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From the Desert Sun - Palm Springs-
I have no further information on this person - as a researcher i am simply putting the information into genforum for other researchers use
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Dudley W. Gray, 85, a prominent South Bay attorney with a 58-year career, perhaps best known for purchasing an Iowa courthouse and rebuilding it piece by piece on a Torrance lot, died in December 2007, of natural causes at a Palm Springs Hospital.
Gray was the attorney of record in 18 published appeals cases between 1956 and 1998, four of which went before the California Supreme Court. Among those appeals was an important 1981 decision that found attorneys cannot raise attorney-client privilege to withhold evidence in cases when clients are alleging incompetent counsel.
Celebrity defense attorney Howard Weitzman said Gray was an "institution" in the South Bay. "I knew Dudley Gray for over 30 years, and was co-counsel on many cases with him over the years," Weitzman said Monday. "He was much more than just a talented and effective trial lawyer. Dudley was charming, smart, tenacious and always thought about what was best for his clients.
Gray defended 27 first-degree murder trials during his career and obtained 19 not guilty verdicts. In the early 1960s, he also won what was then the largest civil verdict in the Torrance courthouse at the time--approximately $800,000. "He was from the era where we attorneys didn't specialize," said Dudley's son, Jeffrey C. Gray, a Torrance criminal attorney for 30 years." (The appeals cases) were everything from land usage to criminal law." Gray's other son, Dudley W. Gray II, is a criminal judge in the Los Angeles County Superior Court in Torrance.
Gray was born in South Dakota in 1922 and raised in Iowa. He served in the Navy during World War II and earned 4 bronze stars. He obtained his law degree at Southwestern University Law School and joined the bar in 1949. Gray ran for the California Senate in 1966 but lost to legendary California political figure Ralph Dills, a former Compton Municipal Court judge who went on to become the state's second longest-serving lawmaker. During his campaign, Gray advocated that the millions of gallons of milk being thrown away under the state's subsidy program be distributed to needy children. He turned down a judgeship in 1976, and in 1981 was sentenced to jail time when he refused to turn over potentially incriminating evidence on a former client to the court. The sentence was stayed when the issue was taken up by an appeals court.
Gray had largely retired to Palm Springs, but continued to win legal battles on behalf of veterans at his local American Legion in order to increase their disability benefits.
In his later years, Dudley waged two valiant battles against cancer. On behalf of him, I, Betty, would like to thank the doctors, the nurses in the Treatment room, and the other caring and compassionate staff at the Comprehensive Cancer Center in Palm Springs.
Dudley is survived by his loving wife, Betty; two sons, one daughter and 5 grandchildren. A Celebration of his life will be at 1:00 p.m. January 26, 2008 at American Legion, 400 N. Belardo Rd., Palm Springs, CA 92262.
Published in The Desert Sun on 1/12/2008.
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