Whether you talk to a ju-decided in court or chat with your family at dinner table, Roger John Diamond had dramatic talent.
While representing the adult entertainment venue, he leapt to the tips in Los Angeles County courtrooms, sprinting with his arms over his head, wearing a suit and tie.
“What is dance?” he challenged the ju umpire and pirouetted across the room. “Is this dancing to you?”
“Some people say yes, others say no? ” he said according to a Times article at the time. “It’s essentially an art form… that’s what these nude dancers do. They’re not immoral people. I really believe they’re engaged in the art form.”
In that case, Diamond won in that case, as did many others for a 55-year career spanning a variety of legal fields, including criminal defense.
His crusade against a city that tried to force sexually oriented businesses earned him his headline as one of the leading Southern California advocates considered obscene. Diamond himself was not interested in the adult bookstores and shops he represented, but he saw an attempt to suppress them by struggling to trample the rights of the First Amendment.
However, his commitment to his beliefs attracted his attention and praise to his professional life, but it was his wife, daughter, and four who left a lasting impression on those who knew him. It was a dedication to his grandson.
Diamond passed away on February 20th at a rental facility where he lived with his family after losing his home in a Palisade fire. According to his family, the diamond had been diagnosed with inoperable sarcoma, a rare type of cancer.
“He was a character,” his daughter, Laura Diamond, told The Times. “Just as he was a truly gorgeous and unique Maverick lawyer, he was such a man in a family. He’s playful, stupid, affectionate.”
A native of Los Angeles, Diamond attended UCLA for undergraduate and law school after graduating from Hamilton High School. He had eased his parents’ concerns about the prospect of marrying his high school boyfriend Fran, who had said it was really possible to win a victory ticket on his first attempt.
He didn’t drink alcohol or smoke. He discovered that the latter habit was very aggressive, deploying spurts to the illuminated cigarettes of unsuspecting smokers. He is passionate about the sport and for decades he organized weekly touch football games and served as a spinning cast.
He loved Lady Gaga and, according to his eldest son, Rebecca Diamond, believed that sunscreen wasn’t effective if you rubbed it, no matter how stupid it looked.
“He was goofy, surprisingly quirky and kind of thing,” she wrote to eulogy. “He wasn’t my grandfather. He was my best friend. He didn’t bring much joy than making him laugh. He gave him the best laugh, and the stupidest dance moves. ”
Diamond is a champion of underdogs, and a trait he highlighted when his two daughters were growing up, Laura Diamond said. And when he found something socially or personally unfair, he wasn’t sitting down and complaining, he jumped into action.
After graduating from law school in 1966, Diamond purchased season tickets for the Los Angeles Rams. When the Rams and Raiders both announced plans to leave Los Angeles, he sued a breach of contract and claimed that the individual seating license granted to season ticket holders had the ability to renew each year.
The agreement they settled was that Diamond could renew season tickets in St. Louis, where the Rams moved, and Oakland, the then Raiders home. He was able to tour the stadium and pick the best seats – in his mind, “It was definitely a 50-yard line, but you had no prospects across the field, so you’re too low I didn’t want to,” Laura Diamond said.
In the next two seasons, he mailed Laura, a law student at UC Berkeley, a ticket to each Raiders Home Game. He flew to Auckland for the day and met her at their seat.
Roger Diamond has built his career by defending challenging authority and lost causes. Sometimes we changed the law in the process.
Shortly after the family moved to Palisade in the Pacific in the late 1960s, Diamond left his job at a large law firm and was wrapped up by submitting class action suits to hundreds of smog producers in Los Angeles County. Areas that are responsible for dirty air. Many of these companies were clients of his previous companies.
Since Diamond had no postage, he stepped into an office building in downtown Los Angeles, looked up the accused’s directory and personally served their desks, his family said. Ta.
Although that smog case was not successful, Diamond remained a dedicated environmentalist. He helped lead the 20-year battle with Occidental Oil Co., which he tried to dig up at Pallisard.
He competed in the California Congress in 1970 and 1972, and in the campaign slogan, “If you breathe, vote for Diamond.” In 1976, he sued the tobacco company with the goal of banning cigarettes indoors. He ran for Los Angeles city lawyer. He was not elected, but he did not give up on those ideas. He helped California’s first proposal to ban indoor smoking in the late ’70s vote.
His foray into politics also came to believe that the practice of listing incumbents first on the vote gave them an unfair advantage, so he appealed to change it. Results: California is currently using lottery tickets to determine candidate names placement.
“He had a clear vision of being confident and just followed it,” Laura Diamond said. “He knew in his heart whether something was right or wrong. He spoke with respect for the law – that’s what it is for a change of culture.”
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