J. Skelly Wright, 77, who as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals
here in 1967 wrote the celebrated decree that bears his name and
reshaped the public school system in the District of Columbia, died
yesterday of cancer at his home in Bethesda.
The ruling known as the "Wright decree," which ordered sweeping
changes to end discrimination in D.C. schools, was one of the first in
the nation to address the fact that racial or economic segregation in
northern schools, while not mandated by statute, appeared nonetheless to
exist in practice.
The New Orleans-born jurist, who in 1960 ordered schools there
desegregated, was known as a liberal and activist member of a Court of
Appeals that was known widely for its liberalism and activism.
His retirement last year after 25 years on the appeals court here and
13 years on the U.S. District Court in his native city ended a career
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marked by vigorous, forceful opinions issued both from the bench and in
out-of-court speeches and writing.
He wrote judicial opinions curbing sex and employment discrimination;
restricting the government's wiretapping authority; expanding the rights
of prisoners, tenants and the poor, and upholding in a variety of
matters the rights of individuals in conflict with the power of the
federal government.
In a 1970 ruling that was considered a breakthrough for tenants, he
asserted that they could refuse to pay rent if their apartments
developed housing code violations after they moved in.
In a 1970 speech, he contended that the criminal law had failed to
bring justice, particularly to the poor. A 1982 law review article
denounced the influence of money in politics.
"Free speech has turned into free spending," he wrote. "Money is now
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king in our democracy."
A 1978 opinion asserted that a jail inmate who flees could be
acquitted of escape charges if he could prove that he escaped because of
intolerable conditions.
In 1971, he issued an opinion favoring the right of The Washington
Post to publish the Pentagon Papers. The government had tried to prevent
publication of portions of the papers on national security grounds.
He wrote: "To allow a government to suppress free speech simply
through a system of bureaucratic classification would sell our heritage
far, far too cheaply."
In the ruling for which he is best known here, Judge Wright abolished
a system that confined students within four distinct curriculum paths.
He ordered that educational resources be equalized throughout the city.
Issued in response to a lawsuit brought by activist Julius W. Hobson
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Sr., who went to court to end what he said was "systematic
discrimination" favoring schools that were white and underutilized,
Judge Wright's decision set off a tumultuous and litigious decade in the
affairs of the schools.
Judge Wright was one of seven children of a building superintendent
who worked for the City of New Orleans. After attending public schools
there, he won a scholarship to Loyola University.
After graduation he taught history at a high school while attending
law school at Loyola at night.
After graduation in 1934, he taught history at Loyola for a year, and
in 1937 became an assistant U.S. attorney in New Orleans.
He was in London on active duty in the Coast Guard in 1945 when he
married Helen Mitchell Patton, of Washington, who was a secretary at the
U.S. Embassy in London.
He practiced law here from 1945 until he was named U.S. attorney in
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New Orleans in 1948. A year later, at 38, he was named to the U.S.
District Court, becoming the youngest man then to hold such a seat.
His order desegregating the New Orleans schools brought threats
against his life. Rather than appoint him to the appeals court there,
President Kennedy brought Judge Wright here.
In addition to his wife, survivors include a son, James Skelly Wright
Jr. of Washington, a brother, James Edward Wright Jr., of New Orleans,
and three sisters, Rosemary Ruckert and Katherine Hotard of New Orleans
and Margaret Hewes of Birmingham.
PARICK R. MAHONEY
Gay Activist
Patrick R. Mahoney, 37, a journalist and lawyer by training who
worked for the Library of Congress and who was active in area gay
organizations, died Aug. 3 at George Washington University Hospital. He
Mr. Mahoney had been media director of the Gay and`Lesbian Activists
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Alliance and was active in both the Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club in
Montgomery County and in Dignity, a gay Catholic organization. He was an
advocate of increased coverage in such publications as The Washington
Post of the AIDS crisis and gay life.
Since March 1987, he had been a bill digester with the Congressional
Research Service of the Library of Congress. Before that, he had spent
about a year with the legal department of the Pension Benefit Guarantee
Corp. From 1984 to 1986, he had worked in the Labor Department's office
of the solicitor.
Mr. Mahoney, who lived in Silver Spring, was a native of Michigan. He
graduated from the University of Michigan magna cum laude in 1972 with a
bachelor's degree in journalism. He received a master's degree in
journalism from Columbia University, and received a law degree from
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Rutgers University, where he was a law review editor. After moving here
about 1980, he worked on a voter participation symposium run jointly by
ABC and Harvard University.
Survivors include his mother, Alice Mahoney of Michigan.
RALPH MEEKER
Broadway and Film Actor
Ralph Meeker, 67, whose portrayal of cocky tough guys had him teamed
with such stars as John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda in a career
on stage, screen and television, died Aug. 5 at a hospital in Woodland
Hills, Calif., after a heart attack. He also had a series of strokes.
Mr. Meeker, who originated the role of the disillusioned drifter Hal
Carter in William Inge's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play "Picnic"
also portrayed the hard-bitten detective Mike Hammer in the movie "Kiss
Me Deadly."
He appeared in more than 50 movies and dozens of Broadway plays, and
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starred for two years in the 1960s television show "Not for Hire."
He was born Ralph Rathgeber in Minneapolis and studied acting at
Northwestern University. He got into pictures through his success in
"Picnic," which opened on Broadway in 1953. Some of his film credits
included "The Dirty Dozen," "Brannigan" with Wayne, and "The Naked Spur"
with Stewart.
On Broadway, before "Picnic," he had starred in such plays as "The
Doughgirls," "Strange Fruit" and "Cyrano de Bergerac." He also appeared
with Fonda in the stage production of "Mister Roberts" and replaced
Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar
Named Desire."
In recent years, he lived in Sun Valley, where he owned the Cecil B.
DeMille ranch, location of many of DeMille's biblical epics.
His marriage to Colleen Meeker ended in divorce.
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Survivors include his wife, Millie.
RAYMOND H. POWELL
St. Albans Teacher
Raymond H. Powell, 98, who had taught Latin and mathematics at St.
Albans and Sidwell Friends schools here before retiring in 1953, died of
congestive heart failure Aug. 5 at a retirement home in New Oxford, Pa.
He taught at Sidwell Friends from 1922 to 1943, then spent a decade
on the faculty at St. Albans. Mr. Powell lived in this area from 1916 to
1953, and again from 1979 to 1981. Between those two periods, he had
farmed in Pennsylvania. He had lived in New Oxford since 1981.
He was a 1911 graduate of Rio Grande College in his native Ohio. He
was a teacher in Oregon for five years, then moved here in 1916 to join
the examining division of the Civil Service Commission. After serving as
a Treasury Department auditor during World War I, he worked for the YMCA
education department here before joining Sidwell Friends.
His wife, Lucile Rader Powell, died in 1986. His survivors include a
son, Don C., of Naugatuck, Conn.; two daughters, Doris P. Schultz of
Alexandria and Anne P. Matthias of Hockessin, Del.; a sisterl Adah P.
Neal of Ben Lomond, Calif.; 12 grandchildren, and 15
great-grandchildren.
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