Theodore Olson obit

Theodore Olson, prominent conservative US lawyer, dies at 84

 

He was not on the list.

(Reuters) - Theodore Olson, a conservative American lawyer who helped Republican George W. Bush secure the presidency in the legal battle over the 2000 U.S. election and went on to argue successfully on behalf of same-sex marriage, died on Wednesday at age 84, his law firm said.

A constitutional lawyer who served as U.S. solicitor general under Bush and in the U.S. Justice Department under President Ronald Reagan, Olson argued 65 cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, his firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher said. The firm did not give a cause of death.

Olson spearheaded the lawsuit that challenged California's 2008 ban on gay marriage, also known as Proposition 8, alongside Democrat David Boies, his legal opponent who had argued for Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election case at the Supreme Court.

Olson and Boies' lawsuit led to the high court in 2013 striking down part of a federal law that defined marriage as between a man and a woman, and kept intact a district court ruling that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional.

He previously served as the Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1981 to 1984 under President Ronald Reagan, and he was also a longtime partner at the law firm Gibson Dunn.

Olson was born on September 11, 1940, in Chicago, the son of Yvonne Lucy (née Bevry) and Lester W. Olson. He grew up in Mountain View, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. After graduating from Los Altos High School in 1958, he studied communications and history at the University of the Pacific, where he was a charter member of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity chapter. He graduated in 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude. He then attended the UC Berkeley School of Law, where he was a member of the California Law Review and graduated in 1965 with Order of the Coif membership.

From 1981 to 1984, Olson served as an Assistant Attorney General (Office of Legal Counsel) in the Ronald Reagan administration. While serving in the Reagan administration, Olson was Legal Counsel to President Reagan during the Iran-Contra Affair's investigation phase. Olson was also the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel[6] when then President Ronald Reagan ordered the Administrator of the EPA to withhold documents on the ground that they contained "enforcement sensitive information." This led to an investigation by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee that later produced a report suggesting Olson had given false and misleading testimony before a House subcommittee during the investigation. The Judiciary Committee forwarded a copy of the report to the Attorney General, requesting the appointment of an independent counsel investigation.

Olson argued that the Independent Counsel took executive powers away from the office of the President of the United States and created a hybrid "fourth branch" of government that was ultimately answerable to no one. He argued that the broad powers of the Independent Counsel could be easily abused or corrupted by partisanship. In the United States Supreme Court Case Morrison v. Olson, the Court disagreed with Olson and found in favor of the Plaintiff and independent counsel Alexia Morrison.

He returned to private law practice as a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of his firm, Gibson Dunn.

A high-profile client of his in the 1980s was Jonathan Pollard, who had been convicted of selling government secrets to Israel. Olson handled the appeal to United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Olson argued the life sentence Pollard received was in violation of the plea bargain agreement, which had specifically excluded a life sentence. Olson also argued that the violation of the plea bargain was grounds for a mistrial. The Court of Appeals ruled (2‑1) that no grounds for mistrial existed.

Olson argued a dozen cases before the Supreme Court prior to becoming Solicitor General. In one case, he argued against federal sentencing guidelines; and, in a case in New York state, he defended a member of the press who had first leaked the Anita Hill story. Olson successfully represented presidential candidate George W. Bush in the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore, which effectively ended the recount of the contested 2000 presidential election.