. His genius: an unshakable calm when the whole courtroom was losing its mind, and he is fearless while defending his clients before Texas judges, who let's just say, would prefer that he come in second. You got a case in the lone star state? Dick DeGuerin is your man. 

 4. Roy Black

Miami’s own. The professor of cross-examination. The man who turned “reasonable doubt” into a living, breathing presence in every courtroom he entered. William Kennedy Smith, Rush Limbaugh, Justin Bieber—Roy made the impossible look casual. The GOAT of South Florida trial law. And one thing we learned from Roy was the power of humor. He had a wry sense of humor that he used as a scalpel during cross and closing- and when the jury was laughing, the prosecution was losing. The other thing about Roy was that he was a master of his craft because he mastered his craft- ordering transcripts of famous cases when he was just starting out, so that he could study the masters, and listening to speeches of great orators so he could incorporate their style into his own. His contribution to this blog about his successful defense of Officer Luis Alvarez in the case that made Miami burn can he found here. 

Now we are getting to the very rarified air of true legends. These are the GOATS of our profession. 

3. F. Lee Bailey

The original showman, the bridge between eras. Sam Sheppard’s savior, O.J.’s bulldog. Bailey believed the courtroom was theater and he was Olivier with a bar card. Nobody ever did a cross quite like him—equal parts charm and destruction. His book The Defense Never Rests is one of the reasons we became a criminal defense attorney. He had a brilliant legal mind and no one, and we mean that NO ONE prepared better for a trial than Lee Bailey. 

2. Edward Bennett Williams

If our #1 was cowboy wearing a bolo tie and boots, Williams was cufflinks and a limo. The D.C. legend who represented CIA directors and mob bosses in the same week. His preparation was so obsessive he probably knew what time the jurors brushed their teeth. He made power lawyering look elegant. He cut his teeth in the same type of criminal court in DC that is like the REGJB, and he rose to be the premier criminal defense attorney (along with Lee Bailey) of his generation. If there are two books every criminal defense attorney should read, they are Bailey's The Defense Never Rests, and The Man To See, the phenomenal biography of Williams. His clients included Jimmy Hoffa, Mobster Frank Costello, Senator Joe McCarthy, and Secretary of the Treasury John Connally. The list goes on and on, because for decades, if you had a criminal case, EBW was THE MAN to see. 

Attorney General Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department brought the case against Hoffa. Kennedy, who was a friend of EBW said he would "jump off the capital dome" if he didn't get a conviction of Hoffa. After the acquittal, EBW offered to buy Bobby a parachute, ending their friendship. 

What we love and admire about EBW is that he started small, representing burglars and defending misdemeanor and felony theft cases, and ended up defending some of the highest profile cases in the country. He knew how to defend a case, throw an elbow when required, how to outmaneuver the prosecution, and how to take a witness apart on the stand. He was a brilliant trial lawyer and our #2 greatest of the last generation of criminal defense attorneys. 

Combing tomorrow: The Greatest Trial Lawyer of the 20th Century. 

TOP TEN CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS

UPDATE: A protest is planned tomorrow at the Torch of Friendship in downtown Miami from 10am to 1pm 

Protest what? Something good we are sure. So if you want to fight the power, put on your tie-dyed shirt, take a gummie, and go march for social justice, in support of immigrants, preserving the Last Carrot in Coconut grove (being sold to a condo developer 😠) unfair parlay lines on the Hard Rock betting app, the Dolphins in general ( Hey hey Cluck Cluck don't you know the dolphins suck?) , the Supreme Court's secret "We Are For Trump" docket, or any other cause that seems appropriate. 

We live in an age of  plea bargains, Zoom Hearings,  and prosecutors who call a 36-month offer a “gift.” But once upon a time—and still, on the rare good day—there walked among us trial lawyers. Real ones. The kind who smelled of sweat, stale coffee, courtroom adrenaline, and Paco Raban. The kind who could talk a jury into seeing light where the government swore there was only darkness. 

They walk into a courtroom alone, carrying a battered brief case filled with legal pads that had undecipherable notes and proceed to destroy the prosecution’s case. When needy clients called, they growled “before they get to you they have to get through me” and then hung up the phone.

 Here, for your arguments and comments section brawls, are the ten greatest criminal trial defense attorneys of the past half-century—men and women who owned the well of the courtroom. Starting with numbers 10-6

 10. Johnnie Cochran

The poet of the  Dream Team  “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” should be engraved on the wall of every law school—and maybe tattooed on the arm of every defense lawyer who forgets the power of rhythm and rhyme in a closing. Cochran turned persuasion into performance art. He had the trial of the century, and he won it- enough said. But he was no one trick Pony. He made his bones suing the LAPD for brutality and became the lawyer they feared most.

 9. Judy Clarke 

While the men were chasing cameras, Clarke was saving lives.  Unabomber, Eric Rudolph, Jared Loughner. Boston Marathon bomber. Her genius wasn’t in “not guilty,” it was in "life-not death". A master of mitigation who could find humanity where others only saw evil. 

 8. Jerry Shargel 

The killer from Brooklyn. Defended mobsters, politicians, and moguls with surgical precision. His opening statements were symphonies; his crosses, scalpel work. When Shargel stood, prosecutors felt a sudden chill and jurors paid close attention.

 7. Benjamin Brafman 

The New York street fighter who could argue a mob case before breakfast and a celebrity scandal before lunch. He convinced a Manhattan jury that Sean Combs wasn’t packing heat in that club and made the DSK case evaporate. Swagger,  intellect, and  timing—he has it all.

 6.  Thomas Mesereau 

This is our guy. The silver-haired California samurai  who cross-examined Michael Jackson’s accusers into oblivion in 2005. A man who could charm a jury while slicing witnesses like sushi. Always the outsider, never the showboat, yet the show inevitably belonged to him. He became the center of attention in every courtroom he walked into- and he knew what to do with that attention.

We lived through the golden age of criminal defense attorneys. A time we fear is gone with harsher penalties and the trial tax that prosecutors and judges swear does not exist, but the rest of us know it does.  "Take five or risk thirty" is proving to be the death of the Sixth Amendment which is dying a slow-one plea at a time- death. 

 And now, even the best of us are no longer lone wolfs, showing up alone in some out-of-town courthouse in Missouri, New Mexico, or Delaware. Now we are accompanied by a team of twenty-somethings setting up our laptops to access the thousands of files on the terabytes of discovery turned over. 

One of the lawyers in our top five showed up in a Miami Courtroom in the 70's, unknown to the local feds, defending a client, and had a celebrity sitting in the front row- driving prosecutors to complain, and causing the judge to chuckle at their discomfort. Then he proceeded to smash their case like a boat crashing into a jetty.  Those days are gone, and we are the worse for it.