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Richard B. Sobol

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Richard B. Sobol
Richard Sobol in 1991
Born(1937-05-29)May 29, 1937
New York City, New York
DiedMarch 24, 2020(2020-03-24) (aged 82)
Sebastopol, California
Occupationlawyer
Known forcivil rights litigation, particularly class actions asserting the rights of minorities and women
Notable workDuncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968); Bending the Law: the Story of the Dalkon Shield Bankruptcy (Univ. of Chicago)

Richard Barry Sobol (May 29, 1937 – March 24, 2020) was an American lawyer who specialized in civil rights law. Sobol primarily worked on desegregation cases in Louisiana.[1][2][3]

Early life

Sobol grew up in New York City on the West Side of Manhattan. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1954, Union College in Schenectady, New York, in 1958, and Columbia Law School in New York City in 1961. His father, a lawyer with a commercial practice, died during Sobol's first year in college. At Columbia Law School, Sobol ranked third in his graduating class and was Notes and Comments Editor of the Law Review.[citation needed]

Following law school, Sobol clerked for Paul Hays, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for Philip Elman, at that time a Commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission. He then went to work as an associate at the Washington, D.C. firm of Arnold, Fortas & Porter, where he participated in antitrust and trade regulation cases on behalf of large corporate clients.[4][5][6]

Career

Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee

In 1965, on his summer vacation from Arnold, Fortas & Porter,[1]. Sobol went to Louisiana as a volunteer for the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee (LCDC). The LCDC was formed in 1964 to provide lawyers for civil rights activists in Southern states who were arrested in connection with demonstrations, marches, voter registration efforts, sit-ins and other protest activities.[7] In the summer of 1966, Sobol took a leave of absence from the D.C. firm, moved with his wife and two young children to New Orleans, and went to work full-time for LCDC. He spent the next three years litigating civil rights cases for LCDC in federal and state courts all over Louisiana.[8]

The Duncan Cases

Sobol represented Gary Duncan from 1966 to 1972 in a series of cases around the desegregation of the Plaquemines Parish schools.[9][10]

Duncan v. Louisiana

In Duncan v. Louisiana, Sobol took a criminal case arising in state court in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, to the Supreme Court of the United States. In October 1966, Gary Duncan, a 19 year old black man who worked as a shrimp fisherman, stopped by the roadside when he saw two young relatives, students at the recently desegregated high school, surrounded by four white boys with several white men looking on from across the street. Duncan told his relatives to get in his truck, and then told the white boys to "go on home," touching one of them on the arm. Shortly thereafter, Duncan was arrested and charged with battery. At Duncan's trial in February 1967, the Parish judge denied Sobol's request for a jury. After a trial at which the black and white witnesses gave diametrically different testimony about what happened, the judge convicted Duncan and sentenced him to two months in jail and a $150 fine.[11]The Louisiana Supreme Court denied review, and Sobol sought and obtained review in the Supreme Court of the United States. Sobol argued the case in January 1968, and in May the Supreme Court rendered a decision establishing for the first time a right under the U.S. Constitution to a jury trial in state courts.[12][13][14][15][16][17]

Sobol v. Perez

Meanwhile, in February 1967, shortly after Duncan's conviction (as Sobol took steps to seek review in the U.S. Supreme Court), local parish authorities arrested Sobol and charged him with the crime of practicing law without a license. The arrest took place at the direction of Leander Perez, an arch segregationist who dominated Plaquemines Parish politics.[18][19][20]LCDC, the civil rights law organization for which Sobol worked, brought a federal action against Perez seeking to enjoin Sobol's prosecution, focusing on the need for out of state lawyers such as Sobol to come to Louisiana to handle civil rights cases.[21]The United States intervened as a plaintiff seeking the same relief.[22] Sobol argued Duncan's case in the U.S. Supreme Court in January 1968, and in February Sobol's case against Perez was tried before a three-judge federal court in New Orleans.[23][24][25][26][27][28] The Supreme Court ruled for Duncan on the jury issue in May 1968, and in July, the federal court in New Orleans found that the prosecution of Sobol was brought in bad faith and for purposes of harassment, enjoined the prosecution, and issued an opinion finding that Sobol was at all times acting in compliance with provisions of Louisiana law governing practice by out-of-state counsel.[29][30]

