Cheap Justice

October, 2000

Looking for a lawyer to defend Gregory Wilson in a 1988 death penalty trial, a Kentucky judge posted a sign in his courthouse that read Please Help. Desperate. William Hagedorn accepted the job for $2500. Hagedorn, who had never tried a capital case, gave a tavern as his office address. Hagedorn missed various parts of the trial and questioned only a few witnesses. Wilson was found guilty and sentenced to die.During the 1992 murder trial of George McFarland, a reporter for the Huston Chronicle w...

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