Henry Wade

The lawyer who precipitated one of the most controversial judicial decisions in American history has died in Texas at the age of 86. Henry Wade, district attorney for Dallas County, first acquired international fame in 1964, when he led the prosecution of Jack Ruby for murdering President Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.

In 1970, however, Wade became even more notorious by prosecuting a local waitress, Norma McCorvey, for seeking an abortion, when state law permitted termination only if the woman's life was in danger. The multiple appeals in the case (with the waitress still identified only as Jane Roe) eventually reached the US supreme court.

On January 22 1973, Justice Harry Blackmun delivered the verdict which put Roe v Wade forever in the history books. With six of his nine colleagues, he held that the personal freedoms defined by the 14th amendment included a woman's right to an abortion.

The decision was one of the few that ever went against Wade, and has bedevilled American politics ever since. The most recent example of its continuing impact was President Bush's first executive order in office, to deny American aid to nations permitting abortions.

There were few signs that Wade would have such a seismic effect when he was born, the ninth of a Texas farming family's 11 children. He was educated locally until, as the depression hit America, he began studying law in the state capital, Austin. He showed formidable academic talent and graduated with the highest legal honours from the University of Texas. Five of his brothers also graduated as lawyers.

With the usual American intertwining of law and politics, Wade embarked on his career in 1937 by working for Lyndon Johnson's first congressional campaign. This back-scratching paid off the following year when he was elected district attorney for his home county at the age of 24.

In 1939, he went for a more secure job as an FBI special agent. Over the next four years, he was assigned to investigations in Boston, New York, Baltimore and Washington. He became sufficiently well-regarded by J Edgar Hoover to be dispatched on a covert operation in Ecuador, where he posed as a radio journalist.

Wade joined the US navy in 1943, returning to his legal work at the end of the war. For three years, he served as an (appointed) assistant district attorney in Dallas. Then, in 1950, he won his first election to the senior job. The average span for Dallas district attorneys is six years; Wade was re-elected nine times, to hold the office continuously for 36 years. There is barely a senior legal figure in the state who did not pass through his hands. As the years rolled by, their steady elevation gave him enormous influence.

At times, however, he acted almost like a Hollywood caricature. He loved playing the country hick to out-of-state opponents, chewing on a huge cigar and laying on a thick East Texas accent. However, as he repeatedly demonstrated, there was a razor-sharp brain behind this facade.

During the Ruby trial, he constantly riled defence counsel Melvin Belli by rhyming his name with Delhi. When the judge eventually ordered Wade to address his opponent correctly as, "Bell-eye", the DA responded: "Well, your honour, I accept the reprimand and, just to show I am in good faith, I'll be glad to invite Mr Bell-eye to lunch on some spaghett-eye".

Always a strong law-and-order advocate, Wade made it clear to young job applicants that they would be joining a tough operation. According to one lawyer, "He would tell you, as you walked through the door, that he was looking for someone who could eat raw meat and chomp on nails." There were enough of them around and the department was frequently accused of being none-too-choosy in its methods. It caused outrage in 1973 by securing sentences totalling 5,005 years against two kidnappers, prompting even the Texas legislature to acknowledge that things had got out of hand and to change the law.

Wade's methods resulted in at least three notorious injustices. In 1982, he secured an armed robbery conviction against Lenell Geter, which was overturned two years later after massive protests about the conduct of the prosecution. Joyce Anne Brown's life sentence for murder was quashed in 1989, when it was found that Wade had withheld vital evidence. In the same year, Randall Dale Adams was freed from death row after a documentary film uncovered another example of evidence deliberately withheld.

Wade's wife Yvonne died in 1987. He is survived by three daughters and two sons.

Henry Menasco Wade, lawyer, born November 11 1914; died March 1 2001

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