SF Chronicle Joseph Ball Los Angeles Times Saturday,�September 23, 2000 �2000 San Francisco Chronicle URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/09/23/MN35906.DTL Joseph A. Ball, one of the country's most respected trial lawyers who probably was best known for his role as senior counsel on the Warren Commission that investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, died Thursday at St. Mary's Hospital in Long Beach. He was 97. Mr. Ball had an active courtroom career over more than half a century. He defended such notorious clients as Watergate figure John Ehrlichman, automaker John DeLorean and Saudi Arabian financier Adnan Khashoggi. Called one of the leading American trial lawyers of his generation by the National Law Journal, Mr. Ball also helped to draft the California Evidence Code and Tort Claims Act and played an important role in revising federal rules of criminal procedure. Colleagues praised his gentle, effective courtroom style and his ability to deliver eloquent arguments without notes. Former California Gov. Edmund G. ``Pat'' Brown, who died in 1996, twice offered to appoint him to the state Supreme Court, but Mr. Ball turned him down. ``I like the practice of law,'' Mr. Ball later explained, ``and I never wanted a life on the bench.'' He once described trial work as ``a terrific strain. You work like thunder, like preparing for an athletic event. You give up all of your outside activities for months. You get sick and tired, and you wonder, `Why did I take this case?' And then, when the next one comes along, you take it.'' Chosen for Warren Commission duty by U.S. Chief Justice Earl Warren, who had known him from California political circles, Mr. Ball and another lawyer, David Belin, were assigned the task of determining the identity of Kennedy's assassin. Some 10,000 pieces of paper came to his office, including reports from the FBI, the Dallas police and sheriff, and the CIA. He and Belin spent their first month organizing the information and cataloging it on index cards. Mr. Ball wrote most of the controversial report, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the shooting of the president. During the Watergate scandal, Mr. Ball was West Coast counsel for Ehrlichman, a top Nixon aide who was charged of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Dr. Lewis Fielding, a Beverly Hills psychiatrist of Pentagon Papers figure Daniel Ellsberg. Ehrlichman also was accused of perjuring himself when he denied prior knowledge of a June 1973, break-in at Lewis' office. Ehrlichman was convicted in 1974 on the conspiracy charge and on three counts of making a false statement to a grand jury in connection with the Fielding break-in. He served 18 months in prison. In 1983, Mr. Ball represented DeLorean against charges of conspiring to possess and distribute cocaine and heroin. DeLorean was acquitted on all counts in 1984. In 1984, the American Bar Association established the Joseph A. Ball Fund to honor outstanding lawyers and support public service and education programs of the ABA. �2000 San Francisco Chronicle � Page�A19
