Bobby Lee Cook

Bobby Lee Cook (February 12, 1927 – February 19, 2021)

Cook was born in 1927 in Lyerly, Georgia. He attended Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville, Tennessee. He practiced law in Summerville with the Cook & Connelly law firm.

Career

Cook had been a defense attorney for over 65 years. He recalled a time of racial prejudice when African Americans were "required to sit in the balcony of old courtrooms". He described it as "a most unusual, extraordinary time. It was a time when no women sat on juries, and certainly no blacks".^[6]

Cook was estimated to have won 80% of his murder trials and has "estimated his annual net income at $1 million".^[1]

Death

Bobby Lee Cook died on February 19, 2021, aged 94.^[7]

Significant cases

• Represented
  Atlanta Child Murders
  .
• Represented Troy L. Griffith Jr., star
  running back for Trion High School, Trion, Georgia
  .
• 1986—Defended Tennessee banker
  C.H. Butcher Jr., who faced 25 counts of fraud. Butcher was acquitted on all counts.^[8]
• 1988—Represented former Auburn University All-American football star Bobby Hoppe, who was charged with murder in a 1957 shooting. Jurors deadlocked 10-2 for acquittal. The case was never retried.
• 1989—Defended
  Danny Hansford. The case was the inspiration for the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
  , published in 1994. Williams was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison, although appealed, posting a $200,000 bond. Cook later received, anonymously, a copy of the police report showing the arresting officer contradicted himself, and the verdict was overturned. A new trial was ordered.

"If you can railroad a bad man to prison, you can railroad a good man."^[2]

References