Roy Black obit

Roy Black, one of the nation’s premier defense lawyers, dies in Coral Gables at 80

 He was not on the list.

Roy Black’s reputation as one of America’s premier criminal defense attorneys defined him for decades. Certainly long before he won an acquittal in 1991 for William Kennedy Smith on a rape charge in Palm Beach, the first trial of its kind to be televised nationally.

Black, a New York native who moved to South Florida for his studies as an undergraduate and law student at the University of Miami, died on Monday at his home in Coral Gables at 80 after battling an illness while still continuing to work at his storied law firm on Biscayne Boulevard. “Roy Black was the greatest criminal lawyer of our generation, perhaps in American history, achieving acquittals over a span of 50 years in some of the most challenging and notorious cases of all time,” said his partner, Howard Srebnick, who joined Black’s law firm 30 years ago. Srebnick recalled working as a law clerk for federal appeals court Judge Irving Goldberg in Dallas in the early 1990s when he saw his future law partner for the first time on a black-and-white television in the judge’s chambers. Black was cross-examining the accuser in the Kennedy Smith trial that was being broadcast on Court TV. “Judge Goldberg knew I was leaning hard in favor of a career in criminal defense and after watching Roy in action, Judge Goldberg said that Roy’s were the footsteps I should follow,” Srebnick said on Tuesday, describing Black as his teacher, mentor and friend.

One of Srebnick’s peers, David O. Markus, was the first to report early Tuesday on Black’s death. “This one really hurts,” Markus wrote on his Southern District of Florida blog, which he founded 20 years ago. “And he really was the GOAT of criminal defense lawyers. There are so many of us that want to be Roy in the courtroom — commanding, persuasive, funny. ... The hardest working. The most determined. And always so positive about winning.” Markus said he “was lucky enough to try a 6 week trial with him out of town when I was a young lawyer. I learned so much. And he often helped me brainstorm my cases and trials after that.” Black wove a successful career — one that made him a fixture on the “Today Show” and “Larry King Live” — by representing some of South Florida’s most famous — and infamous — criminal defendants, from Kennedy Smith, the nephew of JFK, to William Lozano, the Miami police officer who shot and killed motorcyclist Clement Lloyd, 23, with a bullet to the head as he was being chased by another officer on an Overtown street in 1989. Miami cop acquittal The fatal shooting, which took place on Jan. 16, 1989, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, sparked riots in Overtown and Liberty City. Lozano was initially convicted at his Miami trial, but after a successful appeal, he was retried in Orlando and acquitted. Black’s successful defense of Lozano “inspired me to go to law school,” said partner Maria Neyra. “Roy will be forever revered for championing the rights and civil liberties of so many.” “Although it feels like a fairy tale has come to an end, in the end we are all a story,” said partner Jackie Perczek. “Roy’s story — his love for life and for justice — will live on in all of us, and in all the people whose lives he touched and transformed. This generation and many to come stand on his shoulders.”

Black was born in Forest Hills, Queens, in 1945. His stepfather was executive vice president for Jaguar automobiles and the family moved from Queens to Fort Lee, N.J., to Stamford, Conn. When Black was 15, his stepfather left Jaguar and moved the family to Kingston, Jamaica, where he had a partnership with a local car dealership. Black attended an English prep school, discovered the ocean and learned to live as a teen with no television. “It was good for me,” Black said of his time in Jamaica. “It forced me to start reading.” The family was there for a few years, before moving to Nassau, Bahamas When it came time to select a college, Black had an academic scholarship at Columbia University. Instead, he opted to take a swimming scholarship at the University of Miami, where he would swim the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle heats for the swim team. “I remember flying over Miami and thinking, ‘What a great place,’ “ he said. When Black graduated from UM’s law school in 1970, he got hired by a former law professor, Phil Hubbart, the new Dade County public defender. His office had 10 assistant public defenders assigned to defend the indigents in a county of more than a million people. During the 1972 Democratic and Republican conventions in Miami Beach, Black defended many of the protesters arrested around the event, including Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg. Eventually, Black went on to open his own defense practice with Jack Denaro, who would become a legal legend, too. ‘Black’s Law’ Black, who was known by his colleagues as the Intellectual Lawyer for his voracious reading, wrote his own book, “Black’s Law,” in 1999, in which he chronicled four Miami trials. All four cases — three murders and a money laundering — appeared to involve impossibly long odds. But through meticulous preparation, improvisation and long hours at the office, Black found holes in the opposition’s cases and proceeded to stretch them open, a Miami Herald reporter wrote in a 1999 profile. Sometimes he seized on the smallest of details, Rick Jervis wrote. Miami police officer Luis Alvarez was charged with shooting and killing Nevell Johnson Jr., 20, in an Overtown arcade on Dec. 28, 1982, sparking three days of rioting. For trial, Black suggested that Alvarez shave his mustache to detract from the officer’s rough-guy image. He did. In the trial of Steve Hicks, a bartender accused of murdering his girlfriend Betsy Turner in her Fort Lauderdale apartment, Black illustrated how police investigators botched the crime scene, from blurry Polaroids of the murder scene to not following evidence through to the lab. In each case, Black walked the reader through the process — from the defendant’s detainment to research to jury selection to verdict. Tip: He won them all. “I was trying to give a different viewpoint on what goes in these cases,” Black said at the time. “Everybody looks at it from one way. But you never really think about what it must be like to be the defendant.” From ‘Cocaine Cowboys’ to Justin Bieber Over the years and decades, Black represented an array of notorious clients, from Miami “Cocaine Cowboys” Willie Falcon and Sal Magluta to Miami Beach nursing-home owner Philip Esformes. He also defended a slew of celebrities, such as radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, actor Kelsey Grammer, “Girls Gone Wild” creator Joe Francis, artist Peter Max and pop musician Justin Bieber. Black, who was hired to defend clients at trial, not cut plea deals with prosecutors, lived for the courtroom practically to the end of his life. He won the only acquittal at trial in the Varsity Blues scandal that exposed wealthy parents accused of paying bribes to get their children into elite colleges. In the federal investigation’s 57th case, Black’s client, Amin Khoury, was found not guilty in 2022 of paying off a Georgetown University tennis coach to get his daughter into the school. Writer Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, the “Tipping Point Revisited,” spotlighted Black’s Varsity Blues trial and described him as “tall, slender, austere ... an apex legal predator completely and utterly intimidating. His nickname is ‘The Professor.’ “ Private life Black married his wife, Lea, in 1994, three years after she had served as one of the jurors in the Kennedy Smith trial. She said her husband always “fought for the underdog and people’s civil rights,” saying his greatest virtue was that he was not judgmental. “He understood that we all have our flaws,” Lea said in an interview with the Herald Tuesday. “He was able to separate people’s behavior from their character. He wanted the best for everyone.” Lea, who gained a bit of fame herself as a cast member in “The Real Housewives of Miami,” worked with her husband on fund-raising activities for at-risk children, holding annual galas. They also held fund-raisers for Democratic presidential candidates, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

She said the family plans to celebrate his life at a tribute to be held at the University of Miami, Black’s alma mater, where he also taught as an adjunct professor at the law school. Black is survived by his wife, Lea, their son Roy Black Jr., and his daughter, Nora, along with his law partners at Black Srebnick, including Howard Srebnick, Scott Kornspan, Maria Neyra, Jackie Perczek, Mark Shapiro and Jared Lopez.