The legal career of Edward Greenspan, who died Christmas Eve, spanned more than four decades, a stretch of time that saw the litigator become one of the most recognizable criminal defence lawyers in the country. Here’s a look at some of his biggest cases and clients.

Peter Demeter

One of Greenspan’s first widely-watched cases was the murder trial of Peter Demeter in 1974. Greenspan was junior counsel at the time, representing Demeter, a millionaire whose wife Christine was found bludgeoned to death at their home in Mississauga.

Demeter was found guilty of hiring someone to kill Christine and was sentenced to life in prison.

Helmuth Buxbaum

In another case of a millionaire accused of arranging his wife’s murder, Greenspan defended Helmuth Buxbaum in a closely followed 1986 trial. Three years earlier, while driving with Buxbaum, his wife Hanna was pulled out of the car by a masked gunman and shot in the head on a highway near London, Ont.

The Crown argued Buxbaum had hired the killer, a man who supplied him with prostitutes and cocaine. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

Conrad Black

In his highest profile late-career case, Greenspan defended Conrad Black against fraud charges that landed the media baron in jail in 2008.

Greenspan was granted a special waiver to represent Black in a Chicago courtroom, where he teamed up with American lawyer Eddie Genson to fight Black’s accusation of corporate fraud.

After the trial and Black’s prison sentencing, the fallen media mogul placed blame for his predicament on a supposedly subpar defence, particularly during Greenspan’s cross-examination of a key witness.

“I am accustomed to clients blaming their lawyers for their woes. All criminal lawyers deal with that,” Greenspan responded, writing in The Globe and Mail.

Karlheinz Schreiber

Fighting extradition to Germany to face tax evasion, fraud and bribery charges, the arms lobbyist hired Greenspan to keep him in Canada.

Schreiber achieved notoriety after a public inquiry concluded former prime minister Brian Mulroney broke ethics rules when he accepted $225,000 from the German lobbyist in the infamous Airbus affair.

Despite Greenspan’s efforts, Schreiber was extradited to Germany in 2009 after a decade-long battle. He was found guilty of tax evasion and jailed until May 2012, when he was released after a heart attack.

Robert Latimer

The case prompted a wide-ranging national discussion about euthanasia and “mercy killing,” and Greenspan was right in the thick of it. His client, Robert Latimer, was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1993 death of his 12-year-old daughter, who had cerebral palsy. Latimer piped exhaust from his truck into the vehicle’s cab, killing his daughter.

Greenspan was critical of mandatory minimum jail sentences after Latimer was sent to jail 10 years before being eligible for parole.

“I think automatic minimums are very, very dangerous.” He said at the time.

“There’s killing that falls into that grey area — it’s not your ordinary intentional killing … This (Latimer) case wasn’t motivated by greed or anger, it was compassion.”

Milwaukee Bucks

Three NBA players from the Milwaukee Bucks were charged with assault for the alleged beating of a male stripper outside a Toronto club on King St. W. in July 2003. They called on Greenspan to defend them.

During the trial, Greenspan argued that the stripper was a “bald-faced” liar who exaggerated his injuries. “He is a stranger to the truth with an obvious and real financial motive to lie,” Greenspan said.

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The judge ruled the stripper’s testimony was riddled with inconsistencies and the basketball players were acquitted in February 2007.

Garth Drabinsky

Greenspan defended the former theatre mogul, whose downfall from respected producer to shamed prison inmate was a spectacle all its own.

When Drabinsky’s company Livent went bankrupt in 1998, allegations arose that the impresario and his business partner had set up a kickback scheme.

He was convicted of fraud and forgery in 2009 and spent three years behind bars.

Capital punishment

The death penalty was dropped by the federal government in 1976, but a decade later, when Brian Mulroney’s government brought a motion calling for a free vote on the death penalty, Greenspan took a firm stance against capital punishment.

The bill was defeated in 1987. The lawyer called it a “great day for Canada.”

R. v Scopelliti

In an oft-cited criminal defence case from 1981, Greenspan successfully defended Antonio Scopelliti on murder charges.

The Orillia convenience store owner shot and killed two 17-year-olds, Michael McRae and David Sutton, who were trying to rob the place. He claimed he acted in self-defence, and Greenspan won the case by characterizing the men as aggressive and raising prior instances of assault in court.

Until then, courts would typically not allow such evidence to be raised in court, unless the defendant had known about it at the time of the incident, Greenspan later wrote in his book, The Case for the Defence . But in Scopelliti’s case, the judge allowed it and Greenspan’s client was acquitted by a jury.

The case set a new precedent, one that was later used to clear former Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant after cyclist Darcy Allan Shepherd was killed in an altercation with Bryant while driving on Bloor St.

Correction- Dec. 29, 2014: This article was edited to correct a previous version that misstated the year Conrad Black went to jail. As well, the previous version did not make clear that Brian Mulroney's government introduced a motion calling for a free vote on the death penalty in 1987. Mulroney's government did not introduce a bill to restore capital punishment.

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