- Date Of Birth: July 1, 1938
- Date Of Death: August 29, 2012
- State: Maryland
Morton A. Sacks, a retired trial lawyer and former assistant attorney general, died of heart disease Aug. 29 at Baltimore Washington Medical Center. The Linthicum resident, who lived for 40 years in Bolton Hill, was 74.
Born in Baltimore and raised in Lochearn, he met his future wife, Marylou Botten, at Milford Mill Junior High School.
“We sat next to each other in the eighth grade,” she said. The couple went on to graduate from Milford Mill Senior High School in 1956. After service in the Army, Mr. Sacks worked as a captain’s assistant aboard merchant ships sailing out of Baltimore. He also worked at a pet shop in Woodmoor and drove a cab to help pay his tuition at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Mr. Sacks was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1963 after his graduation from the University of Maryland School of Law.
He initially set up a private practice in downtown Baltimore in the old Tower Building. “Morton was a brilliant trial lawyer. In the bar exam, he was second from the top,” said a longtime friend, C. Raymond Hartz, a retired attorney who lives in Timonium. “He was probably the most tenacious lawyer I’ve ever known. He was always highly prepared for a trial and would burn the midnight oil to assure himself that he would be ready.”
He then worked under the city State’s Attorney, William J. O’Donnell. One of his first assignments was helping to try the case against the defendants charged with the attempted assassination of Sen. Verda F.
