John Howland Wood, Jr.: Life and Legacy of a Federal Judge (1916–1979)

John Howland Wood, Jr., attorney and federal judge, was born on March 31, 1916, in Rockport, Texas, to druggist-turned-lawyer John Howland Wood, Sr., and Cecelia Sophia (Browne) Wood. He was the great-great grandson of Col. John Howland Wood. In 1933 Wood Jr. graduated from San Antonio’s Jefferson High School, where he was in the Jeffersonian Forum; Hi-Y, which was affiliated with the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA); tennis team; and Latin Club. He earned a bachelor’s in business administration at St. Mary’s University in 1935. After graduating in 1938 with a bachelor of laws from the University of Texas Law School, Wood was in private practice associated with the law firm of Birkhead, Beckman, Standard & Vance in San Antonio.

John H. Wood, Jr., married Kathryn Wynter Holmes, daughter of Forest and Ida (Moeller) Holmes of Nixon, on August 17, 1941, at St. James Catholic Church in Seguin. The couple had two daughters, Kathryn and Nancy. During World War II, Wood served as an ensign in the United States Navy from 1944 to 1945 in the Pacific Asiatic Theatre, and after the war he served from 1945 through 1955 as a lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He was honorably discharged in 1958.  

After Wood’s wartime service, he returned to San Antonio where he became a full partner in the firm of Birkhead, Beckman, Standard & Vance and remained there until 1970. As an active trial lawyer, he was an attorney of record in more than 3,000 contested civil cases. Throughout his life, he enjoyed hobbies that included hunting, fishing, and tennis.

President Richard M. Nixon nominated Wood as justice of the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Texas on October 7, 1970.  After confirmation by the U. S. Senate, he was commissioned on December 1, 1970, to the post he held the rest of his life. Wood was a member of the faculty of the Federal Judicial Center, served on the Aldisert Committee on Prisoner’s Civil Rights, and supported his fellow justices on a visiting basis. Judge Wood earned the nickname, “Maximum John,” for his famed reputation for being tough on crime and dealing out lengthy prison sentences, especially to drug traffickers.

On the morning of May 29, 1979, Judge John Howland Wood, Jr., at age sixty-three, was killed outside his Alamo Heights townhome (Chateau Dijhon) in San Antonio. He was fatally wounded by one shot in the back from a high-powered rifle. Wood’s murder was the first assassination of a federal judge in the twentieth century and sparked a massive investigation by local, state, and federal law enforcement. In San Antonio, Texas Ranger Jack O’Day Dean, captain of Company D, quickly assembled a Department of Public Safety task force, consisting of three Texas Rangers, a narcotics agent, and an intelligence agent, and furnished information to the FBI that proved to be crucial in the capture of prime suspect Charles V. Harrelson. In the end, the FBI investigation of the Wood assassination was the costliest investigation in agency history to that date.

Hit man Charles Harrelson was hired by drug kingpin Jamiel “Jimmy” Chagra for $250,000 to shoot Wood before Chagra was to appear in Wood’s courtroom for sentencing for a multitude of drug trafficking convictions. Chagra had built a large drug trafficking operation and had failed in his attempt to bribe Judge Wood with as much as $10 million. Ultimately, Harrelson was convicted of murder and assessed two life sentences plus five years. Chagra, who had a separate trail in Jacksonville, Florida, was acquitted of a murder-for-hire charge but was convicted of drug smuggling and obstruction of justice.

Wood was buried in the Rockport City Cemetery in Rockport, Texas. North East Independent School District’s John H. Wood Middle School in San Antonio was named in his honor as well as the downtown federal courthouse that was renamed the John H. Wood, Jr. United States Courthouse. The courthouse, which was originally built as the United States Pavilion and Confluence Theatre for HemisFair ’68, was used until 2022, when the new federal courthouse was competed.