Death is the great silencer. It’s always odd to read the obituary of someone who was, in life, a great noisemaker, whether it is actual noise or just the legal kind.
Robert Merkle, Who Tried Big Trafficker, Dies at 58
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TAMPA, Fla., May 8 — Robert W. Merkle Jr., who as United States attorney here successfully prosecuted the Colombian drug baron Carlos Lehder Rivas, died at a hospital in nearby Clearwater on Monday. He was 58.
His family declined to disclose the cause of death, but newspaper reports said he had been suffering from cancer.
Mr. Merkle was the chief federal prosecutor for the Middle District of Florida from 1982 to 1988, a role in which he won not only a conviction of Mr. Lehder, whom the authorities described as having been responsible for 80 percent of the Colombian cocaine smuggled into the United States, but also an indictment of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the Panamanian military ruler later captured in the American invasion of his country.
Mr. Merkle was born in Washington and became a running back on the football team at the University of Notre Dame, where he later earned his law degree. A flamboyant prosecutor, he acquired the nickname Mad Dog for his aggressive style. Critics acknowledged his legal skills but questioned his methods. Defense lawyers, accusing him of abusive and bullying tactics that they compared to McCarthyism, called for Justice Department investigations, which consistently cleared him of inappropriate conduct.
Survivors include his wife, Angela, and nine children.
Copyright 2003 New York Times (registration required)
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