Richard Barry Sobol (May 29, 1937 – March 24, 2020) was an American lawyer who specialized in civil rights law.
[1]: 53 Following law school, Sobol clerked for Paul Hays, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for Philip Elman, at that time a Commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission.
He then went to work as an associate at the Washington, D.C. firm of Arnold, Fortas & Porter, where he participated in antitrust and trade regulation cases on behalf of large corporate clients.
[2][1]: 51–52 [3] In 1965, on his summer vacation from Arnold, Fortas & Porter, Sobol went to Louisiana as a volunteer for the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee (LCDC).
[2] The LCDC was formed in 1964 to provide lawyers for civil rights activists in Southern states who were arrested in connection with demonstrations, marches, voter registration efforts, sit-ins and other protest activities.
[note 1] In the summer of 1966, Sobol took a leave of absence from the D.C. firm, moved with his wife and two young children to New Orleans, and went to work full-time for LCDC.
He spent the next three years litigating civil rights cases for LCDC in federal and state courts all over Louisiana.
[1]: 211–213, 229–230 Sobol represented Gary Duncan from 1966 to 1972 in a series of cases around the desegregation of the Plaquemines Parish schools.
After a trial at which the black and white witnesses gave diametrically different testimony about what happened, the judge convicted Duncan and sentenced him to two months in jail and a $150 fine.
The arrest took place at the direction of Leander Perez, an arch-segregationist who dominated Plaquemines Parish politics.
[17][18][19][20][21][22] The Supreme Court ruled for Duncan on the jury issue in May 1968, and in July, the federal court in New Orleans found that the prosecution of Sobol was brought in bad faith and for purposes of harassment, enjoined the prosecution, and issued an opinion finding that Sobol was at all times acting in compliance with provisions of Louisiana law governing practice by out-of-state counsel.
[23][24] Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Duncan's favor, local Parish authorities threatened again to prosecute him.
"[25] After the Supreme Court decision, the Louisiana legislature reduced the maximum sentence for simple battery from two years to six months.
[26] In January 1969, Sobol and LCDC lawyers brought federal suit against Perez to enjoin further prosecution of Duncan.
In October 1970, the federal court in New Orleans found that the repeated arrests of Duncan in the course of the litigation and the high bonds that the Parish judge required showed that the prosecution was maintained in bad faith and for harassment in an effort to punish Duncan for his exercise of federally secured rights.
"The reprosecution of Duncan would deter and suppress the exercise of federally secured rights by Negroes in Plaquemines Parish.
The various stages of the Duncan and Sobol cases have been thoroughly publicized in the New Orleans papers, which the parties have stipulated are the only daily newspapers generally read by residents of Plaquemines Parish.
[29] In Moses v. Washington Parish School Board, the federal district court required establishment of biracial attendance zones in lieu of the freedom of choice plan previously relied upon as the means of disestablishing a segregated school system.
[51] Challenge under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to Use of Federal Funds to Construct Housing in Segregated Neighborhoods in Bogalusa.