Belli for the Defense: A Flamboyant Advocate

The visitor flew in with a flourish. His pink face and silver hair gleamed above polished cowboy boots and a grand, fur-collared overcoat. San Francisco Lawyer Melvin Mouron Belli had come to Dallas to defend Jack Ruby, the only man ever to commit a murder while the whole nation watched. Now, whether or not Judge Joe Brantley Brown decides to let live TV turn the trial into a flamboyant show, a flamboyant courtroom drama is already a certainty. "We will plead him not guilty by reason of insanity," announced Belli after a two-hour interview with his newest client. "We will have some of the greatest names in psychiatry in the U.S. as witnesses. My eyes were moist when he recounted what he went through."

Whatever the performance he extracts from his psychiatric consultants, moist-eyed Mel Belli is sure to provide other actors in other parts. But if his past courtroom productions are a guide, Belli himself will play the leading role. He has appeared for the defense in more than 100 murder trials, has earned the title of "King of Torts" by his masterful presentation of medical evidence that has won his clients awards as high as $675,000 in personal injury cases. His chief strategy has been "demonstrative evidence"--graphic, often grisly visual aids--human skeletons, elaborate anatomical models, huge photographic blowups, and the blackboard he regularly brings into court.

Re-creating the Impact. Belli adds to such devices a superb sense of dramatic timing. In one of his most famous cases, he represented an attractive young woman who had lost her right leg. As the trial opened, Belli brought to the counsel table a large, L-shaped package, ominously wrapped in butcher's paper. For days, he shifted the bundle absentmindedly as he addressed the jury, but made no reference to it. Finally, he unwrapped the package slowly as the jury watched in horrified fascination. If the artificial leg he revealed was an anticlimax, Belli immediately rebuilt the tension: he dropped the limb into the lap of a shocked juror and proceeded to spell out exactly how it would feel to wear the contraption for a lifetime. The award to his client: $100,000.

Nor is Belli any slouch at dramatizing psychological injuries. In one case that has become a legal classic, Belli represented a California fireman who became psychotic after he was injured when a truck rammed the fire engine he was riding. To re-create the exact details for the jury, Belli used an enormous aerial photo of the intersection where the collision occurred. He questioned a parade of 29 witnesses, spotting each person's location precisely on the photo, to prove that the fire siren must have been audible in the cab of the truck. Then he diagramed the positions of other witnesses, who testified to the truck's excessive speed. In the end, only the most unimaginative juror had not relived several times over the traumatic crunch that Belli contended sent his client into a mental institution. The award: $225,000.

Home in his rococo San Francisco office last week after his trip to Dallas, Belli had no time to relish the mementos of past triumphs--the stethoscope and the X-ray-viewing machine with the picture of a client's broken joint. There was little time for the ornate bar under the glint of the old-fashioned gas lamps, or the warmth of the great fireplace. Telephones jangled constantly. "Nine to three, hung jury," Belli reported proudly to one caller anxious to hear the results of a case that had been tried in Los Angeles. "That ought to make it legal for a man to shoot his wife's lover down there." To another caller he laughed: "Hell, I'll put that black hat and that black overcoat on going through town, and I'll have 'em giving me money thinking I'm a country minister."

There was also Jack Ruby to think about. "The evidence of guilt is not great, even though you saw the shooting," said Belli blandly. "Forty million people saw Ruby commit this act," he continued, "but as far as I know I am the only one who's had a chance to look into this man's head. What we're trying is whether Ruby was in his right mind when he committed the act. That's what no one saw. We will use every piece of equipment psychiatry provides, all that is available under Texas law."

Appeal to Public Opinion. Belli will have some Texas help. Ruby's original lawyer, Tom Howard of Dallas, is staying on; he will be joined by Joe H. Tona-hill of Jasper, Texas, along with Sam S. Brody of Los Angeles, both brought in by Belli. But Prosecuting Attorney Henry Wade is warming up a Texas-style reception: "This international lawyer, Melvin Belli of San Francisco, who has recently traveled extensively in Russia and written a book entitled The Russian Life and Law* is an interesting, if not intriguing person," said Wade.

He is also an eloquent advocate, an imaginative adversary. Recently he even won $1,597 from the San Francisco Giants when he found that Candlestick Park did not provide him "radiant heat" as advertised. Last week he was marshaling all his skills to defend Jack Ruby on radio, on TV, in newspapers. "Ruby lived this assassination as vividly as any American, and probably more so than most," said Belli. "I heard absolutely no word in all of Texas against Ruby's character. Ruby is an intense, tragic, emotional man. Talking to him, the hair rose on the hackles of my neck. I felt horror, revulsion, sadness. I saw myself and millions of fellow Americans."

*Correct title: Belli Looks at Life and Law in Russia.

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