31, 1926 in Milwaukee, the older of two sons, to Henry and Sadie Shellow. He inspired dozens, if not hundreds of other lawyers, including those who worked at his firm, young proteges whom he took under his wing, pupils of his training sessions at the National Criminal Defense College, which he helped co-found – and even his two daughters. He had that brilliance and capacity for curiosity and asking questions." "Why do they do this? Why is it done this way? Why does everyone think this way?. "One of his favorite questions was 'why?' " Strang said. He became a mentor to many younger lawyers, especially later in life when he held regular, informal meetings with lawyers called the "Shellow school" to discuss legal issues, formulate legal strategies for their cases and build camaraderie. "Jim's skill was clearly the law, command of the law."ĭespite his success, Shellow made time for other lawyers who sought his help and guidance, Strang said. "Prepare for esoteric detail with Jim," McCann said. Prosecutors respected his abilities and did well to "expect challenges that you wouldn't find elsewhere," McCann said. Other defense attorneys admired him for his “ferocious capacity for work,” at times sleeping only a few hours a day, and for his commitment to his clients, whom he didn’t want locked in “cages,” Strang said. “It controlled the witness, and because of his verbal precision, it left the witness almost no room for evasion.” “He had a withering style of cross-examining a witness,” Strang said. Shellow once compared his style of cross examination to German warplanes and their terror-inducing sirens. “You find that these people really aren’t experts,” Shellow told the Milwaukee Journal in 1979. He sought to undermine the testimony of drug analysts, by sowing doubt in their qualifications as “experts” and getting them to admit their lack of understanding of chemistry and other sciences underlying forensic drug analysis, Strang said. Shellow was especially skilled at questioning forensic analysts in drug trials, a subject he even wrote a book about, “Cross-Examination of the Analyst in Drug Prosecutions.” He was also well-known for his skills cross-examining witnesses, an ability that made him a sought-after criminal defense attorney not only in Wisconsin, but nationally, said longtime friend and colleague Dean Strang. But Shellow argued in favor of a new test, under which a person may be considered insane if he is unable to control his conduct because of a mental disease. One of Shellow’s early cases prompted the Wisconsin Supreme Court – in a “precedent shattering decision” – to modernize the test used by courts to determine a defendant’s sanity, the New York Times reported in 1966.īefore, a defendant in Wisconsin was only considered insane if they did not know the difference between right and wrong. Michael McCann, former Milwaukee County district attorney, whose office of prosecutors was often opposite Shellow in the courtroom. “I saw him as a man that was the cutting edge on arguing constitutional law, on challenging the statutes that had been long accepted,” said E. Shellow was a local legend who came to the legal profession later in life, but quickly rose in prominence as a formidable defense attorney in Milwaukee, one who would push boundaries and challenge others to think beyond the conventional and the status quo. 29 at his Milwaukee home, from an illness with COVID-19, his daughter Jill Shellow said. Shellow, one of Milwaukee's most reputed criminal defense attorneys known for representing civil rights leaders as well as organized crime bosses over his more than 50-year career and who inspired an array of defense attorneys in the city and beyond, has died.
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