Honorees

John Thomas Holt

1902-1989

John T. Holt was born Giovano Silva Holt on September 4, 1902 in Lebanon Missouri, the son of English-French parents.  He was raised in the hardscrabble, steel mill town of Pueblo, Colorado.  He graduated from law school at the University of Colorado School of Law at Boulder in 1929 and arrived in San Diego with one suit and a promise of a $75 a month law practice.  He almost never arrived.  Torn between a career in law and theater, he often quipped that he wound up practicing law because he just happened to catch the train going to the west coast instead of the east to New York’s theaters. 

After arriving, his talents as a public speaker were almost instantly recognized by Tom Whelan, who was running for District Attorney.  He paid Holt $25 to make speeches for him.  After Whelan was elected, Holt went to work in the D.A.’s office, quickly cementing a reputation as a top prosecutor.  Holt was President of the SD County Bar Association in 1936.  

He may well have joined the ranks of a career prosecutor with an admirable but forgettable career had it not been for a fellow named George Hewitt whom Holt prosecuted for armed robbery.  Hewitt swore he was innocent, but a cab driver positively identified him as the culprit, and Hewitt was convicted. 

One day, two sailors just back from sea showed up in Holt’s office and told him Hewitt was with them at the time of the robbery.  Holt checked it out, found they were telling the truth, and got Hewitt released.  The experience was an epiphany.  Holt switched sides, and criminal defense in San Diego would never be the same.

Voices which speak to us from aging newspaper clippings tell us Holt’s contemporaries viewed him in a rare and unique class.  They speak of him in the same breath with truly legendary lawyers, like New York’s Bill Fallon or L.A’s Earl Rogers.  San Diego District Attorney Tom Whelan once said “Johnny Holt is as good as [famous San Francisco trial lawyer] Melvin Belli, and I know he’s better than [famous Hollywood trial lawyer] Jerry Geisler, because I’ve beaten Jerry Geisler.”  Although Holt did not pursue the theater as a career, he brought it to the courtroom with him.   “Each case was a drama” he said, and he dressed for the part.  “I would dress to attract the attention of jurors … I would start with a strong witness, structure it right, and work the jury up to a certain point in the evidence, then quit.”

One reporter described Holt as being “a man of rapier wit, who could tell devilishly funny stories.  . . .  a man of well-cultivated wisdom who could weave spellbinding tales of his earlier years.”  (100 Years of Justice, Chronicle of the San Diego County Bar Assn, at 28).  “Throughout his life, the old actor in Holt could be seen.  Indeed, he quoted Shakespeare extensively in many of his courtroom battles.” (Id.)

Judge Franklin Orfield remembers, “John ate, slept, and lived his cases.  He put his heart and soul into it.  He was excellent in the courtroom, always prepared, and extremely dramatic in the things he did.  Most people couldn’t get away with the things John did.”  

Holt prided himself on attracting clients through skill and results.  “I wanted [clients] to come to me because they thought I was a good lawyer.”  “I never wanted to get business by joining clubs or shaking hands with politicians.”

Sadly, the criminal defense community lost Holt to divorce – not literally, but divorce practice.  As divorce clients piled up, criminal cases dwindled. Ironically, many newer San Diego lawyers in the 70’s knew John Holt only as one of the biggest divorce lawyers in town.  They knew nothing of his stellar career in criminal defense.  One Superior Court judge lamented: “We lost the greatest trial lawyer in the history of this county when Johnny Holt turned to his divorce specialty.”

Holt had a big house in the hills of La Jolla overlooking the ocean and drove a Rolls Royce.  It was not enough that the Rolls was an exact replica of the one Queen Elizabeth rode in.  To add to the drama he added flags to the front fender, which flapped as he passed by.  He lived life the same way he practiced law.  With passion.

<– Back to Honorees