TORONTO -- Joseph Sedgwick, whose brilliant defenses and rich oratory made him one of Canada's best-known lawyers, died of heart failure Sunday at Princess Margaret Hospital. He was 83.
Sedgwick became famous during the 1930s and 1940s with his defense of accused spies and killers.
The son of a furniture polisher, Sedgwick was born Nov. 24, 1898 in Leeds, England, and came to Canada as a boy. He attended Toronto public schools and later the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall. He became a member of the bar in 1923.
'He was a great lawyer, but he was also a great man,' said John J. Robinette, a long-time colleague and one of Canada's best lawyers. 'He had a wonderful personality, in the courtroom and out. He had wit, he was incisive, he was eloquent, and for those reasons he was a very convincing trial lawyer.'
Sedgwick first gained public notice afterjoining the Ontario attorney general's department in 1929. He was fired as a government solicitor in 1937 in a dispute with Liberal Prime Minister Mitchell Hepburn.
During his legal career, Sedgwick was involved in some of the nation's most celebrated cases. He prosecuted the alleged kidnapper of London, Ontario, brewery tycoon John Labatt; investigated all contracts entered into on behalf of the Dionne quintuplets and prosecuted Tim Buck, leader of the then-illegal Communist Party of Canada.
In one of his greatest cases, Sedgwick won acquittal in 1946 for Eric Adams, an employee of the Foreign Exchange Control Board and one of those charged with spying after the defection of Soviet Embassy clerk Igor Gouzenko.
Sedgwick was named a king's counsel in 1933. In 1974, he was named Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest degree of the national honorary order.
