Howell Thomas Heflin (June 19, 1921 – March 29, 2005) was an American lawyer and politician who represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1979 to 1997. Early life Heflin was born on June 19, 1921, in Poulan, Georgia. He attended public school in Alabama, graduating from Colbert County High School in Leighton. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1942 from Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, where he became a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. There was a tradition of politics in his family: He was a nephew of James Thomas Heflin, a prominent white supremacist politician and U.S. Senator, and great-nephew of Robert Stell Heflin, a U.S. Representative. During World War II, from 1942 to 1946, Heflin served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. He was awarded the Silver Star for valor in combat and received two Purple Heart medals, having seen action on Bougainville and Guam. After World War II, Heflin attended the University of Alabama School of Law, from which he graduated in 1948. For nearly two decades, he served as a law professor, while concurrently practicing law in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Political career In 1970, Heflin was elected Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, serving from 1971 to 1977. In 1978, Heflin was elected to the United States Senate to succeed fellow Democrat John Sparkman, who had been Adlai E. Stevenson's running mate in the 1952 presidential election. Heflin won his party's nomination by defeating U.S. Representative Walter Flowers of Tuscaloosa, a long-time George C. Wallace ally. The 1966 Republican gubernatorial nominee, former U.S. Representative James D. Martin of Gadsden, announced that he would challenge Heflin. But Martin switched to a second Senate race for a two-year term created by the sudden death of Senator James B. Allen, leaving Heflin without a Republican opponent. In March 1981, President Reagan was shot during an assassination attempt by John Hinckley, Jr., outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D. C., Hinckley being brought to trial fourteen months afterward. Heflin espoused the view that the time between the incident and the trial was part of the need for an overhauling of the criminal justice system, "so that it can more efficiently and effectively deal with the rising epidemic of violent crime in this nation", and noted the shootings of Pope John Paul II and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat as incidents that had happened