Lynch's mother died in 1906, and his father was killed in 1913 attempting to rescue a fellow worker while working on a sewer excavation.

[2] Following law school, Lynch was admitted to the bar in 1930 and worked as an insurance underwriter before being appointed an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 1933.

Lynch's report noted that those families were living in Section 14 for two key reasons: "The average minority person could not afford to live in any other area of Palm Springs; and, de facto racial segregation was prevalent in Palm Springs as in other parts of California."

Calling the city's action a "city-engineered holocaust", depriving Blacks and Latinos of generational wealth, the report concluded that, "The city of Palm Springs not only disregarded the residents of Section 14 as property owners, taxpayers and voters; Palm Springs ignored that the residents of Section 14 were human beings.

Initially tapped to lead pro-Lyndon Johnson delegation prior to Johnson's decision not to seek reelection, Lynch ran as a favorite son candidate in the 1968 California Democratic presidential primary, placing third behind Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy.