Criminal justice and civil rights advocate Ronald J. Tabak died last week, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, the law firm where, in 1985, Mr. Tabak launched and managed its pro bono program, announced on its website https://www.skadden.com/about/news-and-rankings/news/2025/07/in-memoriam-ronald-j-tabak . The cause of death was complications of lymphoma. He was 75.
According to Skadden, in addition to his work on the pro bono program, Mr. Tabak also oversaw individual cases, supervising more than 1,000 attorneys every year. “The program remains a model for the industry: Over the past 15 years alone, Skadden has provided nearly 3 million hours of pro bono service, matching our lawyers to the legal work that most needs their contributions,” the firm stated.
“A passionate opponent of capital punishment, Mr. Tabak fought against it in court — including achieving a Supreme Court victory in Francis v. Franklin — and developed expertise in intellectual disability as a categorical bar to execution. He was instrumental in securing Georgia inmate Johnny Lee Gates’ removal from death row after 26 years of litigation to establish Mr. Gates’ intellectual disability. (Fifteen years later, DNA evidence raised serious questions about his guilt, leading to his release.)” Skadden stated.
Mr. Tabak was a towering presence in the abolition community. In the wake of his death announcement, friends and admirers from all over the country posted tributes to him.
“What has struck me so deeply is that our collective reminiscences and tributes have shown that Ron was a mirror of who we are,” longtime death penalty attorney Richard H. Burr wrote. “Ron embodied in every aspect of the life he shared with so many of us the qualities that make this community a beloved community — kindness, insight, love without limits, humor, generosity, inclusiveness, steadfastness, playfulness. Ron truly was us and we are Ron. Ron could not have lived a better life in relation to this work or in relation to each of us whose path he crossed. The gratitude that we feel for Ron is boundless. The gratitude that I feel for this community is also boundless.”
DPF Board President Mike Farrell wrote that Mr. Tabak “was one of the most admired, dedicated and effective members of the criminal defense community. Dick [Burr] says it all and . . . it so captures and honors the ‘beloved community’ of which we in the abolition movement are all a part.”
Hofstra University Professor of Constitutional Law Eric M. Freedman, who has worked on many cases and issues involving the death penalty, wrote that “In a field that takes a village, expanding the tent expands the village. Time and time again, Ron reached out to some potential ally that none of the rest of us would have thought of — or would have immediately dismissed if we had. Time and time again, he was right and the rest of us were wrong.” Citing 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, “There will abide faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Freedman said, “Ron Tabak embodied the reasons why this is so: ‘Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’ May his memory abide among us as a blessing.”
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