William Swain Lee

William Swain Lee (born December 18, 1935) is an American lawyer and Republican politician from Georgetown, in Sussex County, Delaware. He is a member of the Republican Party, who served as a judge of the Delaware Superior Court. He was the 2004 and 2008 Republican nominee for Governor of Delaware.

Early life and family Lee was born December 18, 1935, son of Dr. Walter H. Lee and Virginia Swain Lee. He attended school in Middletown, Delaware, and graduated from Wilmington Friends School in 1953. He later graduated from Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he earned a J.D. degree in 1960. He went on to serve in the United States Marine Corps. He is the father of two sons and two daughters.

Judicial career All judges are appointed by the Governor of Delaware. In 1977, Governor Pete du Pont appointed Lee as an Associate Judge in the Delaware Family Court. In 1986, Governor Mike Castle appointed Lee to the Delaware Superior Court, and Resident Judge of Sussex County three years later.

Lee is best known as the presiding judge of the 1998 murder trial of influential lawyer and former gubernatorial chief-of-staff Thomas Capano. Capano had been charged with the 1996 murder of Governor Tom Carper's personal scheduler, Anne Marie Fahey. Capano was a wealthy, well-connected lawyer, known to nearly everyone in Delaware's political community. Fahey, an attractive 30-year-old member of another well-known family, was attempting to end a romantic relationship with the married Capano, when he murdered her and dumped her body in the Atlantic Ocean. The highly publicized case was prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Colm Connolly and resulted in Capano being convicted, and then sentenced to death in 1999. Lee said Capano is a "ruthless murderer who feels compassion for no one and remorse only for the circumstances in which he finds himself. He is a malignant force from whom no one he deems disloyal or adversarial can be secure, even if he is incarcerated for the rest of his life." (Capano's sentence was eventually commuted to life in prison, and he died there in 2011.) Office Type Location Elected Took office Left office