Thomas C. Lynch
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Thomas Conner Lynch (May 20, 1904 – May 29, 1986) was an American lawyer who served as
District Attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...
in San Francisco and as Attorney General of California from 1964 to 1971.


Early life

Lynch was born in San Francisco in 1904 to Mary O'Conner and Patrick Lynch, an Irish immigrant from
County Kerry County Kerry ( gle, Contae Chiarraí) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and forms part of the province of Munster. It is named after the Ciarraige who lived in part of the present county. The population of the co ...
. Lynch's mother died in 1906, and his father was killed in 1913 attempting to rescue a fellow worker while working on a sewer excavation. Subsequently raised by extended family members, Lynch attended Catholic grammar schools in San Francisco before attending
Bellarmine College Preparatory Bellarmine College Preparatory is an all-male, Jesuit, private secondary school located in San Jose, California. Founded in 1851, it is the oldest secondary school in California and the second-oldest west of the Mississippi River. In 2020, Niche ...
and
Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...
. Lynch went on to attend law school at the
University of San Francisco School of Law The University of San Francisco School of Law (USF Law) is the law school of the private University of San Francisco. Established in 1912, it received American Bar Association accreditation in 1935 and joined the Association of American Law Sc ...
. Following law school, Lynch was admitted to the bar in 1930 and worked as an insurance underwriter before being appointed an
Assistant U.S. Attorney An assistant United States attorney (AUSA) is an official career civil service position in the U.S. Department of Justice composed of lawyers working under the U.S. Attorney of each U.S. federal judicial district. They represent the federal gove ...
in 1933. Lynch later became chief deputy to Pat Brown following Brown's election as San Francisco District Attorney in 1943. Lifelong friends, Lynch and Brown had first met through mutual friends on trips to
Yosemite Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...
. Lynch was introduced to his future wife Virginia Summers Lynch by Pat Brown in 1928 at a dance at Camp Curry in the Yosemite Valley. The two later eloped to Lovelock, Nevada.


District Attorney of San Francisco

In 1951, Lynch was appointed District Attorney of San Francisco by Mayor
Elmer Robinson Elmer Edwin "Rob-Rob" Robinson (October 3, 1894 – June 9, 1982) was the 33rd mayor of San Francisco, California. A Republican, he served as San Francisco's mayor from January 1948 until January 1956. Robinson was born in the Richmond ...
following Brown's election as Attorney General.


Attorney General of California

In 1964, Lynch was appointed Attorney General by Governor Pat Brown to succeed
Stanley Mosk Morey Stanley Mosk (September 4, 1912 – June 19, 2001) was an American jurist, politician, and attorney. He served as Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court for 37 years (1964–2001), the longest tenure in that court's history. ...
, who Brown had appointed to the
Supreme Court of California The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...
. As Attorney General, Lynch helped draft legislation relating to law enforcement, including measures to control use of narcotics, to control promotion and sales of pornographic material and to control destructive devices and dangerous weapons. He also aided to improve the quality of law enforcement.Thomas C. Lynch, 25th Attorney General
State of California Department of Justice
Running for a full term in 1966, Lynch was the only Democrat to retain statewide office amid
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
's defeat of Pat Brown, defeating Spencer Mortimer Williams. Notably, in 1968, Lynch released a report evaluating the actions of the city of Palm Springs in decimating the "Section 14" homes of approximating 200 families - almost entirely Black, Mexican-American and Native-American families leasing land from the Agua Caliente tribe, families including builders and support staff of wealthy white residents of the city – who had come home from work one day in 1965 to discover their homes bulldozed and burned down. Lynch's report noted that those families were living in Section 14 for two key reasons: "The average minority person could not afford to live in any other area of Palm Springs; and, de facto racial segregation was prevalent in Palm Springs as in other parts of California." Calling the city's action a "city-engineered holocaust", depriving Blacks and Latinos of generational wealth, the report concluded that, "The city of Palm Springs not only disregarded the residents of Section 14 as property owners, taxpayers and voters; Palm Springs ignored that the residents of Section 14 were human beings."


1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries

Initially tapped to lead pro-
Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
delegation prior to Johnson's decision not to seek reelection, Lynch ran as a favorite son candidate in the 1968 California Democratic presidential primary, placing third behind Robert F. Kennedy and
Eugene McCarthy Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...
.


Later life

Lynch died in San Francisco on May 29, 1986, following a six year battle with cancer. At the time of his death, Lynch was an attorney with the San Francisco law firm Gerald Marcus.


References


External links


OurCampaigns.com biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lynch, Thomas C. Candidates in the 1968 United States presidential election California Attorneys General 1904 births 1986 deaths Lawyers from San Francisco California Democrats California local politicians 20th-century American politicians District attorneys in California 20th-century American lawyers