Pathologist-Lawyer Believes in Tying Up Loose Ends on Job

Dr. Griffith D. Thomas of Sherman Oaks has developed a case of phone phobia.

These days he never knows whether a caller wants to talk about business, murder and mayhem or bow ties.

Thomas, 54, both a pathologist and a lawyer, has made news recently because of his choice of neckwear. Along with his sharp wit, his sharp ties have gained him some measure of fame.

But because he has served as an expert witness in many murder cases, particularly when DNA is an issue, he has received calls from TV producers who want him to tie up the O. J. Simpson case into sound bites.

That idea is so ignorant it makes him angry. Thomas does like to talk about his sartorial splendor and doesn’t mind getting caught up in the knotty question of common ties versus bow ties.

That began when he was profiled in the Los Angeles Daily Journal and mentioned the benefits of performing autopsies in a bow tie.

He repeated part of that explanation in a letter to California Lawyer magazine.

He wrote, in part: “I enjoyed your article on bow ties in Style and thought you would enjoy my ultimately pragmatic reason (as a lawyer and a physician who conducts autopsies) for wearing bow ties for over 30 years.

“When I’m doing an autopsy, a regular tie will fall into the corpse’s thoracic cavity,” he wrote.

The comment was printed all over the country.

Thomas didn’t know whether to be flattered by the attention or not.

But he was definitely happier talking to fellow professionals about the question than he was with having to repeatedly turn down the jaundiced journalists from certain television shows who assumed he would go on camera and make pronouncements about the Simpson case whether he had all the facts or not.

The money offered, he says, would have made it worth his time and energy.

A man with a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University, a medical degree from USC and a jurisprudence degree from UCLA who is board-certified in anatomical, clinical and forensic pathology, Thomas says ties are good talking points but forensic medicine should be left to those working on a case.

Thomas, who did his pathology residency at Yale University after graduating at the top of his medical school class, thought picking up a law degree would be easy.

“I did very badly the first year. I struggled to keep up,” he says. “There is a tremendous difference in the way of thinking between law and medicine. I had to retrain my thinking in order to graduate,” he says.

After finishing medical school he did a tour of duty with the U.S. Public Health Service. He went to Japan as a member of a commission that interviewed survivors of the atomic bomb blasts. He says it changed his life.

Until then a political conservative, he became a practicing liberal, championing those he felt were misunderstood and under-represented, including those in right-to-die cases, victims of AIDS and other controversial causes.

He is married to a former Catholic nun and now co-chairs the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.’s bioethics committee, an area of law he thinks will grow more and more complex.

And he continues to wear bow ties.

Fall on Head Clears Vision of North Hollywood Woman

When she was 22, Jerrilyn Miller was at a Malibu party with her boyfriend. They’d been drinking and arguing, and when she backed away from him, she fell off a 30-foot cliff.

She was banged up badly. She remembered nothing. Nothing at all, says Miller, now 50.

“I must have been in the hospital for weeks and couldn’t remember anything that happened before I arrived,” she says.

Later she shined shoes in Hollywood, and then sold sandwiches at A&M; Records and at 20th Century Fox Studios. She went through a rotten marriage, and a divorce.

When the graduate of North Hollywood High School inherited enough money several years ago so that she didn’t need to work, she decided to devote herself to good works.

“I just do little things, like carrying around dog food in my car for homeless people with animals,” Miller says. “I write articles for the Valley Storefront in North Hollywood and about the people who work and volunteer there.”

“I have written several plays and had them produced in the Valley,” says Miller. “I know it could have turned out differently if my parents and friends hadn’t been there for me,” she says.

“I like to commit random acts of kindness, like giving little girls ribbons, or doing a favor for someone. I know what goes around comes around,” she adds.

Overheard:

“He’s in touch with his inner child. I wish he would meet up with his outer adult.”

Studio City woman to a friend.