Gerry Spence, the fringe jacket-wearing trial lawyer from Wyoming known for a string of major court wins starting with a multimillion-dollar judgment against a plutonium processor in the landmark Karen Silkwood case, has died. Spence, 96, died Wednesday surrounded by friends and family at his home in Montecito, California, according to a statement from colleagues and family, the AP reports. "No lawyer has done as much to free the people of this country from the slavery of its new corporate masters," Joseph Low IV, of the Gerry Spence Method school for trial lawyers, said in the statement.
A polished raconteur with a gravelly voice whose trademark suede fringe jacket advertised his Wyoming roots, Spence was once among the nation's most recognizable trial attorneys. He achieved fame in 1979 with a $10.5 million verdict against Oklahoma City-based Kerr-McGee on behalf of the estate of Silkwood, a nuclear worker tainted with plutonium who died in a car wreck a week later. Silkwood's father accused the company of negligently handling the plutonium that contaminated his daughter. An appeals court reversed the verdict, and the two sides later agreed to an out-of-court settlement of $1.3 million. The events became the basis for the 1983 movie Silkwood, starring Meryl Streep.
Spence successfully defended former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos against federal racketeering and fraud charges in 1990. And he won acquittal for Randy Weaver, charged with murder and other counts for a 1992 shootout with federal agents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, that killed an FBI agent as well as Weaver's wife and 14-year-old son. Spence led the Spence Law Firm in Jackson, Wyoming, and founded the Trial Lawyers College, a Wyoming retreat where attorneys hone their courtroom skills. He wrote more than a dozen books, including the bestselling How to Argue and Win Every Time. He made frequent television appearances on legal matters.
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