The Milwaukee defense lawyer who tried to get serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer committed to a mental institution instead of sent to a state prison has passed away at age 88. Attorney Gerald Boyle died at home Sunday, according to a Facebook post from his daughter, Bridget Boyle.
The elder Boyle became Dahmer’s lawyer in July 1991, a couple days after police discovered body parts in Dahmer’s apartment on Milwaukee’s west side.
At a news conference WUWM covered, Boyle began laying out his defense, saying his 31 year-old client was remorseful.
“I would say he is like more people who has had this kind of tragedy, that they have caused, that they are remorseful, they are quiet. They are deliberate. They are hurting. They are basically, as perhaps depicted in some television stories of people who have now found they have been caught, and have admitted their involvement. And his demeanor was just that," Boyle told reporters.
Eventually, Dahmer confessed killing 17 men and boys over a thirteen-year period—almost all of the victims being from Milwaukee.
Before his 1992 trial, Dahmer changed his plea from not guilty, to not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Boyle argued in court that Dahmer was sick and served a better purpose to society spending a long time in a secure mental institution where he could be studied, instead of going to a regular state prison.
But Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann argued that Dahmer could control his behavior and carefully planned his killings. Most jurors in the case agreed with the D.A., and Dahmer was sent to the state prison at Portage. Another inmate killed him two years later.
Boyle went on to other high-profile cases, including successfully representing a former Green Bay Packers football player, Mark Chmura, accused of sexually assaulting a teenage babysitter.
About six years ago, amid complaints from some recent clients, Boyle stipulated to a medical incapacity and ended his 53-year practice of law.
