Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
CHAPTER ONE
❀
A STRANGE DAY
really need such a large area for lawyers when City Hall
was first constructed, before high tech equipment, video
projectors, screens and TVs were brought into court?
What cases had this room seen when this courtroom was
new? Did judges back then sometimes allow their
thoughts to drift as mine did as this dispute between two
partners, who had never raised a voice to each other as
long as there had been sufficient cash to divide tax free
but now needed to wrap up their sordid affairs, with
testimony which droned on and on with irrelevant
details?
As I looked around the courtroom wondering
what kinds of cases were heard during hot stuffy
summers in a room without air conditioning, I realized
that two of the four window air conditioners, which
under normal circumstances managed to barely keep the
courtroom at a tolerable temperature, had ceased
functioning entirely. Although that meant I was able to
hear more clearly, it also meant, as I shortly became
acutely aware as I sat in my oversized, overstuffed
judicial chair that the room had gotten not
inconsequentially hotter. Indeed, little beads of sweat
began to form on my forehead and a clammy feeling
arose in that humid environment. Oddly, I was also
beginning to feel a chill. I focused on the area below the
bench where my court reporter’s fingers flew on her
machine hypnotically clickity-clacking away. As I leaned
back in my chair, the testimony droning on seemed to
fade as a not quite dizzy feeling swept over me. I leaned
THE TRIALS OF A COMMON PLEAS JUDGE 4
CHAPTER TWO
❀
AND TO EVERYONE’S SURPRISE
CHAPTER THREE
❀
ACCEPTANCE (OF SORTS) AND A SAD LOSS
CHAPTER FOUR
❀
AN EDUCATION BEGINS
CHAPTER FIVE
❀
A SURPRISING REALIZATION
CHAPTER SIX
❀
A GREAT JUDGE
to him that Clyde had not yet learned the extent of this
family feud.
Judge Morgan understood human nature, people,
and, most important, the dynamics of courtroom trials.
THE TRIALS OF A COMMON PLEAS JUDGE 44
THE TRIALS OF A COMMON PLEAS JUDGE 45
CHAPTER SEVEN
❀
A HALLOWEEN IN COURT
CHAPTER EIGHT
❀
A JUDGE’S PASSION
CHAPTER NINE
❀
A VARIETY OF APPROACHES
CHAPTER TEN
❀
SETTLED IN PRINCIPLE
CHAPTER ELEVEN
❀
JUDGE FELDSPAR’S TRIALS
CHAPTER TWELVE
❀
TOO INSIGNIFICANT FOR PRECIOUS JUDICIAL TIME
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
❀
NEGOTIATION BY OTHER MEANS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
❀
THE 7TH WARD LADIES AUXILIARY OF THE ARCH
STREET LONGSHOREMEN’S ASSOCIATION
the city had the absolute power and right to close and
destroy a dangerous municipal-owned pier. Neither can
I be certain that the choice of assignment to Judge
Pieroer, the only Democrat upon that otherwise fully
Republican court, had not been designed to pose to him
the moral dilemma of entering a popular but legally
indefensible decision or an unpopular decision that could
lead to election defeat.
Injunctions were also used for other purposes. In
one of the few years when the Democrats managed to
achieve the governorship and also briefly control the
Pennsylvania Senate, a Democrat had been appointed to
fulfill an unexpired term of another staunchly partisan
Republican court. Needless to say this did not go over
well with either the other members of the court to which
he was appointed or its President Judge. This occasioned
secret discussions about how to ensure his failure at the
election six months later. Although his election was
unlikely at best because of the overwhelmingly
Republican sentiment in the city and the totally
unfounded but widely circulated rumors of his sluggardly
behavior on the bench, it happened that a very specific
case came up that played directly into the hands of those
who wanted his tenure limited.
It seemed that certain ladies of the night and—it
was alleged, although proof of this fact has never been
presented in public—certain gentlemen of the night as
well, had begun to occupy rooms in an upscale
neighborhood at Second Street north of Market that they
rented out by the hour. Although any business was
conducted in private in the boarding houses near the
THE TRIALS OF A COMMON PLEAS JUDGE 103
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
❀
BASHING
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
❀
SURELY MCSORELY
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
❀
A SURPRISING FAREWELL
smell that something was wrong. The son kept his wife
and children behind as he discovered the sad truth.
