Honorees

Louis S. Katz

1923-2015

For many San Diego lawyers, Lou Katz was a mentor, inspiration, leader and friend. He exemplified the best of the criminal defense bar. In a law career that spanned over five decades, Lou Katz was a fierce defender of the constitution and civil liberties. Until his retirement in 2010, he represented those charged with crimes in both the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego

Born in Indianapolis on November 2, 1923, Katz spent his early years in Chicago. Shortly after his father Sol’s death when Katz was only five, his mother Annette purchased a Model A Ford, and she and her young son drove across the country on packed gravel roads to Southern California. It was this pioneer and independent spirit that informed Lou Katz’ life and law practice.

After graduating from Ventura High School, bored during a semester at junior college and deciding he had no need for further education, Katz hitchhiked to Oakland. His first job was as a shipping clerk for Remington Rand machine sales in Oakland. While working there Katz purchased an old typewriter, overhauled it, and traded it for his first car: a Model A Ford. After other odd jobs at Spellman’s Department Store on San Pablo Avenue in Emeryville, and A.C. Mauerhan furniture store in Berkeley, WWII broke out. Three large shipyards opened in Richmond to build liberty ships for the war effort.

In 1941, shortly after Pearl Harbor, Katz worked the graveyard shift in the Richmond shipyards (Kaiser yard #2) repairing welding machines and keeping the electricity running. Sent a draft notice in 1942, but learning one leg was an inch shorter than the other making him ineligible for military service, Katz joined the Army Transport Service division of the Merchant Marines — a branch of the Army consisting of troop, supply, and repair ships and tug boats, manned by civilian seaman. This fleet carried personnel, supplies, and equipment needed by the Allies during the war. Among other ports, Katz traveled to the South Pacific, where he witnessed sunken aircraft carriers remaining from the December 7, 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor.

During his time of service, Katz was brought before the Army Base Command office for the “crime” of writing a letter to a congressman asking the U.S. government to include merchant seaman in the G.I. Bill of Rights — a fight being waged to this day. (HR563, the World War II Merchant Mariners Act.)
Shortly before war’s end, Katz entered the Maritime Academy in Alameda, where he achieved the rank of Third Mate. His last voyage for the war effort took him to England, where his convoy was attacked every night by German submarines but with no success, and he and the rest of the crew safely anchored in Falmouth Harbor just as VE Day occurred. Katz continued to sail Victory ships. On a trip to the Pacific, the crew carried an entire hospital to be delivered to Osaka Harbor. Katz went ashore and traveled to Nagasaki to see a city flattened by the atomic bomb.

After the war, Katz joined the American Veterans Committee, an organization favoring peace over war. During one meeting where Katz debated an attorney, he was urged by his fellow vets to go to law school — advice for which the criminal defense bar and his clients will always be grateful. It was then Katz registered at San Francisco State as a full-time student. After his graduation from Hastings College of the Law in 1954, Katz and his law partner Irwin Gostin — whom he met at a student convention of the National Lawyers Guild — opened a law practice in San Diego.

In 1956, San Diego was segregated, had no ACLU chapter. San Diegans hauled before the HUAC were forced to find legal representation in Los Angeles, and San Diego lacked attorneys willing to defend civil liberties. Katz changed all that. A volunteer cadre of attorneys was cobbled together for the ACLU. A legal panel was established for the local chapter of the NAACP and successful lawsuits were brought to combat housing discrimination. Pete Seeger — who had been banned from performing at a local high school by the San Diego School Board based on his politics — sang that night after Katz filed an emergency petition in court.

In 1973, Katz, along with a handful of other lawyers met at the San Francisco Airport Hilton, and as result, California Attorneys for Criminal Justice was born. The organization’s first president San Francisco attorney Ephraim Margolin spelled out the organization’s purpose: “The district attorneys and peace officers, through their respective associations have been heard in the legislature and the media to a point of virtual monologue. We believe it is time for the criminal defense bar to influence the course of events in our state.” Katz served as CACJ’s fourth president in 1976. Helping create CACJ was among his proudest achievements.

Five years later, in 1978, Katz was appointed the first director of the San Diego Office of Defender Services, the precursor to the public defender office, a post he ably served for three years before returning to private practice. In addition to his many trial victories, Katz was appointed to represent death row inmate Felipe Sixto. After three years of investigation, the filing of a direct appeal and writ of habeas corpus, in 1989, in a unanimous reversal by the California Supreme Court — a rarity in capital litigation — Katz saved his client’s life.

In 1991, Katz left behind his well-established practice and went back to the Bay Area to take over the law practice of Charles Garry (prominent civil rights attorney representing the Black Panther Party and the Oakland 7, and author of “Streetfighter in the Courtroom”), who had recently died. The two were long time friends and colleagues. In 1995, along with second chair John Phillipsborn, and co-counsel Daro Inouye and Grace Suarez, Katz tried the last death penalty case filed by the San Francisco district attorney, winning a life sentence for his client.

Katz was generous with his time and ideas. In a letter to his wife, Judith Ganz, written shortly before his death, Katz wrote “take what you would have given me and share it with others.” He inspired and mentored many attorneys practicing criminal defense. Katz served on the faculty of the San Diego and San Francisco Inns of Court, taught trial advocacy skills at University of San Diego law school as an adjunct professor, co-authored a manual on contempt (assisting lawyers a trial judge might consider overzealous and successfully representing several attorneys in court), and over the course of his long career penned numerous articles on topics perhaps even more relevant now on the unreliability of eyewitness identification, illegal airport searches, and time and cause of death. Lou was an avid sailor, tennis and ping-pong player, an occasional magician, and frequent poker player. He was a gentle man.

In December 2010, CACJ awarded Lou Katz its Lifetime Achievement Award for all that he contributed to the defense of the accused. He died at age 92.

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