Polly Nelson | |
---|---|
Born | Polly Jean Nelson 1952 (age 71–72) Minnesota, United States |
Alma mater | University of Minnesota (BA, JD) |
Occupation(s) | Lawyer, author |
Polly Jean Nelson (born 1952) is an American attorney and author. She is best known as a member of serial killer Ted Bundy's last defense team from 1986 until his execution in January 1989. [1] [2]
Nelson grew up in central Minnesota, the eldest of five children. After receiving her undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota in 1975, she spent two years as a social worker in Warren, Minnesota, followed by three years licensing day care facilities at the Minnesota Department of Public Welfare in St. Paul. [3] In 1981, she enrolled at the University of Minnesota Law School, where she became president of the Minnesota Law Review and received her Juris Doctor degree in 1984. In 1985, she worked as a law clerk in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. [2] [4]
In 1986, Nelson joined the Washington, D.C. law firm of Wilmer Cutler and Pickering as a junior associate. A few months later, she accepted a pro bono assignment from the Florida Office of the Capital Collateral Representative (CCR) to assist in efforts to stay Ted Bundy's imminent execution on multiple murder convictions. Although she had no previous first-hand experience in criminal law or the appeals process, she and co-counsel James Earl Coleman Jr. were able to secure three stays before Bundy was finally executed on January 24, 1989. [5] [6]
Nelson was fired by Wilmer Cutler a few months after Bundy's execution. [1] [7] Bundy's defense had cost the firm, it claimed, in excess of $1.5 million, the estimated amount Nelson and Coleman would have earned for the firm had they been representing paying clients. [2] In 1989, she was appointed to the District of Columbia Board of Parole, and later served as general counsel at Adcom Worldwide and legal counsel/privacy officer at Computer Network Technology. [8]
In 1994, Nelson's book Defending the Devil: My Story as Ted Bundy's Last Lawyer was published by William Morrow & Company. [9] In addition to a detailed description of the appeals, motions, and other legal maneuvers that were employed in the attempt to save her client from the electric chair, Nelson describes her own intellectual and emotional development during that three-year period. There is also a summary of the efforts made by Bundy and various psychiatrists to explain why he did what he did. [10] Nelson's account later received harsh criticism from Michael Mello, the CCR attorney who originally sought outside help in filing Bundy's appeals. "Sending Bundy's case from CCR was one of the worst decisions I've made as a deathworker," he wrote. [11]
In 1995, Nelson filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against novelist John Grisham and his publisher Doubleday for copyright infringement. She alleged that Grisham's book The Chamber , "blatantly appropriated central themes, plot twists, characters and descriptive details" from Defending the Devil. [12] In 1996, Judge Royce Lamberth dismissed the suit, calling the charges "meritless". A year later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously dismissed Nelson's appeal, noting that it "does not warrant an opinion". [13] Nelson was ordered to pay attorneys' fees for both parties. [14]
Theodore Robert Bundy was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped, and murdered dozens of young women and girls during the 1970s. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed to 30 murders. The total number of his victims is likely to be higher.
Lloyd Norton Cutler was an American attorney who served as White House Counsel during the Democratic administrations of Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
The Chamber (1994) is a legal thriller written by American author John Grisham. It is Grisham's fifth novel.
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Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, also known as Hale & Dorr and WilmerHale, is an American multinational law firm with offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Co-headquartered in Washington, D.C., and Boston, it was formed in 2004 through the merger of the Boston-based firm Hale and Dorr and the D.C.-based, firm Wilmer Cutler & Pickering. It employs more than 1,000 attorneys worldwide.
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The Deliberate Stranger is a book about American serial killer Ted Bundy written by Seattle Times reporter Richard W. Larsen that was published in 1980. The book spawned a television miniseries of the same title, starring Mark Harmon as Bundy, that aired on NBC on May 4–5, 1986.
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Defending the Devil: My Story as Ted Bundy's Last Lawyer is a 1994 nonfiction book written by American lawyer Polly Nelson, who was a member of serial killer Ted Bundy's legal defense team from 1986 to his execution in 1989. It was published by William Morrow & Company.
Stephen M. Cutler is an American lawyer and was the Director of the Division of Enforcement for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 2001 until 2005. He spent most of his career at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, and became General Counsel of JPMorgan Chase in February, 2007.
James Earl Coleman Jr. is an American attorney. He currently serves as the John S. Bradway Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Criminal Justice and Professional Responsibility at the Duke University School of Law. He was the primary member of the last defense team of serial killer Ted Bundy.
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George Robert "Bob" Dekle Sr. is an American lawyer who was an Assistant State Attorney in Florida's Third Judicial Circuit from 1975 through 2005. During this time, he served as lead prosecuting attorney in the 1980 Orlando murder trial of serial killer Ted Bundy, which ultimately delivered the death penalty that was carried out in 1989. Dekle's book on the case, The Last Murder: The Investigation, Prosecution, and Execution of Ted Bundy, was published in 2011.
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