William J. Fleniken

William Joseph Fleniken, Sr. (September 8, 1908 – May 5, 1979),^[1][2] was a lawyer from Shreveport, Louisiana, who served as U. S. Attorney for the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana from 1950 to 1953 and on the Louisiana 1st Judicial District Court from 1961 until 1978, shortly before his death.^[1]

Background

Fleniken's ancestors settled in DeSoto Parish in northwestern Louisiana prior to the American Civil War. He was among at least seven children, two brothers and four sisters,^[1] born in rural Benson in DeSoto Parish to Joseph Jackson Fleniken (1867-1951) and the former Julia Smith (1873-1947). With his parents, he relocated to Shreveport while he was a child. Joseph and Julia Fleniken, along with another son, Judge Fleniken's brother, Curran S. Fleniken (1907-1982), are interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Texarkana in Miller County in southwestern Arkansas.^[3] Fleniken graduated from C. E. Byrd High School and attended Centenary College, both institutions near the other in Shreveport. He graduated from the University of Houston Law Center^[1] and was admitted to the practice of law. For eight years thereafter, he was associated with the legal department of the Kansas City Southern-Louisiana and Arkansas Railway.^[4]

Legal career

In 1946, Fleniken was named assistant U.S. Attorney under Malcolm Lafargue, who left the position in May 1950 to run unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary election against U.S. Senator Russell B. Long. Fleniken was briefly the acting U.S. Attorney until Harvey Locke Carey took the position in August 1950 as a Truman appointee. Fleniken was again named acting U.S. Attorney from December 1950 to early in 1952. On April 23, 1952, Fleniken was named by the U. S. Senate as the official U.S. Attorney. U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin C. Dawkins, Sr., said of Fleniken upon his accession as U. S. attorney: You have the integrity and the willingness to work .... You also possess a kind disposition."^[5] He remained U. S. attorney until August 1953, when the Eisenhower administration replaced him with Thomas F. Wilson.

After his work as U. S. attorney, Fleniken resumed the practice of law under the name Brown & Fleniken, with partner Algie D. Brown, a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1940 to 1968. Both Brown and Fleniken were active members of the First Baptist Church of Shreveport.^[4]

On November 14, 1961, Fleniken won the "Division A" seat on the 1st Judicial Court for Caddo and Desoto parishes to fill the unexpired term of Judge Robert J. O'Neal,^[6] whose service dated to the late 1930s with Chief Judge Thornton F. Bell. Fleniken was reelected in 1966 without opposition^[4] and again in 1972. He retired as chief judge of the 1st District Court in 1978.^[1] In 1964, Fleniken attended on a fellowship from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation the first session of the National College of State Trial Judges at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder, Colorado. He was affiliated with the National Conference of State Trial Judges, the American Judicature Society, the Louisiana District Judges Association, and his local, state, and national bar associations.^[4]

In 1964, Judge Fleniken accused the imprisoned rodeo star Clarence R. Daley of trying to purchase a parole. Attorney General Jack P. F. Gremillion told the Louisiana Pardon Board at a meeting in New Orleans that he had received nearly two hundred letters requesting that Daley be pardoned or given early release from the penitentiary. The former cowboy had been convicted in February 1962 of attacking three persons with a knife near Vivian in northern Caddo Parish.^[7]

In April 1977, Judge Fleniken ruled that former Shreveport Public Safety Commissioner George W. D'Artois would stand trial for the felony theft of $30,000 in municipal funds declared to have been paid to police informers. D'Artois's attorney questioned how his client could be tried considering his rapidly failing health. Fleniken said prosecutors must have doctors and medical equipment at the courthouse during the trial, which had already been postponed several times because of the state of D'Artois's health. Meanwhile, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that iudges should consider the defendant’s lifestyle in deciding whether a person is too ill for trial.^[8] Two months after Judge Fleniken's order, D'Artois died in San Antonio, Texas, while undergoing heart surgery. D'Artois's passing spared the settlement of pending multipile issues against him, which have never been resolved, including his role if any in the assassination of a public relations executive, Jim Leslie.^[9]

Personal life

Fleniken was a member of the Shreveport High Twelve Club, Masonic lodge, and the Shriners, for which he served on the board of the Shriners Hospital for Children in Shreveport. He was further active in the Salvation Army, YMCA, the Boy Scouts of America, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the Shreveport Optimist Club. He was an avid golfer, fisherman, and hunter.^[4]

In 1935, Fleniken married the former Kathryn Connerton,^[4] who died in 1995 in Fort Worth, Texas.^[10] Their only child, William J. Fleniken, Jr. (born 1936), a graduate of Centenary College and the University of Houston Law Center practiced law in Fort Worth^[4] and later Aransas Pass, Texas.^[11] In 1978, the year of his father's death, the junior Fleniken married the former Gypsy Cox (born 1935).^[12]

Judge Fleniken's services were held at the First Baptist Church of Shreveport. He and his wife are interred at Forest Park East Cemetery in Shreveport.^[1]

References