Jack McManus

Jack McManus

Nov. 25, 1928 - Oct. 7, 2023

FAIRBANKS, AK - Jack McManus, attorney and lifelong adventurer, died October 7, 2023, aged 94, in a hospital in Fairbanks, AK, following a fall which he suffered while preparing for his annual return to his native Wisconsin.

Jack's life did not lend itself to shorthand description. He liked to call himself a cowboy, and along with being a brilliant lawyer, he was also a passionate pilot, a traveler, a reader, a student of history, and an amiable provocateur. A 1984 Wisconsin State Journal "Know Your Madisonian" profile of Jack called him "easily the city's best-known attorney," noting: "His clients have ranged from the owners of a pet racoon confiscated by the Department of Natural Resources to Kenny Ray Reichoff, the Adams County man who was jailed for several years on charges of a murder he insisted he didn't commit. McManus won both cases: the racoon was returned to its owner and Reichoff is now a free man."

Jack McManus was born Nov. 25, 1928, in Milwaukee, WI. An only child to a union organizer father and homemaker mother, he left home at 17 to join the United States Marine Corps near the end of World War II. He served in China and helped liberate the German embassy in Shanghai. Afterward, he served briefly in the U.S. Army and received its Distinguished Military Service Certificate.

Jack enrolled first at Michigan State University and then transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, earning his undergraduate degree in 1953. While still in school he served as a teacher and recreation director at the Oregon School for Girls. On May 10, 1952, while still a student, Jack married Dorothy Kasson. An aptitude test showed he had high promise as an attorney and Jack enrolled in the University of Wisconsin Law School, graduating in 1955. Dorothy worked as a cancer researcher at UW-Madison's McArdle Laboratory to pay Jack's law school expenses.

Jack's legal career was in ascendance throughout the 1960s and '70s and his legal work sometimes led to interesting affiliations. Having represented the Winnebago Indian Nation, Jack, on July 3, 1960, was adopted into the Nation and given the Indian name, HOONCH-NA-SHEE-KAW, or Standing Bear. He had a general law practice but it was the criminal defenses that made headlines, especially in the 1970s. Along with the Reichoff case, Jack in 1976, represented a Jefferson woman named Pearl Astin accused of fatally killing her husband in their bed with a shotgun while he slept. The sensational trial brought reporters from as far as New York City. The jury was out 49 minutes. The verdict: Not guilty. In 1978, it was a highly publicized charge of misdemeanor battery for excessive spanking against Madison Baptist minister Wayne Dillabaugh at his church school. The verdict: Not guilty. In 1980, Jack fielded a call from a construction worker, Sherman Griffin, who had found on a Milwaukee construction site part of diary belonging to Arthur Bremer, the man who shot George Wallace. A legal tussle ensued - the FBI was involved - but in the end Jack won a verdict that the diary belonged to Griffin. They sold the diary to the University of Alabama School of Medicine, where Wallace had been treated.

Jack eventually eschewed his downtown office for space on his sprawling 500 acre ranch in Oregon, where he could have his home, office, and maybe most importantly, an airstrip. He had numerous airplanes, flew them often and expertly, and spoke about feeling most alive when piloting a plane. The criminal defense headlines brought personal injury clients - spurred by TV commercials in which Jack accentuated his cowboy image - and the injury cases brought greater financial success. Jack had begun to acquire property - a house on Little Cayman Island in the 1970s, and, most enduringly, two properties in Alaska, a home in Fairbanks and 65 acres with cabins north of the Arctic Circle on Lake Chandalar. He would keep - and treasure - it the rest of his life, and began referring to himself as American by birth and Alaskan by choice.

He became an Alaskan resident, inviting friends and family to visit. Jack loved the Alaskan way of life: the open spaces, limited government and taxes, respect for gun rights, and the rugged individualism of the people. Jack continued to work cases into the 2000s. He represented police organizations and police officers accused of misconduct. They revered him in return.

Jack could be anti-authoritarian, but he was a proud American, a lifelong member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Oregon Freemasons.

He is survived by his children: Linda Castle (Steve), Atlanta, GA, Tom McManus (Nicol), Maple Grove, MN, and Laurel Brown (Steve),Madison WI; two grandchildren: James McManus (Liyuan), Redmond, WA, and Matt McManus (Amanda), Eden Prairie, MN; and two great-grandchildren: Mable McManus and Winston McManus.

Jack stayed independent right to the end. He spent his last summer at Lake Chandalar, drinking rainwater from buckets, enjoying the glories of his adopted home and the life he had made for himself.

The family thanks Doug Moe for writing this tribute to Jack's life.