William Spade

William Spade (born September 12, 1962) is an American criminal defense attorney in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for defending individuals in highly-publicized federal and state criminal prosecutions. His clients have included Corey Kemp, the former Treasurer of the City of Philadelphia, who was prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice for honest services fraud, Julius Murray, a private social worker, currently facing involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly,, who was allegedly starved to death by her mother, Andrea Kelly, and Kevin Felder, who was charged with capital murder in the shooting death of five-year-old Casha'e Rivers, but ultimately cleared.

Background

Spade was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He graduated from Northeast High School (Oakland Park, Florida), in 1980, received his bachelor's degree from Brandeis University in 1984 and his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Chicago Law School in 1990. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1990, and practiced for four years at the law firm of Dechert Price & Rhoads. He clerked for the Honorable Eduardo C. Robreno of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 1994-95, before working for ten years as a prosecutor with the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. In 2004, Spade opened his criminal defense practice.

Grand Jury Investigation Into The Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Spade was a lead prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney's grand jury investigation into the sexual abuse of minors by priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. His role included cross-examining Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and other high Diocesan officials regarding their decisions to re-assign priests who had sexually abused children to new parishes without warning parents of the priests' crimes. During the two years he worked on the investigation, Spade interviewed hundreds of victims of sexual abuse. "It was like working in a factory. And in this factory was a conveyor belt of damaged people. Every day was another damaged person." Exhausted, emotionally drained, and frustrated by the refusal of his superiors to indict members of the Church hierarchy, Spade resigned his position in the Fall of 2004, a year before the investigation concluded, and opened a criminal defense practice.

Notable cases

United States v. Corey Kemp

Spade represented Corey Kemp, the former Treasurer of the City of Philadelphia, in one of the longest and most complex public corruption trials in the history of Philadelphia. Kemp grew up fatherless in a North Philadelphia ghetto, became an all-City basketball player, attended college on a basketball scholarship, obtained an MBA, and was appointed Treasurer at the age of 35, the youngest person ever appointed to the post.

In 2003, the FBI began a wire-tap of Kemp's phones as well as the phones of Ron White, an influential fund-raiser for Mayor John F. Street, who represented investment banks seeking City bond business. The FBI also attempted to bug the office of Mayor John Street, but was unsuccessful when the bug was discovered. Soon after, the U.S. Attorney's office indicted Kemp and White charging them with honest services fraud involving a scheme to steer City bond business to banks who contributed to the re-election campaign of Mayor Street.

After a 2-month trial involving intense cross-examinations of the FBI agents who planted the listening devices, Judge Michael M. Baylson removed a juror, Juror Number 11, for alleged bias against the government, after she voiced her opinion that the FBI had lied about Kemp's involvement in the scheme. Defense attorneys were outraged. Spade called Baylson the Fifth Prosecutor and compared him to the Minister of Truth in George Orwell's 1984. Several days after the removal of Juror 11, the jury convicted Kemp and he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.

United States v. Joseph Moderski

Spade represented Joseph C. Moderski, a business consultant, who because of his political connections, was known as the go-to guy for companies looking to do business with the City of Philadelphia. Moderski was prosecuted in federal court for his part in an influence-peddling scheme related to contracts at Philadelphia International Airport. He pled guilty and received a sentence of 14 months imprisonment.

United States v. Joseph Logue

Spade represented Joseph Logue, a former Philadelphia police officer, who was charged with mail fraud and money laundering in connection with a scheme to defraud members of the posh Whitemarsh Valley Country Club out of $2 million. Logue pled guilty and at sentencing Spade put forward extensive evidence that Logue, a decorated Vietnam Marine helicopter tailgunner, suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, which caused an uncontrollable compulsion to engage in highly risky behavior such as the fraud scheme. Logue was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment, which was significantly below the Guidelines range sentence he faced at the beginning of the case.

United States v. Joseph Davis

Spade represented Joseph Davis, a rap artist and producer who ran a studio called 88 Breaks and promoted concerts by rap artists such as Run-D.M.C. and Biggie Smalls. Davis pled guilty to tampering with a cooperating government witness by having fliers identifying the witness as a "snitch" and a "rat" placed on telephone poles and car windshields in his West Philadelphia neighborhood. The witness's name also ended up on the web site Whosarat.com, which advertises itself as the largest online database of informants and government witnesses. Davis pled guilty and was sentenced to 37 months imprisonment.

Scholarly writing

Spade was an early advocate for the abolition of the so-called "100:1 ratio" which punished criminal defendants convicted of crack cocaine offenses much more harshly than those convicted of powder cocaine offenses. The disparate treatment effected by this law was particularly egregious because the result was to punish African-American defendants more harshly than white defendants. Spade's Aizona Law Review article advocating a decrease in the 100:1 ratio was cited in the testimony before the United States Sentencing Commission of Irwin H. Schwartz, President of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) in which Schwartz urged a reform of the cocaine sentencing laws. Eleven years later, Spade was proven correct when the United States Supreme Court held that federal courts were not constrained to impose the 100:1 ratio when sentencing defendants in crack cocaine cases if they found that the sentence was greater than necessary to achieve the purposes of sentencing. Spade's article was cited in the Amicus Curiae Brief of the NAACP's Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. filed with the Supreme Court in the Kimbrough case.

External links

• The Official William Spade Website