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 Robert Merkle, a strong pro-lifer and brother of Defend Life columnist Clare McGrath Merkle, died on May 5.

"During his six years as U.S. Attorney, he was always making appearances at pro-life events and taking a stand in favor of life, " said Clare.

"His witness to me and to the pro-life community at large was that if we boldly and unashamedly use our professional positions and talents at the service of justice and pro-life ideals, great things can happen.

"My hope is that pro-life attorneys will follow his lead and not be afraid to prosecute politicians, researchers, doctors and others who illegitimately use their power and influence to keep Maryland's abortion profiteers in place. " The following are excerpts from an article in the May 7 St. Petersburg Tunes.

Robert W. Merkle Jr., the former U.S. Attorney whose pugnacious style led to convictions against international drug dealers and county commissioners alike, died Monday after battling cancer. He was 58.

Mr. Merkle, who in previous years successfully fought cancer, died at Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater surrounded by eight of his nine children and Angela, his wife of 37 years.

Mr. Merkle was a hardcharging former Pinellas prosecutor and one-time U.S. Senate candidate whose bare-knuckled aggressiveness roiled Tampa politics during his stint as U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida from 1982 to 1988.

The former Notre Dame football fullback jousted. with Tampa's power elite in search of corruption, stamping the controversial Merkle style into Tampa Bay's  legal folklore.

"He gave no quarter, and he asked for no quarter," said Pinellas Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe.

"He was the smartest and most intense lawyer I ever knew." Mr. Merkle's office developed the federal drug smuggling and money-laundering case in Tampa against Panamanian strong-man Manuel Noriega.

He won the conviction of Carlos Lehder Rivas, reputedly one of the founding members of the Colombian Medellin drug cartel.

Longtime friend and law partner Joe Magri said Mr. Merkle was a crusading renaissance man.

"He brought about a fundamental change in the way people in Tampa reacted to corruption. It is no longer an acceptable way of business on a grand scale." Robert Woods Merkle was the oldest of nine children, the son of a flight surgeon who retired to become a country doctor in rural South Carolina.

A devout Catholic who attended the University of Notre Dame, Mr. Merkle, at 6 feet 2 and 240 pounds, played fullback on the football team.

He was recruited straight out of law school to join the Justice Department during the Nixon administration, prosecuting political terrorists, including people who bombed government buildings.

By 1977, Mr. Merkle left the federal government to join the staff of then-Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Jimmy T. Russell, prosecuting career criminals.

He got the nickname "Mad Dog" in Pinellas when he prosecuted an intoxicated driver, son of a Pinellas sheriff's lieutenant, after others in Russell's office dropped the case.

The case brought him to the attention of U.S. Sen. Paula Hawkins, who interviewed him for the U.S. attorney's job. Mr. Merkle was sworn in at age 39.

Mr. Merkle pursued public corruption like few U.S. attorneys before him, winning his share of critics, but also staunch admirers who saw him as a prosecutor unbending to the politic wind.

Mr. Merkle retired as a prosecutor in 1988 to run for U.S Senate.

He was a late entry in the Senate race and was outspent by a wide margin. But he won a surprising 38 percent of the vote in the primary election.

In private practice, Mr. Merkle was every bit as tenacious.

In 1995, he championed the case of a 145-pound Great Dane named Beethoven, sentenced to die after biting a child.

Gov. Bush refused Mr. Merkle's plea to spare the dog, which was put to sleep. Mr. Merkle described Bush's decision as "nonsense. " "I don't know if Bob would have agreed that he was a Mad Dog," said Pinellas lawyer Denis de Vlarning.

"But he sure wasn't a poodle. A lot of people will miss him. "