US Congressman, Attorney. Elected to represent California's 16th District in the Seventy-third and two succeeding Congresses, he served from 1933 to 1939. Dockweiler was born in Los Angeles, where his grandfather was an early Anglo settler. His father, Isidore Dockweiler, was a prominent local attorney and politician for half a century. A bout of rheumatic fever at age 16 left him with lifelong heart problems, but what he lacked in physical stamina he made up for with ambition. After graduating from USC's Law School in 1921 and some post-graduate study at Harvard, he returned home to set up private practice. He also flirted with the idea of becoming an actor before settling on what he called "the greater drama" of politics. In 1932 he supported FDR's New Deal platform and was swept into the US House of Representatives as part of that year's Democratic landslide; he ran for his second term unopposed. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1938, opting instead for a bid to secure his party's nomination in the California Governor's race, and when this failed he unsuccessfully tried to keep his Congressional seat as a write-in candidate (he came in second with 21% of the vote). In 1940 Dockweiler was elected Los Angeles County District Attorney, despite health issues that prevented him from running a vigorous campaign. His two highest-profile cases were defeats: prosecuting mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel for murder (the charges were dismissed in 1942 for lack of evidence), and actor Errol Flynn for statutory rape (Flynn was acquitted). He had better luck addressing corruption in his office, reorganizing the Bureau of Investigation so that it fell under civil-service regulation, and restricting investigators' moonlighting activities to avoid conflicts of interest. Dockweiler was investigating allegations of police brutality when he collapsed from overwork. He contracted pneumonia and died at 47.