When the Criminal Attorney Self-Appoints To Tell All
In this Ethics and Criminal Practice column, Joel Cohen and James Bernard discuss a late attorney's recent book and its implications for the attorney-client relationship.
October 08, 2021 at 12:00 PM
10 minute read
A man on trial faces serious criminal charges. His freedom hangs in the balance, and so he throws all caution to the wind. White-collar lawyer? Who needs that? So, he chooses what he calls a "no-collar" lawyer: presumably, the kind of lawyer depicted in movies who would do anything for his client in order to win. And likely, if necessary, that lawyer would be willing to go down trying, along with his client.
The late Peter DeBlasio, it seems, may have been just that type of lawyer. In his book, self-published shortly before he died last year that has just recently come to light, "Let Justice Be Done," he tells this: The criminal defense he raised in 1975 to defend one of the high profile kidnappers of Sam Bronfman II, son of the legendary businessman and philanthropist Edgar Bronfman, was actually guilty as charged. Indeed, Bronfman was not, as DeBlasio had adamantly (and successfully) maintained at trial, the "ringleader" of the conspiracy, or even the homosexual lover of his client. And DeBlasio's defense that Bronfman wasn't kidnapped at all was also totally false.
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