Judicial Career
All judges are appointed by the Governor of Delaware. In 1977, Governor Pierre S. du Pont IV appointed Lee as an Associate Judge in the Delaware Family Court. In 1986, Governor Michael N. Castle appointed Lee to the Delaware Superior Court, and Resident Judge of Sussex County three years later.
Lee is best known as the presiding judge of the 1998 murder trial of influential lawyer and former gubernatorial chief-of-staff Thomas J. Capano. Capano had been charged with the 1996 murder of Governor Thomas R. Carper's personal scheduler, Anne Marie Fahey. Capano was a wealthy, well-connected lawyer, known to nearly everyone in Delaware's political community. Fahey, an attractive 30 year old member of another well-known family, was attempting to end a romantic relationship with the married Capano, when he murdered her and dumped her body in the Atlantic Ocean. The highly publicized case was prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Colm F. Connelly and resulted in Capano being convicted, and then sentenced to death in 1999. Lee said Capano is a "ruthless murderer who feels compassion for no one and remorse only for the circumstances in which he finds himself. He is a malignant force from whom no one he deems disloyal or adversarial can be secure, even if he is incarcerated for the rest of his life." (Capano's sentence was eventually commuted to life in prison, and he died there in 2011.)
| Office | Type | Location | Elected | Took Office | Left Office | Notes |
| Family Court | Judiciary | Georgetown | 1977 | 1986 | Judge | |
| Superior Court | Judiciary | Georgetown | 1986 | 1999 | Judge |
Read more about this topic: William Swain Lee
Famous quotes containing the words judicial and/or career:
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