The Playboy Panel: Crisis In Law Enforcement

March, 1966

PanelistsMelvin M. Belli gained international notoriety two years ago this month when he publicly denounced the Dallas death sentence for his client Jack Ruby, murderer of Lee Harvey Oswald, as "the shotgun justice of a kangaroo court." But Belli had already been one of the most flamboyant, contentious and able ornaments of the American bar for many years. An embattled defender of individual rights in hundreds of criminal cases and personal-injury suits--for which he pioneered six-figu...