Kirk Osborn, one of the lead defense attorneys in the Duke lacrosse case, died early Sunday morning.
Osborn, 64, represented indicted former men's lacrosse player Reade Seligmann. Fellow defense attorney Joe Cheshire told The Associated Press that Osborn suffered a massive heart attack Friday and passed away just before 1 a.m. Sunday.
"We are heartbroken over the death of Kirk Osborn," the Seligmann family said in a statement. "Kirk's fight for the truth and for justice in this case met the highest standards of ethics and professionalism and stand in stark contrast to those who condemned Reade. He is an example of what a lawyer should be."
Osborn filed two major motions in the case. In one, he used phone records and security camera footage to show that Seligmann was not at the house where the alleged rape occurred at the time when the alleged victim said she was assaulted.
In a second, Osborn asked for Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong to be removed from the case, arguing Nifong had pursued the charges in order to win votes.
"Kirk stood up for Reade at great personal cost," the Seligmann family said. "He stood by Reade and together they faced the mob that was outside the Durham County Courthouse a year ago; Kirk never flinched and faced both that mob outside the courthouse and the bias within the courthouse with the courage that he showed throughout this case."
A Montana native and graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law school, Osborn worked in Chapel Hill.
Beyond the lacrosse case, Osborn represented Kathryn Dawn Wilson, a cook at the Little Rascals Day Care Center in Edenton, N.C., in a 1995 appeal.
After Wilson was sentenced to life in prison for child sexual abuse in a highly publicized case, Osborn won an appeal of her sentence-based on prosecutorial mistakes-and charges were later dropped.
Osborn's wife, Tania Osborn, told The Raleigh News and Observer her husband was proudest of never having lost any of the death penalty cases he defended.
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