Unconventional Lawyer Ellis Rubin Dies

Ellis Rubin, the unorthodox defense attorney who made national headlines when he claimed that "TV intoxication" drove a teenage client to kill an elderly neighbor, died Tuesday. He was 81.

His law firm said he died of cancer at his Miami home.

Over the years, Rubin pioneered a battered woman's defense in Florida and helped free an innocent black man imprisoned for 21 years in the death of his family. He also offered a nymphomania defense in a prostitution case.

"I sympathize with the poor and the powerless who don't have a voice," Rubin said in a 2002 interview.

But he was best known nationally for one of the nation's first televised trials, the sensational 1977 case of Ronny Zamora, who was 15 when he shot 83-year-old Elinor Haggart at her Miami Beach home in a robbery.

To back its claim of "TV intoxication," the defense attempted unsuccessfully to subpoena "Kojak" star Telly Savalas and experts who had studied the effect of television on young minds.

Zamora was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In an appeal, he turned against his lawyer and claimed the TV intoxication argument made a mockery of his defense.

But a federal appeals court upheld the conviction. Zamora was released in 2004 after completing a 25-year minimum sentence.