Jack Davis, one of Evansville's best, most colorful defense attorneys, has died

EVANSVILLE − Jack Davis’ legend and legacy is two-fold. He’s regarded as one of the finest Evansville criminal defense attorneys of the last several decades and one of the local legal profession’s larger-than-life characters.

Colorful and confident, Davis hung out with everyone from architects to bank presidents to pipefitters, prostitutes, pool hustlers, lawyers, gangsters and mechanics.

“Jack was the last of ‘lawyer-characters,’’’ said friend and fellow defense attorney Bob Canada. “He was an incredible trial lawyer.”

Davis died at age 90 following complications from a broken hip on Oct. 6. He won the prestigious James Bethel Gresham Award from the Evansville Bar Association (EBA) in 1995. At his request, there will be no funeral service or burial. The EBA will conduct a memorial service at a later date.

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“Jack was an incredibly talented lawyer and a great friend and mentor to me,” Canada said.

Vanderburgh County Circuit Court Senior Judge Carl Heldt characterized Davis as an iconoclast. He had no problem telling a judge what he thought after a trial, whether it was positive or negative, Heldt said.

“He had courage enough to tell you what he thought,” Heldt said. “He also said never ‘poor boy’ a client.”

In other words, work just as hard for every client, not just those well-to-do.

“He said you have to do your best for everyone,” Heldt said.

Davis' professional reputation was predominately based on his expertise in defending drug cases during the height of the "War on Drugs."

A native of Tipton, Indiana, Davis served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War; he was stationed in Japan. He attended Indiana University and the IU School of Law on the G.I. Bill. Twice married and divorced, Davis came to Evansville in 1969. After serving as chief deputy prosecutor, he went into private practice in 1973.

As stated before, Davis never had a problem standing up to authority figures. Working in the attorney general’s office in Indianapolis after graduating from IU, Davis was told "first thing" by fellow lawyer Don Ewers to pick up his dry cleaning.

“I said, ‘You’ve got me mixed up with ‘Gunga Din.’ I didn’t spend the last seven years (in college) to get your dry cleaning," Davis said. "You get your own dry cleaning.”

Davis recalled the story in an oral history on the EBA’s website in a 2009 recording. Like Davis, Ewers would later practice law in Evansville and they became close friends.

“Almost without exception, everyone’s word was good (in Evansville),” Davis said. “In a lot of towns they litigate everything.”

Kim Laib, a female friend of Davis’, once told Canada she had heard a hundred “Jack Davis stories.”

They were on Davis’ boat in the Ohio River and it capsized and they swam to shore. “She said, ‘All my life I’ve heard Jack Davis stories and now I’m in one!’” Canada said.

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Another notable incident was when fellow attorney Marion Rice punched out Davis at a bar.

“(Rice) told people that Jack had made a pocket move,” Canada said. “He was going to go for a gun or a knife. That’s why he hit him. It all blew over.”

But when they talked later, they almost came to blows again. Although he enjoyed regaling his friends with stories from his rowdy days, Davis was proud that he quit drinking alcohol more than 20 years ago, Canada said.

Former Vanderburgh County prosecutor Stan Levco had lunch with Davis each July for 40 years, before Davis had to cancel two years ago because of health problems.

“He paid for lunch that first time and we decided to have lunch every year after that, but we’d alternate who would pay,” Levco said. “In the early years we’d sometimes forget who’s turn it was to pay, which Jack remedied by decreeing that he would pay in the even years and I would pay in the odd years because I was odd.”

Levco recounted a story when Davis was a student at IU and met Bloomington native Hoagy Carmichael, one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s. Among his most famous songs were “Stardust,” “Georgia On My Mind” and “Heart and Soul.” Carmichael also was a character actor in Hollywood.

“He told me he’d been working while as a student at IU at the IU auditorium when Hoagy Carmichael was a guest speaker and Hoagy was smoking backstage,” Levco said. “Jack told me with great pleasure how he told Hoagy there was no smoking and that Hoagy immediately put out his cigarette.”

Levco tried a number of cases against Jack, saying “he was one of the best. One case I should have won and didn’t, I remember he had his client, a serviceman, show up in uniform. That wasn’t the only reason the jury found him not guilty, but it didn’t hurt.

“Jack was direct and did not suffer fools gladly."

Levco said it’s true that Davis was one of the last members of a colorful generation of defense attorneys.

“I will miss our July lunches,” Levco said.

Contact Gordon Engelhardt at Gordon.engelhardt@courierpress.com or on Twitter @EngGordon

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Jack Davis stood up to authority, for little man in lengthy career