Duncan v. Perez

Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Duncan's favor, local Parish authorities threatened again to prosecute him. The Supreme Court's decision in favor of Duncan provided that a charge of battery under Louisiana law was punishable by up to two years in jail and that "a crime punishable by two years in prison is...a serious crime...and entitled to a jury trial."[31] After the Supreme Court decision, the Louisiana legislature reduced the maximum sentence for simple battery from two years to six months.[32] In January 1969, Sobol and LCDC lawyers brought federal suit against Perez to enjoin further prosecution of Duncan. In October 1970, the federal court in New Orleans found that the repeated arrests of Duncan in the course of the litigation and the high bonds that the Parish judge required showed that the prosecution was maintained in bad faith and for harassment in an effort to punish Duncan for his exercise of federally secured rights. "The reprosecution of Duncan would deter and suppress the exercise of federally secured rights by Negroes in Plaquemines Parish. The various stages of the Duncan and Sobol cases have been thoroughly publicized in the New Orleans papers, which the parties have stipulated are the only daily newspapers generally read by residents of Plaquemines Parish. Duncan has waged an unprecedented four year fight to avoid conviction and incareration on the charges against him."[33] Parish officials then appealed to the federal appellate court, and when they lost there,[34], sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1972, almost six years after Duncan was arrested, the Supreme Court rejected the Parish's request for review, finally bringing to an end the cascade of litigation that began when Duncan touched a white boy on the arm.

Published works

  • Sobol, Richard B. (1991). Bending The Law: The Story of the Dalkon Shield Bankruptcy. The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226767523. Sobol's book won a 1992 American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award "in recognition of an outstanding contribution to public understanding of the American system of law and justice."
  • Cooper, George; Sobol, Richard B. (1969). "Seniority and Testing Under Fair Employment Laws: A General Approach to Objective Criteria of Hiring and Promotion". Harvard Law Review. 82 (8): 1598–1679. doi:10.2307/1339638. JSTOR 1339638.
  • Sobol, Richard B. (1962). "Gomillion v. Lightfoot: The Tuskegee Gerrymander Case by Bernard Taper (book reiew)". Columbia Law Review. 62: 748–51. doi:10.2307/1120089. JSTOR 1120089.

