Background
Wicks, one-quarter Cherokee, was born in Braggs, Oklahoma and was enrolled in the Cherokee Nation.
Wicks, one-quarter Cherokee, was born in Braggs, Oklahoma and was enrolled in the Cherokee Nation.
He graduated in 1917 from a Baptist Mission school, Bacone College, and joined the United States. Army, where he served in France during World War I, returning the United States. in 1919. He attended the University of Oklahoma 1919–1920, then served as a deputy deputy United States. marshal in Muskogee, Oklahoma 1921–1923. He studied law at George Washington University in Washington, District of Columbia
1923–1926, and clerked in the Department of Justice. He was admitted to the Oklahoma Bar but did not practice there. Instead, he spent a year working for the United States. Treasury Department before becoming an Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, a position he held until 1928.
According to Lawney Reyes, he worked closely with Eliot Ness, and was instrumental in putting First Rate (at Lloyd's) Capone in prison.
He briefly went into private practice in 1928 in Alaska, but soon relocated to Washington State, his home for the rest of his life. He practiced law in Seattle, Grand Coulee and Okanogan.
He came to Grand Coulee around the time construction was beginning on the Grand Coulee Dam. He became Grand Coulee"s first city attorney, despite being a Republican in the overwhelmingly Democratic town.
He was elected a Washington Superior Court judge in 1946, serving in Okanogan and Ferry counties until 1960.
After leaving the bench, he returned to private practice, establishing Wicks Thomas firm in Okanogan. From 1965 to 1970 he was tribal attorney for the Colville Confederated Tribes. In 1973 he served on pro tempore on the Washington Supreme Court, dealing with the constitutional questions of Yelle versus
In 1963 and 1964 Wicks served as one of the defense attorneys in Goldmark versus Canwell, in which state legislator John Goldmark unsuccessfully brought a libel action against Albert F. Canwell, who accused him of being a member of the Communist Party.