The Nashville attorney, activist and politician, John Jay Hooker has died after battling metastatic melanoma. He was 84-years-old.
Hooker grew up in Nashville, attending Montgomery Bell Academy and later Vanderbilt University, where he got his law degree. Hooker served as special assistant to Robert Kennedy in the ’60s, ran in the 1966 Democratic primary for governor of Tennessee (lost to Buford Ellington), ran and won the Democratic nomination in 1970 and 1998, but ultimately lost the race for Governor.
Hooker continued his work as an attorney and a political activist for years. In the 1990s, Hooker earned the moniker “gadfly” in the press after he began running repeatedly for political office as a platform to file lawsuits challenging campaign financing. He also began filing suits that challenged judicial appointments, keeping at it for nearly two decades despite losing battle after battle. He eventually earned a 30-day suspension of his law license for “frivolous litigation,” reports AP.
When Hooker was diagnosed with cancer, he began pursuing the fight to make assisted suicide legal both in the Legislature and in the courts but did not succeed before his death.
“They’ve got no right to tell me that, in my pursuit of my own peace and happiness, I can’t take my own life,” Hooker told WKRN News 2 after the ruling.
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