Defense lawyer left Chicago for laid-back Tucson

That was 34 years ago and he's still here.

"I like the Spanish culture and obviously the climate is attractive," Bloom said. "There's also a laid-back lifestyle here — it's not real hyper."

Bloom is considered by many to be one of Tucson's best criminal defense lawyers. Among his better-known former clients are Frank Jarvis Atwood and Christopher "Bo" Huerstel.

Atwood is awaiting execution for the September 1984 murder and kidnapping of 8-year-old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson. Huerstel was recently sentenced to 25 years in prison for the January 1999 slayings of Pizza Hut employees Robert Curry, James Bloxham and Melissa Moniz. Bloom represented him during the first of his three trials.

Bloom was born Nov. 26, 1937, in Chicago and attended South Shore High School. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Ohio State University before getting his law degree from Northwestern University in Chicago.

After passing the bar in both Illinois and Arizona, Bloom studied international law at the University of Vienna for almost a year, then moved to Helsinki, where he taught English for about a year.

Upon his return to the U.S., Bloom went back to Chicago to take a job with the Cook County Public Defender's Office.

He never once considered becoming a prosecutor, Bloom said. "I just don't have the stomach to put people away."

Having first visited Prescott as a 10-year-old boy, Bloom decided in the early 1970s that he wanted to move there.

Unfortunately, Yavapai County didn't have a public defender's office back then, he said.

So he settled on Tucson.

Bloom worked in the Pima County Public Defender's Office from 1973 until 1976 before going into private practice.

"There's a cleaner atmosphere here, and I'm not just talking about the air," he said. "I saw a lot of corruption in Chicago. There was a lot of money changing hands, and that just turned me off."

Bloom misses a lot about his hometown, especially the sports, and often spends his summers there and at his second home across Lake Michigan in New Buffalo, Mich.

Bloom and his wife of almost 33 years, Evangelia, have given up Chicago's theaters, museums and ethnic food for walks along the Rillito River, Sullivan's Steak House and bicycle rides.