He was born and raised in Los Angeles, the son of John Udo Witt and Alice Josephine Westervelt.
He attended the University of Southern California on an NROTC scholarship; he played baseball as a freshman and wrote for the Daily Trojan.
[3] Immediately upon passing the bar in 1961 he went to work in the Office of the City Attorney, serving variously as a prosecutor, civil trial lawyer, and public utility specialist.
He is credited with keeping the San Diego Padres in town in 1973, when a move to Washington, D.C. had been proposed; as city attorney he won a legal decision that the new owner would have to pay the club's lease of the city-owned San Diego Stadium through 1989, making any move financially unattractive.
[1] Witt also served on a Select Committee of the Federal Communications Commission, evaluating government regulation of cable television.