Jerry Giesler (November 2, 1886-January 1, 1962)[1] was an American criminal defense lawyer.
For more than half a century, Jerry Giesler was a household name across the United States. He was the first president of the Criminal Courts Bar Association in Los Angeles.
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Giesler was born in Iowa. Harold Lee “Jerry” Giesler arrived in Los Angeles in 1907 and entered law school at the University of Southern California the next year, but dropped out of law school to finish his studies with renowned attorney Earl Rogers. In 1910 he was admitted to the bar. Giesler cut his teeth by assisting Rogers in the defense of the nation’s top criminal defense attorney, Clarence Darrow. In some of his early cases, he practiced under the name, "H. L. Giesler",[2] and later as "Jerry Giesler".[3] Jerry Giesler eventually became the "highest paid attorney" according to the Guinness Book of World Records (Year Unknown).
He caught attention in the 1920s by defending a woman involved in the infamous “Love in the Loft Case”, but became truly famous by defending theater mogul Alexander Pantages. Errol Flynn relied on him to win acquittal on charges of statutory rape. Other famous clients included actor Robert Mitchum, and director Busby Berkeley. After the first two trials for murder ended in hung juries, Berkeley was acquitted in a third.
Giesler also won acquittal for Lili St. Cyr, Charlie Chaplin, gangster Bugsy Siegel, producer Walter Wanger–accused of shooting an agent who was paying too much attention to actress Joan Bennett, Wanger's wife, and Buron Fitts, a district attorney accused of improper conduct. In the “White Flame Murder” case, Giesler won his client freedom with a temporary insanity defense.
In 1958, Giesler defended 14-year-old Cheryl Crane, actress Lana Turner's daughter, who was accused of fatally stabbing her mother's abusive lover, gangster Johnny Stompanato. Crane also escaped punishment.
Following the apparent suicide of actor George Reeves, Giesler was hired by Reeves's mother to prove that her son had been murdered. Giesler made a number of public statements supporting the mother's viewpoint but eventually dropped the case for lack of sufficient evidence, stating that he was satisfied with the suicide verdict.[4] Unlike his other high-profile cases, Giesler made no mention of the Reeves case in his autobiography.[5]
Jerry Giesler died at age 75 on New Year's Day in 1962 and was interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum of Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.