Buron Fitts

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Buron Rogers Fitts (1895-1973) was a California politician. He was lieutenant-governor of the state from 1927 to 1928 and Los Angeles County district attorney thereafter until 1940.

Fitts was born on March 22, 1895, in Belcherville, Texas, and received his law degree in 1916 from the University of Southern California.

According to For the People — Inside the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office 1850-2000, by Michael Parrish, Fitts was a severely injured veteran of World War I whose base of political support lay in the American Legion organization of war veterans.

He was appointed deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County in 1920 during the term of Thomas Lee Woolwine and chief deputy in 1924 under Asa Keyes. He was elected lieutenant-governor in 1926 and served in the administration of Governor C.C. Young.

In 1928, Keyes was indicted for bribery (in connection with the Julian Petroleum scandal), and Fitts resigned effective Nov. 30 of that year to become a special prosecutor in that case. He was elected district attorney (the county's chief law officer) as well.

Fitts was himself indicted for bribery, and perjury, in 1934. He was accused of taking a bribe to drop a statutory rape charge against a millionaire real-estate promoter. He was acquitted in 1936 and remained as the district attorney until 1940, when he was defeated by a reform candidate, John F. Dockweiler.

On March 7, 1937, Fitts was wounded by a volley of shots fired through the windshield of his car. (Los Angeles Times, March 8, 1937, quoted in He Usually Lived With a Female, below.) Nobody was ever arrested in that case.

He joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 with the rank of major. He was chief, intelligence, Pacific Overseas Air Technical Services.

His last residence was in Three Rivers, in Tulare County, California, where he committed suicide by a pistol shot in March 1973, shortly before his 78th birthday.

[edit] External links

• For the People excerpt quoted in Los Angeles District Attorney Web site
• | Social Security Death Index
• | University of California biography

[edit] References

• For the People — Inside the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office 1850-2000 (2001) by Michael Parrish. ISBN 1-883318-15-7
• He Usually Lived With a Female: The Life of a California Newspaperman (2006) by George Garrigues. Quail Creek Press. ISBN 0-9634830-1-3