Background and Early Legal Career
Whittemore was born in Walterboro, South Carolina. He graduated with honors from the University of Florida in 1974 with a B.S. in business administration, and then received his law degree from Stetson University Law School in 1977. He briefly worked at Bauer, Morlan & Wells, a small law firm in St. Petersburg, Florida, before becoming one of the original four federal public defenders in the Middle District of Florida in 1978. Whittemore returned to private practice in Tampa three years later as an associate at Whittemore & Seybold, and then at Whittemore & Campbell from 1982 until 1987. In 1985, Whittemore successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Wainwright v. Greenfield, 474 U.S. 284 (1986), that a criminal suspect's silence after he received the Miranda warning could not be used at trial to discredit his insanity defense. Whittemore's client had been convicted of sexual battery; the Court's ruling secured him a new trial. From 1987 until 1990, Whittemore was a sole practitioner in Tampa.
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