Marian Peter Opala (January 20, 1921 – October 11, 2010) was a Polish-American lawyer and jurist who served as a justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court from 1978 to 2010.
[citation needed] In 1944, Opala was captured by German forces in the Warsaw Uprising and held in Flossenbürg concentration camp in Bavaria.
After his liberation by the U.S. Army in 1945, he was befriended by Gene Warr, a captain in the 45th Infantry Division from Oklahoma City.
With Warr's assistance, Opala settled in Oklahoma City in 1947; he became a United States citizen six years later.
[5] Opala was appointed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court's District 3 seat by Governor David Boren in 1978, and was retained by the voters in 1980, 1982, 1988, 1994, 2000 and 2006.
Throughout his career he was known as a strong advocate of First Amendment to the United States Constitution rights, a commitment he attributes to his experiences as a youth in Nazi-occupied Poland.