He was one of South Florida's most highly sought defense attorneys, a legal legend who helped get two black men off Florida death row in a 1963 murder they didn't commit.
But Irwin J. Block was also humble, so much so that lawyers at the firm that carried his name - Fine Jacobson Schwartz Nash & Block - learned from others about how he spent about 10 years doing pro bono work to help Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee go free, say friends and former colleagues.
With the Miami Herald reporter Gene Miller, Block and his legal team proved that Pitts and Lee, despite confessions beaten out of them by police, did not abduct and kill two gas station attendants on Aug. 1, 1963, in Port St. Joe, Fla. Miller won his second Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for reporting on the case, which persuaded Gov. Reubin Askew to pardon the men.
Block died Friday in Boynton Beach from a heart condition. He was 87.
Block was born Oct. 25, 1927, in Brooklyn, N.Y. After graduating from Yeshiva, he joined the Marines. His wife, Doris, said he was only about 17 and he had to lie about his age to get in.
After the war, he went to the University of Miami on the G.I. bill. He started as an accounting major, but quickly changed his mind. He stayed at UM for law school and graduated in 1950. That year, he married Doris, whom he met at his father's meat store.
Before entering private practice, Block also worked for the state attorney's office.
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Block was not the kind of lawyer to shy away from controversial cases. In the 1980s, he and Emas served as defense counsel for one of Miami-Dade County's most sensational corruption trials. They represented Alberto San Pedro, the so-called "Great Corrupter" of Hialeah politics.
An influential real estate developer, San Pedro was convicted in 1988 on seven of the 39 charges against him - one count of conspiracy to traffic in cocaine and six counts of unlawful compensation - by a three-man, three-woman jury after nine days of deliberations. But before the conviction, the San Pedro scandal and its secret police recordings consumed the public.
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About 18 years ago, Block moved from Pinecrest to Boynton Beach in Palm Beach County to be closer to his grandchildren. But he was still practicing, attorney Sara Herald said of her former law partner.
"He was an avid sailor; he loved to sail his boat," she said. "He is and was a passionate family man; he worshiped his wife, Doris, and his girls, and grandchildren."
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His granddaughter Jennifer Thaler said she makes decisions by asking "What would Papa do?"
"He was always thinking about other people," she said. "That is how his mind worked."
Doris said as good as he was at his job, he was an even better husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather.
"There will never, ever in this world be another Irwin Block," she said. "I held that man until his last breath and I know what kind of man he was."
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In addition to his wife and granddaughter, Block is survived by his four daughters Sharon Creasy, Victoria Smith, Ivy Gomberg and Gayle Bryan, his sister Edith Stubins, seven other grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.
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