References

  1. ^ a b Seelye, Katharine Q. (April 23, 2020). "Richard Sobol, Civil Rights Lawyer in the South, Dies at 82". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
  2. ^ Van Meter, Matthew (2020). Deep Delta Justice: A Black Teen, His Lawyer, and Their Groundbreaking Battle for Civil Rights in the South. Little, Brown. p. 229-230. ISBN 9780316435031.
  3. ^ Okun, Andru (September 4, 2020). "A civil rights case from Louisiana that changed America's justice system". The Washington Post.
  4. ^ Seelye, Katharine Q. (April 23, 2020). "Richard Sobol, Civil Rights Lawyer in the South, Dies At 82". The New York Times. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  5. ^ Van Meter, Matthew (2020). Deep Delta Justice: A Black Teen, His Lawyer, and Their Groundbreaking Battle for Civil Rights in the South. Little, Brown. p. 51-52. ISBN 9780316435031.
  6. ^ Sobol, Richard B. (May 26, 2011). "interview of Richard B. Sobol for The Civil Rights History Project, a joint project of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture to collect video and audio recordings of personal histories and testimonials of individuals who participated in the Civil Rights movement" (Interview). Interviewed by Joseph Mosnier. New Orleans, LA. p. 2. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
  7. ^ The organization was sponsored by the National Council of Churches, the American Jewish Congress, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the NAACP, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and most prominently the American Civil Liberties Union. LCDC was organized by Henry Schwarzschild, a long-time civil rights activist who had participated in the Freedom Rides and the March from Selma to Montgomery, and by Carl Rachlin, the General Counsel of CORE. See Thomas M. Hilbink, "Filling the Void: The Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee and the 1964 Freedom Summer", May 1, 1993. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2416592 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2416592
  8. ^ Van Meter, Matthew (2020). Deep Delta Justice: A Black Teen, His Lawyer, and Their Groundbreaking Battle for Civil Rights in the South. Little, Brown. p. 212-213. ISBN 9780316435031.
  9. ^ Van Meter, Matthew (2020). Deep Delta Justice: A Black Teen, His Lawyer, and Their Groundbreaking Battle for Civil Rights in the South. ISSN 0362-4331. {{cite book}}: |newspaper= ignored (help)
  10. ^ Nancy Buirski (director) (2020). A Crime On The Bayou (documentary film). Shout! Studios.
  11. ^ Van Meter, Matthew (2020). Deep Delta Justice. Little,Brown.
  12. ^ Richard B. Sobol on behalf of Gary Duncan (January 17, 1968). oral argument in the Supreme Court of the United States (audio). Washington, D.C.: oyez.org.
  13. ^ Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968).
  14. ^ "Court Ruling On Juries Hit By Gremillion". The States-Item. New Orleans, LA. May 21, 1968.
  15. ^ Editorial (May 22, 1968). "Court Decision Promises Chaos". The States-Item. New Orleans, LA.
  16. ^ Graham, Fred P. (May 20, 1968). "Justices Extend Five Legal Rights In Criminal Cases". The New York Times. p. 1. The most far-reaching of the five rulings was Duncan v. Louisiana, in which the Court followed a line of recent cases that have made various portions of the Bill of Rights bindng on the states, even though only the Federal Government was originally covered by them. Today, the Court said that the states are also bound by the Sixth Amendment's requirement of jury trials in criminal cases.
  17. ^ "Jury Trial in the States". The New York Times. May 23, 1968.
  18. ^ Editorial (March 1, 1967). "A Round for the Bar". Alabama State Bar Foundation Bulletin. Montgomery, Ala. The activities of Mr. Donald A. Jelinek received quite a bit of publicity from his arrest in Linden, Alabama several months ago for practicing law without a license....The matter was finally resolved by a stipulation favorable to the bar which among other provisions, contained the following paragraph:...The plaintiff Donald A. Jelinek will not practice law, nor will attempt to practice law in the State of Alabama....Donald A. Jelinek is leaving the employ of the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee, and is leaving the State of Alabama.
  19. ^ Hammer, Richard (March 12, 1967). "'Yankee Lawyer Go Home'". The New York Times. p. 8E.
  20. ^ From Our Special Correspondent (February 24, 1968). "Louisiana to Out-of-State Lawyers: Get Out". The New Republic.
  21. ^ Bronstein, Alvin J. (1997). "Representing the Powerless: Lawyers Can Make A Difference". Maine Law Review. 49 (1): 4–13.
  22. ^ Stone, I.F. (April 3, 1967). "Will the New Attorney General Uphold Negro Rights to Counsel in The South: The Question in The Arrest of Richard Sobol, A Volunteer Lawyer, in Louisiana". I.F. Stone's Weekly. Washington, D.C.
  23. ^ Nelson, Jack (January 23, 1968). "Negro Attorney Claims Judge Harassed Him, Lawyer Testifies He Was Called 'Coon' During Civil Rights Trial in Louisiana". Los Angeles Times.
  24. ^ Nelson, Jack. "Lawyers Tell Pressures in Civil Rights Cases, Court in Louisiana Hears of Harassment for Defending Clients in Integration Fights". Los Angeles Times.
  25. ^ Nelson, Jack (January 28, 1968). "Blunt Talk Trademark of Plaquemines' Perez, Louisiana Parish Leader Claims in Rights Deposition He Has 90% Support at Polls". Los Angeles Times. p. 2, Sec. A.
  26. ^ Nelson, Jack (January 29, 1968). "Rights Deposition Shows Perez Domination of Parish". The Washington Post. p. A6.
  27. ^ Nelson, Jack (January 30, 1968). "Rights Leader Testifies About Lawyer's Fears, Says Louisiana Man Cited Townspeople's Attitudes in Declining to Represent Him". Los Angeles Times.
  28. ^ Nelson, Jack (January 31, 1968). "Lawyer Tells of Abuse in Louisiana Parishes, Attorney Claims He Was Treated Like Criminal After He Represented Negro". Los Angeles Times.
  29. ^ 289 F.Supp. 392 (E.D. La. 1968).
  30. ^ "The Law: Lawyers, Harassment in the South". Time. August 16, 1968. p. 42.
  31. ^ Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. at 162.
  32. ^ Duncan v. Perez, 445 F.2d 557 at 559, n.2 (CA5 1971)
  33. ^ Duncan v. Perez, 321 F.Supp. 181, 184-85 (E.D. La. 1970)
  34. ^ Duncan v. Perez, 445 F.2d 557 (CA5 1971)

Category:American civil rights lawyers

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