George R. Dekle

George R. "Bob" Dekle, Sr., retired from his position at Levin College of Law, University of Florida, effective June 30, 2016, ending a ten year stint as a legal skills professor. Dekle took his post at UF, where he directed the Prosecution Clinic and taught Florida Criminal Procedure, upon his retirement from the State Attorney's Office of the Third Judicial Circuit of Florida. He served as an Assistant State Attorney from 1975 through 2005, investigating and prosecuting a wide variety of cases, from criminal mischief to capital murder. In 1986 he received his state association's Gene Barry Memorial Award as the outstanding assistant state attorney in the state. In 1996 and again in 2003 he received distinguished faculty awards from his state association's education committee, and upon his retirement in 2005, he was given a lifetime achievement award for his efforts in continuing education for prosecutors. Dekle has served as faculty at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina, and has lectured to prosecutors' associations across the nation. Before becoming a prosecutor, Dekle served from 1973 to 1975 as an Assistant Public Defender in the Third Judicial Circuit. Before going to law school at UF, he taught history and coached JV football at Columbia High School in Lake City, Florida.

Dekle is the author of a number of books on legal history and trial advocacy. In his retirement Dekle has continued writing on these subjects. When he completed his most recent book, "Six Capsules: The Carlyle Harris Murder Case," Dekle began working on a project which culminated in a manuscript bearing the tentative title “Old Shakespeare and the East River Ripper: A Gilded Age Mystery.” This book is now in prepublication, and Dekle has begun another project on a murder case tried in Toronto by Britton Bath Osler, Canada’s greatest Victorian Age prosecutor.