Vincent Bugliosi obit

Former LA Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi Dies at 80

 

He was not on the list.

Famed former prosecutor and author Vincent Bugliosi has died of cancer at age 80, family members said Monday night.

Bugliosi was best known for successfully prosecuting Charles Manson and three followers for the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six other. He later co-wrote the book “Helter Skelter” detailing the Tate-LaBianca murder trial.

Born in Hibbing, Minnesota, Bugliosi moved to LA in the 1960s, where he earned his law degree from UCLA. During his time with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, he successfully secured convictions in 105 of 106 felony jury trials, including 21 murder cases.

Bugliosi died Saturday, June 6, at a Los Angeles hospital.

“He was a workaholic. What was remarkable was he always found time for everyone who needed work. Every fan letter he received, he responded to everyone,” said his son, Vincent Bugliosi, Jr.

Bugliosi went into private practice in 1972, and went on to author or co-author a dozen books, including “And the Sea Will Tell,” “Outrage: The Five Reasons Why OJ Simpson Got Away With Murder,” and “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.”

He is survived by Gail, his wife of 59 years, and his two children, Wendy and Vincent Jr.

Bugliosi wrote Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder (1996) about the murder trial of O. J. Simpson and his acquittal for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Bugliosi argues that Simpson was guilty. He criticizes the work of the district attorney, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and Judge Lance Ito. He criticized the media for characterizing Simpson's lawyers as "the Dream Team", and said that the lawyers were unremarkable and of average ability. He used his profiles to explore what he considers broader problems in American criminal justice, the media, and the political appointment of judges.

Bugliosi criticized the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Clinton v. Jones. In his book, No Island of Sanity, he argues that the right of a president to be free of a private lawsuit while in office outweighed Paula Jones's interest in having her case brought to trial immediately.

Bugliosi condemned the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Bush v. Gore case that decided the 2000 U.S. presidential election. He wrote a lengthy criticism of the case for The Nation, titled "None Dare Call It Treason", which he later expanded into a book titled The Betrayal of America. Some of his criticisms were depicted in the 2004 documentary Orwell Rolls in His Grave. He also believed that George W. Bush should have been charged with the murders of the thousands of American soldiers who died in the invasion of Iraq because of his belief that Bush launched the invasion under false pretenses. In his book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, he laid out his view of evidence and outlined what questions he would ask Bush at a potential murder trial. Bugliosi testified at a House Judiciary Committee meeting on July 25, 2008, at which he urged impeachment proceedings for Bush. The book formed the basis of a 2012 documentary film, The Prosecution of an American President.

Bugliosi is on record for believing that Senator Robert F. Kennedy was the victim of a criminal conspiracy. He said the following during a civil trial of the RFK assassination: "We are talking about a conspiracy to commit murder ... a conspiracy the prodigious dimensions of which would make Watergate look like a one-roach marijuana case. ... The signed statements given me perhaps can be explained away, but in the absence of a logical explanation, these statements, by simple arithmetic, add up to too many bullets and therefore, the probability of a second gun." As a result of his research, Bugliosi came to refute conspiracy theories.