Belli Melvin

American attorney from 1933, noted for being colorful and compelling in the courtroom. A flamboyant legal legend, he relished courtroom confrontations and won over $300 million for his clients, pioneering the jury-winning technique of dramatically demonstrating evidence during trial. He first devised his presentation of graphic evidence while defending Ernie Smith, a San Quentin inmate accused of murdering another prisoner. Smith claimed that the other man had pulled a knife on him and the prosecution declared that knives were not allowed in prison. To prove his point, Belli not only presented evidence of a box full of confiscated knives, but when delivering the box for display to the jury, "tripped" and fell, spilling knives all over the floor. The shocked jury acquitted Smith. Such timing of dramatic evidence produced the kind of result "when you can hear the angels sing and the cash registers ring," said Belli. As one of the top litigators, he and his many celebrity clients were well covered by the media, clients who ranged from Errol Flynn and Mae West to Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. In his 1976 autobiography, "My Life on Trial," he wrote that he always knew, even as a child, that he would be a lawyer one day. The only child of a banker, he moved to Stockton with his family as a kid. He found his oratorical voice in high school, finding that public speaking was intoxicating to himself and enchanting to his classmates. He attended Berkeley, graduating in 1929. After working his way to Europe on a freighter, he got a job as a blackboard marker in a San Francisco brokerage, and sailed to the Orient as a seaman with Dollar Steamship Lines. In the fall of 1930, Belli enrolled in UCs Boalt Hall and graduated 13th in his law class. He found work during the Depression as an undercover investigator for the federal National Recovery Administration, developing his sympathy for the underdog and the outcast. Craving both publicity and paying clients, the new lawyer with the exhibitionist flair staged his first news conference in 1936. He told reporters that he had just persuaded British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden to make a phone call, on behalf of his client. In both his criminal and civil cases, Belli turned the courtroom in theater, complete with props, costumes and high drama. He himself dressed with sartorial elegance in tailored Western cut gray suits lined in red silk with a red silk handkerchief and black calf-high snake skin boots. In his heyday, he was a master of timing and elocution. His voice was velvet or thunder, a symphony or a snare drum and it was said that he could charm cobras out of their baskets. His opulent San Francisco office was said to resemble a Gold Rush whorehouse. He cherished, adored, revered and celebrated every victory. Worldwide recognition first touched him when he defended Jack Ruby, who had fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald on national TV in 1963. In trial after trial, he relied on a legal precedent he first established in a 1944 victory over Coca-Cola. The principle of absolute liability, in which manufacturers are automatically liable for injury caused by their product, set the stage for later consumer protection litigation. Belli loved all things bright and beautiful, kinky and flawed, good wines, great tables, wide travels and beautiful women. He savored his Rolls Royce, his yacht and spacious homes, and most of all, he loved the law. The author of 62 books including the six-vo Read less