User:Bruin2/Floyd L. Jackson

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He was admitted to the Oklahoma Bar in 1927 and the Texas Bar in 1928. Starting his legal career in Burkburnett, Texas in 1928, he moved to Walters, Oklahoma, where he initially served as Cotton County Attorney from 1931-1936. He had a private practice from 1936 to 1942.

In 1965, Oklahoma, like a number of other states had laws and constitutional provisions on the books left over from the Jim Crow era that prohibited interracial marriages. A mixed race couple from Canadian County who had already been living together and borne two children decided to marry. The county clerk refused to issue a marriage license, citing the part of Oklahoma that prohibited mixed race marriages. The couple went to the county judge and pointed out that he could authorize such a marriage,"...when the unmarried female is pregnant or has given birth to an illegitimate child."

The state of Virginia had already wrestled with a similar case in its supreme court in which a couple (ironically named Loving) was consistently denied a marriage license in Caroline County and had to move to Maryland in order to live legally as husband and wife. They were also ordered not to return to Virginia for twenty-five years. The ACLU decided to support the Oklahoma couple in its case, and sent two of its lawyers from the Loving v. Virginia case to represent them. ACLU also cited other major cases involving race and privacy issues When Jones, Marquez and the ACLU returned to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the ACLU lawyers made their case and stated that the (U.S. Supreme Court) had already determined that, "...marriage is a fundamental right of the individual and is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment." The Oklahoma justices were clearly impressed with the presentation. Floyd L. Jackson, then serving as the Vice Chief Justice and spokesman for the court, praised the efforts of ACLU's attorneys, but the court did not reverse its opinion on the constitutionality of the law in question. The court voted unanimously that ACLU had not addressed other issues affecting marriage licensing such as parental consent to marriage of minors, a premarital exam for syphilis, and the discretionary power of the county judge to order that these other requirements be waived.

The plaintiffs' lawyers tried twice (in 1965 and 1966) to get OSC to rehear the case, but were turned down each time. They then started plans to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. At that point, the ACLU learned that Marquez no longer intended to marry Jones and intended to drop the case. (In fact, he had already come of legal age and had married a white woman.) All the legal maneuverings were moot, so the attempt to overturn the discriminatory Oklahoma law ended.

Jackson chose to retire from the court in 1972. Governor David Hall replaced Jackson with John B. Doolin, who was then practicing law in Lawton.