His no-nonsense manner as a prosecutor and in court made him the model for the character Myron Kovitsky in the 1987 book The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe.
He enlisted in the United States Army during World War II, where he served in the European Theater and earned the Bronze Star Medal for his actions in rescuing fellow soldiers who had been injured, while he was still exposed to enemy fire.
[5] He was elected to a 14-year term as a Supreme Court Justice in 1973 with multi-partisan support and would rule his courtroom with an iron fist, using his stentorian voice to chide prosecutors, defense attorneys and even witnesses as he saw fit.
[5] With the relative safety of an elected term more than a decade long, Roberts felt free to speak with the press about his opposition to mandatory sentencing law that limited judicial discretion and to the death penalty and to express his firm belief in the independence of the judiciary.
[8] He was ultimately chosen as the administrative judge in charge of criminal and civil trial courts in the county, serving in that role for more than a decade before his retirement from the bench in 1998.
[7] In the 1990 film adaptation of the book starring Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith, the role of the judge was renamed to Leonard White and was played by Morgan Freeman,[5] who is Black, after director Brian De Palma said he "didn't want to racially polarize" the movie by having "a white judge talking morality to a basically black audience.