Randolph William Thrower (September 5, 1913 – March 8, 2014) was an American attorney. He served as

Commissioner of Internal Revenue The Commissioner of Internal Revenue is the head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), an agency within the United States Department of the Treasury. The office of Commissioner was created by Congress as part of the Revenue Act of 1862. Secti ...

under President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was t ...

from 1969 to 1971.

Early life and education

Thrower was born in

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough Co ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

. He graduated from

Georgia Military Academy Woodward Academy (also known as Woodward or WA) is an independent, co-educational college-preparatory school for pre-kindergarten to 12th grade on two campuses located in College Park and Johns Creek, Georgia, United States, within the Atlanta m ...

in 1930. He received an undergraduate degree from

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of h ...

in 1934 and received his law degree from the

Emory University School of Law Emory University School of Law is the law school of Emory University and is part of the University's main campus in Druid Hills, Atlanta, Georgia. It was founded in 1916 and was the first law school in Georgia to be granted membership in the Am ...

in 1936.

Career

Following graduation from law school he joined the firm of

Sutherland Asbill & Brennan Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, rebranded to the abbreviated name of Sutherland, was an AmLaw 100 American law firm. Founded in 1924 by William Sutherland and Elbert Tuttle as Sutherland & Tuttle, the firm originally achieved national promine ...

LLP, a law firm with principal offices in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,71 ...

and

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

He became a partner and remained one until his death. Many of his early cases involved handling appeals for death row inmates in Georgia prisons. According to the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, Thrower was haunted for the rest of his life by the case of his client Will Coxson, a black teenager who had been convicted for rape. Thrower was convinced he was innocent. Thrower had just joined the

United States Marines The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through c ...

, so he let another lawyer take over the appeal, believing that Coxson would surely be acquitted by the Supreme Court of Georgia. However, Coxson was put to death while Thrower was serving in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. In 1942 he joined the FBI, then became a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, being deployed to the Philippines and Okinawa during World War II. Thrower was Chairman of the Fulton County Republican Party. In

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, are kille ...

, Thrower, running as a

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or again ...

, unsuccessfully challenged incumbent

segregationist Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Interna ...

James C. Davis James Curran Davis (May 17, 1895 – December 18, 1981) was an American politician from the state of Georgia serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1963. Davis unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination at the 1956 Dem ...

for a

seat A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but also headquarters in a wider sense. Types of seat The following are examples of different kinds of seat: * Armchair (furniture), ...

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

. In the election, he received a majority of support from Black voters. He served as

under President

from 1969 to 1971. During his tenure he revoked the tax-exempt status of private schools that excluded blacks. He also helped to draft the

Tax Reform Act of 1969 The Tax Reform Act of 1969 () was a United States federal tax law signed by President Richard Nixon in 1969. Its largest impact was creating the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was intended to tax high-income earners who had previously avoided incur ...

. However, he was alarmed by requests from the White House for the IRS to perform tax audits on Nixon's enemies. In 1971 he requested a meeting with Nixon, believing that the president would be horrified to learn that some of his aides were attempting to use the IRS for political purposes. Instead of a meeting with Nixon, he got a phone call from

John D. Ehrlichman John Daniel Ehrlichman (; March 20, 1925 – February 14, 1999) was an American political aide who served as the White House Counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon. Ehrlichman was an important ...

telling him that he was fired. He accepted the White House announcement that he had "resigned for personal reasons" and quietly returned to the Atlanta law firm. A few years later he visited the IRS headquarters on business, where he was spontaneously greeted by employees as a hero. From 1980 to 1992 he was chairman of the City of Atlanta's Board of Ethics.

Recognition

In 1993, Thrower received the

American Bar Association Medal The American Bar Association Medal (or ABA Medal) is the highest award given by the American Bar Association for "exceptionally distinguished service by a lawyer or lawyers to the cause of American jurisprudence." The ABA Board of Governors chooses ...

, the ABA's highest honor, for his public, professional, and government service. He was the recipient in 1995 of the Court of Federal Claims Special Service Award and received the Tax Section's Distinguished Service Award for 1996. In 1992 he received the Leadership Award of the Atlanta Bar Association and more recently the Segal-Tweed Founders Award of the

Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, or simply the Lawyers' Committee, is a civil rights organization founded in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy. At the time, Alabama Governor George Wallace had vowed to resist cour ...

. Thrower was presented with the "American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Eleventh Circuit" in May 2003.

Personal life

He was married for 70 years to Margaret Logan Munroe, whom he met at Emory. They lived in Atlanta and had five children. She predeceased him on February 17, 2009. He

turned 100 A centenarian is a person who has reached the age of 100 years. Because life expectancies worldwide are below 100 years, the term is invariably associated with longevity. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living cente ...

on September 5, 2013 and died on March 8, 2014, at his home in Atlanta.

Electoral history

References

External links

Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

'', October 29, 1956.
American Inns of Court, Professionalism Award Biography
*https://web.archive.org/web/20110716171324/http://www.sutherland.com/newsevents/results.aspx?Keyword=thrower&NewsType=&EventType=&Practice=&Industry=&Year=&FromSearchPage=newsevents *http://www.whitehousetapes.net/transcript/nixon/let-democrats-squeal
Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Emory University
Randolph W. Thrower papers, 1930-2014
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thrower, Randolph W. 1913 births 2014 deaths Lawyers from Tampa, Florida Lawyers from Atlanta Military personnel from Florida Federal Bureau of Investigation agents Emory University alumni Georgia (U.S. state) Republicans Commissioners of Internal Revenue Emory University School of Law alumni American centenarians Men centenarians Woodward Academy alumni 20th-century American lawyers American civil rights lawyers