MISSOULA — William F. “Duke” Crowley, a former University of Montana law professor who helped revise the state’s criminal laws and how they could be prosecuted, has died.
The Cremation & Burial Society of the Rockies says Crowley died at home on June 25. He was 91.
Crowley was born in Walkerville in 1923, worked in the mines in Butte and later joined the military. He attended law school at the University of Montana with the aid of the GI Bill and earned an advanced degree from New York University.
He served as an assistant attorney general and deputy county attorney for 14 years before joining the UM faculty in 1966. The school estimates 3,000 students took his classes before he retired in 2005.
“He was a master storyteller, really, and he was entertaining and nice,” said Dave Patterson, who also taught in UM’s School of Law. “I think his students picked that up real quick. He cared about his students, which I always respected.”
In addition to educating thousands of attorneys, Crowley had a wide-ranging influence on the practice of law in Montana.
He helped revise the state’s criminal law and procedures in the 1960s and drafted the Montana Code of Criminal Procedure that was passed by the Legislature in 1967. In 1969, Gov. Forrest Anderson appointed him to help reorganize the executive branch of government.
He served as editor-in-chief of the Annotated Prosecutor’s Manual in 1973 and advised the Montana Supreme Court on judicial rules in 1976, the Missoulian reported.
“Leaders, politicians, everybody called him to check out things before they did anything,” Patterson said.
At UM, Crowley’s students included Greg Munro, who now teaches trial practice and insurance law.
The classes he took from Crowley in the 1970s, including evidence and civil and criminal procedure, had a “direct and immediate” impact on his career, Munro said.
“He was a fantastic storyteller,” Munro said. “And when he was teaching criminal matters and speaking of a particular heinous crime, he’d say, ‘And they put him so far away they had to shoot light in to him with a canon.'”
Cynthia Ford, a professor of civil procedures and evidence and also took classes from Crowley said it’s funny how many people can still recite the things he said in class.
“As you look all over Montana law, there are these stamps left by Crowley,” she said. “They still govern how we do things.”
Crowley was preceded in death by his wife Elaine and son Paul, and survived by his son Matthew.