Louis Piquett (September 24, 1884 – December 12, 1951)[1] was an American lawyer notable for defending John Dillinger. He was also a prosecutor for the city of Chicago. He is depicted by Peter Gerety in the 2009 movie Public Enemies.
Piquett was a bartender active in Chicago Democratic politics. He studied law in night school.[2] By 1915, he was chief clerk to the city prosecutor of Chicago.[3] In the early 1920s, he was appointed city prosecutor by Mayor William Hale Thompson.[2] He was indicted in 1923 on corruption charges, which were subsequently dropped.[4]
By the summer of 1923, Piquett was in private practice in Chicago. In August 1923, for instance, he represented James J. McGrath, who owned films showing a boxing match between Tommy Gibbons and Jack Dempsey. Piquett won a decision from the circuit court which stated that the films were neither immoral nor obscene, and enjoined the police from interfering with their exhibition.[5]
In 1934, Piquett defended Dillinger in Crown Point, Indiana. He successfully argued that Dillinger should be allowed to appear in court free of shackles and without armed guards present.[4] After Dillinger's dramatic pre-trial escape, an investigation by the state of Indiana revealed Piquett's complicity.[7]
In January 1935, Piquett was charged with harboring the fugitive Dillinger and of conspiring with a number of others, including two doctors, to hide Dillinger while he underwent plastic surgery. He was acquitted after less than four hours of deliberation.[8] During this trial he was called "the brains of the Dillinger mob."[9]
Born in Benton, Wisconsin, he hopped trains to California sometime around 1900 where he enrolled in Stanford University and was a stand out on the track team.[1] He then had a successful stint as a professional boxer, using the prize money to open a cigar shop on Market Street in San Francisco. Wiped out by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire he returned home to Wisconsin, married and moved to Chicago.[1]
