- Page Pate, 55, worked for more than 25 years as a trial lawyer.
- He often provided expert analysis to news organizations covering high-profile cases.
- Pate drowned Sunday while swimming with his teenage son on St. Simons Island.
A coroner said Tuesday that a prominent Georgia defence attorney who frequently gave expert legal analysis for news organisations covering high-profile cases drowned over the weekend while swimming in seas near his coastal home.
Page Pate, 55, worked as a trial lawyer for more than 25 years, dividing his time between offices in Atlanta and Brunswick on the coast.
Pate drowned Sunday while swimming with his teenage son in an inlet on St. Simons Island, where the family lived, according to Glynn County Coroner Marc Neu. According to Neu, the father and boy were carried into open waters by violent rip currents.
Pate’s son swam back to land unscathed, but Pate had to be rescued from the ocean. Despite efforts to resuscitate him, Pate was pronounced dead at a local hospital, according to the coroner.
“Though he was a formidable, often scary, attorney in the courtroom, Page had an easy grin, an earnest laugh, and a terrific sense of humour,” said Pate’s law company, Pate, Johnson and Church.
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Pate was a native of Dublin, Georgia, and a 1994 graduate of the University of Georgia Law School. He was a founding member of the Georgia Innocence Project and specialised in criminal defence, handling cases in both state and federal courts.
Pate routinely provided expert insight and analysis on legal matters to media organisations such as The New York Times, CNN, NPR, and The Associated Press in addition to litigating cases.
Pate was described as “a larger-than-life guy and attorney” by Jason Sheffield, a metro Atlanta trial lawyer and president of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Sheffield told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Page’s dedication, ingenuity, understanding, and compassion for victims facing prosecution across the United States was renowned.”
State Sen. Jen Jordan, an Atlanta Democrat running for Georgia Attorney General this year, said on Twitter Tuesday that she has known Pate for nearly three decades.
“He was intelligent, polite, and professional — and he could cross-examine the hell out of a witness,” Jordan wrote on Twitter. “What a tragedy for his family and everyone who loved him.”
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