Melvin Belli

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Melvin Mouron Belli (b. 29 July, 1907, Sonora, California - d. 9 July, 1996, San Francisco, California) was a prominent American lawyer known as 'The King of Torts'—and by detractors as 'Melvin Bellicose'. He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, Sirhan Sirhan, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha Mitchell, Lana Turner, Tony Curtis, and Mae West.

Contents

Education and early career

Belli graduated from the University of California, Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law in 1933. After graduation, his first job was posing as an hobo for the Works Progress Administration and riding the rails to observe the Depression's impact on the country's vagrant population. His first major legal victory came shortly after graduation, in a personal injury lawsuit representing an injured cable car gripman. Over insurance lawyers' objections, Belli brought a model of a cable car intersection, and the gear box and chain involved in the accident, to demonstrate to jurors exactly what had happened.

King of Torts

Besides his famous personal injury cases, which earned for him his 'King of Torts' nickname, Belli was also instrumental in setting up some of the foundations of modern consumer rights law, arguing several cases in the 1940s and 1950s that formed the basis for later lawsuits and landmark litigation by such figures as Ralph Nader. Belli argued (in cases such as Escola v. Coca-Cola, in 1944, which arose from an incident in which a restaurant manager from Merced, California was severely injured by an exploding Coca-Cola bottle) that all products have an implied warranty, that it is to be foreseen that products will be used by a long chain of people, not just the direct recipient of the manufactured product, and that negligence by a defendant need not be proven if the defendant's product is defective. Belli also was one of the first major attorneys to prominently use demonstrative evidence and courtroom exhibits (such as graphics, charts, photographs, and films).

In his best known case, Belli represented Jack Ruby, for free, after Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald. Belli attempted to prove that Ruby was legally insane and had a history of mental illness in his family. On 14 March, 1964, Ruby was convicted of 'murder with malice', and later received a death sentence. However, in late 1966, Ruby's conviction was overturned, on the grounds that he did not receive a fair trial and a retrial was scheduled outside of Dallas, but Ruby died of a stroke before the retrial could take place. Belli became very critical of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover; the agency compiled at least 367 pages of evidence about Belli's activities accessible here.

Film and television roles

Belli as Gorgan

Belli appeared in numerous films and television shows, frequently as himself, and is set to be played by Brian Cox in the 2006 film Zodiac (Belli received a letter from the Zodiac Killer in 1969).

In perhaps his best-known role, other than as himself, Belli appeared in a 1968 episode, "And the Children Shall Lead", of Star Trek, which has often been labeled "the worst Star Trek episode of the entire series." In it he played Gorgan, an evil being who corrupted a group of children.

In 1970, he appeared in The Rolling Stones movie Gimme Shelter, reprising his real-life role as the person responsible for the disastrous decision to stage the rock group's Altamont Free Concert. Belli enjoyed his frequent television and movie appearances; in 1965, he told an interviewer for Playboy that he "might have been an actor" if he had not become an attorney.

Author

Belli was the author of several books, including the six-volume Modern Trials (written between 1954 and 1960) which has become a classic textbook on the demonstrative method of presenting evidence. Belli's unprecedented -- and some thought undignified -- use of graphic evidence and expert witnesses later became common courtroom practice. His autobiography, "My Life on Trial" is an entertaining account of his life and famous events he was involved in during most of the 20th century.

Personal life and finances

Belli was married five times. His marriage to the former Lia Triff ended with a scandalous, acrimonious and bitter divorce proceeding in 1988, in which Belli was fined $1000 for calling his wife "El Trampo", accused his wife of throwing their pet dog off the Golden Gate Bridge, and was ultimately compelled to pay her an estimated $15 million. Belli married his fifth wife, Nancy Ho, eleven weeks before he died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 88.

Belli's firm filed for bankruptcy protection in December, 1995, not long before his death. Belli was representing 800 women in a class action lawsuit against breast implant manufacturer Dow Corning. Belli won the lawsuit, but when Dow Corning declared bankruptcy, Belli had no way to recover the $5,000,000 (USD) his firm had advanced to doctors and expert witneses.

In June, 1996, two weeks before his passing, Melvin Belli recited the oratory to David Woodard's brass fanfare setting of Mark Twain's "The War Prayer", at San Francisco's Old First Church.

Quote

  • There may be better lawyers than I, but so far I haven't come across any of them in court. Melvin Belli

Bibliography

  • 1950, The Voice of Modern Trials
  • 1951, The Adequate Award
  • 1952, The More Adequate Award
  • 1952, The More Adequate Award and the Flying Saucers
  • 1954, Modern Trials (6 volumes)
  • 1955, The Use of Demonstrative Evidence in Achieving the More Adequate Award
  • 1955, Medical Malpractice
  • 1956, Blood Money Ready for the Plaintiff
  • 1956, Ready for the Plaintiff: A Story of Personal Injury Law
  • 1959, Modern Damages (6 volumes)
  • 1960, Belli Looks at Life and Law in Japan
  • 1963, Belli Looks at Life and Law in Russia
  • 1964, Dallas Justice: The Real Story of Jack Ruby And His Trial
  • 1967, Trial Tactics
  • 1968, Criminal Law
  • 1968, The Law Revolt: A Summary of Trends in Modern Criminal and Civil Law
  • 1968, The Law Revolution
  • 1971, Angela: A Revealing Close-Up of the Woman And the Trial
  • 1976, My Life on Trial: An Autobiography
  • 1983, The Belli Files

Filmography (as actor)

  • 1968, Star Trek (as Gorgon in the episode "And the Children Shall Lead")
  • 1968, Wild in the Streets (as himself)
  • 1970, Gimme Shelter (as himself)
  • 1973, Ground Zero (aka The Golden Gate Is Ground Zero)
  • 1978, Lady of the House (TV, as Mayor Jim of San Francisco)
  • 1979, Whodunnit?" (TV series, as himself)
  • 1984, Guilty or Innocent (TV Series, as himself)
  • 2000, "American Justice: Divorce Wars" (TV documentary)

External links

Retrieved from "http://www.theblackvault.com/wiki/index.php/Melvin_Belli"