Idaho – Gerry Spence, who was Randy Weaver’s lawyer after the Ruby Ridge shootout, has died. A family statement said that he died on August 13 surrounded by family in his home in California.
Spence won acquittal for Weaver in the 1992 case after Weaver was charged for murder and other counts for a confrontation with federal agents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
One federal agent was killed in the shootout, as well as Weaver’s wife and fourteen-year-old son.
The Ruby Ridge case was controversial because of the Weaver family’s affiliation with white nationalist circles and because of the use of force deployed by the FBI.
Spence argued to the jury that the FBI was trying to punish Weaver for refusing to inform on white nationalist groups and got him acquitted on all but the lesser charges.
Spokane author Jess Walters, who reported on Ruby Ridge for the Spokesman-Review in 1992, later wrote a book reflecting on the event and the following trial.
Gary Spence was known for wearing a fringe jacket to fashionably represent his home-state of Wyoming.
Spence founded the Trail Lawyer College in Casper, Wyoming and wrote eighteen books, many of them about his work as a trail lawyer.
