PASSAGES

 A number of endeavors in which I am involved require that I keep an up-to-date brief biography. I just revised mine, and I decided to share it as a blog post:

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George R. "Bob" Dekle, Sr., retired from his position at Levin College of Law, University of Florida, effective June 30, 2016, ending a ten year stint as a legal skills professor. Dekle took his post at UF, where he directed the Prosecution Clinic and taught Florida Criminal Procedure, upon his retirement from the State Attorney's Office of the Third Judicial Circuit of Florida. He served as an Assistant State Attorney from 1975 through 2005, investigating and prosecuting a wide variety of cases, from criminal mischief to capital murder.  In 1986 he received his state 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 his state association's education committee, and upon his retirement in 2005, he was given a lifetime achievement award for his efforts in continuing education for prosecutors.  Dekle has served as faculty at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina, and has lectured to prosecutors' associations across the nation. Before becoming a prosecutor, Dekle served from 1973 to 1975 as an Assistant Public Defender in the Third Judicial Circuit. Before going to law school at UF, he taught history and coached JV football at Columbia High School in Lake City, Florida.

Dekle is the author of:

Prosecution Principles:  A Clinical Handbook, published by the West Group;

The Last Murder: The Investigation, Prosecution, and Execution of Ted Bundy, published by Praeger;

The Case Against Christ: A Critique of the Prosecution of Jesus, published by Cambridge Scholars;

Abraham Lincoln's Most Famous Case: The Almanac Trial, published by Praeger.

He is also a co-author of Cross-Examination Handbook: Persuasion, Strategies, and Techniques, published by Wolters-Kluwer, now in its second edition; and a contributor to Successful Trial Strategies for Prosecutors (now out of print), published by the National District Attorneys Association.

Dekle has two books in pre-publication:

The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case: A Forensic Analysis, Talbot Publishing, which he co-authored with James M. Dedman. The book is scheduled for publication sometime toward the end of 2016 or beginning of 2017.

Lincoln for the Defense: The Criminal Law Practice of Our Sixteenth President (working title), Southern Illinois University Press, scheduled for publication in 2017.

In his retirement Dekle intends to continue writing on legal history and trial advocacy. He is in the preliminary stages of a new book on the Carlyle Harris murder case, the case which made Francis L. Wellman (author of The Art of Cross-Examination) famous.