Jerry Dellana

1932 - 2004

Longtime District Judge Jerry Dellana dies Friends remember him as fair, devoted to the land. By Eileen E. Flynn
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, March 14, 2004

Friends and family on Sunday lauded longtime District Judge Jerry Dellana, who as Travis County justice of the peace in 1966 ruled on the deaths of University of Texas Tower gunman Charles Whitman and his victims.

Dellana died Tuesday at his home in Austin. He was 71. Visitation will be from 6 to 8 tonight. The funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at Weed-Corley-Fish, 3125 N. Lamar Blvd. Burial will follow at the Texas State Cemetery, 909 Navasota St.

Those who knew him best said Sunday that Dellana knew the law, knew the land and always seemed to know the right thing to do.

Dellana served as judge for the 201st District Court for 21 years, retiring in 1995. Before that he had been county attorney, assistant district attorney, justice of the peace and county court-at-law judge, all in Travis County. Dellana served as a visiting judge in several counties after he retired.

On Aug. 1, 1966, Dellana answered the call after Whitman fired his first shots from atop the UT Tower. Dellana said that as he drove down Lavaca Street toward 15th Street, he saw puffs of white powder around the Tower as police tried to take down Whitman. As justice of the peace, Dellana was responsible for determining the cause of death for 14 victims. He also ruled on the deaths of Whitman, who had been fatally shot by two law officers, and Whitman's wife and mother, whom Whitman had killed before climbing the Tower.

In 1989, Dellana told the American-Statesman the memory haunted him every time he drove toward campus.

Friends and colleagues remembered Dellana's no-nonsense demeanor on the bench. He could be stern but was always fair, said lawyer Charles Burton.

"I worked with many judges, and I thought Judge Dellana was right at the top," said Robert Patterson, a retired District Court administrator.

His "innate sense of justice," as one colleague described it, served Dellana well as a father, said his daughters, Deanna Dellana and Denise Tharp. "He was always right, whether we took his advice or not," Deanna Dellana said.

Born in Austin in 1932, Dellana was the youngest of four children. His family owned Dellana Ranch, what was then a rocky piece of land studded with cedar trees and infested with rattlesnakes west of Zilker Park. Dellana's grandfather, an Italian immigrant, had bought the land for next to nothing in 1905, friends said.

The family coaxed a few crops from the hardscrabble soil and hunted deer on the land that is now Rollingwood and West Lake Hills. Dellana's father burned cedar for charcoal to peddle and allowed travelers known as cedar choppers to cut trees to sell as fence posts in exchange for part of the profits.

Dellana learned self-reliance on that ranch, friends say. He was a skilled hunter, craftsman and gardener. In retirement, he loved to work the land and take care of animals.

Lawyer Roy Minton said Dellana recently cleared brush at his Hays County property.

"He was very strong man, in spite of his years," Minton said. "He could do a full day's work out in the fields just as quick as anybody 40 years younger."

As a young man, Dellana excelled in academics, earning scholarships and a life beyond the family ranch. He attended Catholic schools and earned degrees from St. Edward's University and the UT Law School. Dellana put himself through law school with a job laying tile, said Pete Lowry, a senior district judge.

Dellana was something of a Renaissance man, "not in the sense that he spoke French and studied philosophy," Lowry said. "But he laid tile and drove a bulldozer and made wonderful breads and was a great sportsman. He made his own venison sausage. He could do just about anything."

A "Texas country boy Renaissance man" may have been a more fitting title, Lowry said with a laugh.