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Description
This CLE course will delve into the criminal activity of murderer Ted Bundy following his jail break in Colorado leading to his arrest in Florida. The course will explain the investigation of his last murder and offer a comprehensive account of how the prosecution built and delivered the case at trial. Lawyer performances will be critiqued with an eye toward better handling of high-profile murder cases.
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Instructor Bio
George Dekle
George R. (Bob) Dekle, Sr., served as a legal skills professor at the University of Florida, where he directed the Prosecution Clinic from January of 2006 to June of 2016 and taught both Prosecutorial Ethics and Florida Criminal Procedure. Upon retiring he was voted emeritus status by the Law School faculty. Dekle has kept active in retirement writing and speaking on trial advocacy and legal history. His current project is a history of the Gilded Age case of “The American Jack the Ripper.”
Before coming to the University of Florida, Dekle served from 1975 through 2005 as an Assistant State Attorney for the Third Judicial Circuit of Florida, prosecuting almost every imaginable type of case, from criminal mischief to capital murder. In 1986 he received the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association's Gene Barry Memorial Award as the outstanding assistant state attorney in the state. In 1996 and again in 2003 he received distinguished faculty awards from the association's education committee, and upon his retirement in 2005, he was given a lifetime achievement award for his efforts in continuing legal education for prosecutors. Dekle has served as faculty at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina, and has lectured to prosecutor's associations across the nation. Before becoming a prosecutor, Dekle served from 1973 to 1975 as an Assistant Public Defender in the Third Judicial Circuit.
Dekle has previously authored or co-authored eight books, including:
- Six Capsules: The Gilded Age Murder of Helen Potts (The Kent State University Press, 2019): 2020 IPPY Silver Medalist—Regional Nonfiction; 2020 Florida Authors and Publishers Association (FAPA) Medalist—Nonfiction; 2020 Royal Palm Literary Award Finalist— Nonfiction).
- Prairie Defender: The Murder Trials of Abraham Lincoln (Southern Illinois University Press, 2017): 2018 Superior Achievement Award for Scholarship, Illinois State Historical Society; 2018 FAPA Gold Medalist—Nonfiction: Biography and Politics
- The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case: A Critical Analysis of the Trial of Bruno Richard Hauptman (Talbot Publishing, 2016) (co-author).
- The Last Murder: The Investigation, Prosecution, and Execution of Ted Bundy (Praeger, 2011)
Dekle’s websites include: http://www.bobdeklebooks.com/ and http://bobdekle.blogspot.com/.
