To Texans, he was unforgettable. As Dallas County prosecutor from 1950 to 1986, Wade never lost a case he personally tried. His office racked up convictions  some, it later turned out, falsely — at the pace of a prize thoroughbred. He prosecuted Jack Ruby after he shot and killed Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the Dallas police headquarters in 1963.

And yet to the rest of the country, Wade is largely forgotten, a fact that boggles the mind given that his name is attached to perhaps the most controversial Supreme Court decision in U.S. history.

Roe v. Wade

This summer Wade’s name has been in the news again as the Senate weighs the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, who could be the fifth justice needed to overturn the landmark abortion decision. On Wednesday, asked repeatedly about the case, Kavanaugh declined to say whether it was decided correctly.