Cratchit’s family called on the J.J. Mahoney
Funeral Home at 6th and Arch, which promptly sent out
a fancy horse-drawn hearse to gather the remains and
arrange for the funeral. A week later at the funeral home,
Rev. Paulson, the entire family, and twenty mourners of
all ages (including some who had worked with grandpop
Cratchit before he retired sixteen years earlier) arrived
to give him a final goodbye.
The funeral home did its best to clean up
Cratchit’s body and make it presentable even though it
had lain in its bed undiscovered for three days. Despite
their best efforts, they determined that a closed casket
was necessary. Nonetheless, the family was permitted
into the back room of the chapel for one last open-casket
farewell to grandpop. Upon opening the casket,
however, quizzical looks appeared on the faces of the
family and, for a time, they were all speechless. Finally,
grandchild Amanda, age 15, spoke what everyone was
thinking: “That’s not grandpop.”
All the family members immediately agreed that
the body looked something like Cratchit but that it really
was not their beloved “Pop.” Rev. Paulson, supported by
J.J. Mahoney himself, reassured everyone that in fact it
was. J.J. told the family that people do look different
after laying in the heat for three days following their
demise and after the funeral parlor had done their best to
try for an open casket funeral. He reassured everyone
that the body before them was, in fact, grandpop.
THE TRIALS OF A COMMON PLEAS JUDGE 128
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
❀
THE LAZARUS DEFENSE
heartbeat, the child was clearly dead, but that the child
had miraculously come back to life when it was born an
hour and fifteen minutes later at 2:10 a.m.!
According to Dr. Contriallo, the hospital nurse
told him she could not locate any fetal heartbeat using
the bedside stethoscope. Dr. Contriallo examined
Darlene Michaelson using state of the art advanced
medical equipment, the magnetostepescoptica
spirometer provided by Union Memorial. Dr. Contriallo
testified that the magnetostepescoptica spirometer was
the new “gold standard” for examining heart function in
a fetus. Barrow asked Dr. Contriallo specifically about
the advanced technology of the equipment:
A: Correct.
A: Without a doubt.
A: That is correct.
A: Absolutely not.
Mason continued:
A: True.
A: Yes, I have.
THE TRIALS OF A COMMON PLEAS JUDGE 143
A: Yes, I have.
A: Yes.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
❀
THE THREE T’S
CHAPTER TWENTY
❀
A NICE DILEMMA
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
❀
TURNABOUT IS FAIR OR FOUL
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
❀
A BOUQUET OF IRISES
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
❀
A FUNERAL OF FUN
Traitz he was given his own room just off the main hall
where the condolences line to greet the family snaked in
and out. Everyone seemed somber but not terribly
distressed, which was understandable since Bonelli was
in his eighties and had lived a long and productive life.
No one cried except for two attractive women in their
30’s who I noticed sitting in the back row, on opposite
sides, crying and sometimes receiving tissues and soft
words from apparent admirers who hung around each.
Occasionally I noticed a stern glance thrown from one to
the other. I never did learn who they were except to be
told by a city council aide that they were Bonelli’s nieces.
But the aide was gone before I could ask why the nieces
hadn’t been in the receiving line or why they seemed so
antagonistic to each other.
The casket was loaded into the hearse, everyone
got into their carriage and the processions processed to
the cathedral on 18th Street. Traitz, of course, having no
staff—indeed, not even having been sworn in—was
invited to ride with the mayor, who assigned two aides
to help him through what the mayor knew would be a
very tiring day. The mayor even provided a carriage for
snub-nosed Clemons and burly Bostic, who he had
assigned to shepherd Traitz around and to act as both
maître d’ and security for the soon to be councilman.
After an unusually long service which blended
indistinguishably between religious and political
speeches, Traitz was ready for bed—and perhaps a
nightcap. Clemons and Bostic were right on the
nightcap, guiding Traitz to every bar in his district,
where Traitz was roundly toasted and congratulated and
THE TRIALS OF A COMMON PLEAS JUDGE 198
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
❀
THE MASTER OF HIS FATE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
❀
THE FALL
the Oomp Pah Pah band that had been put on the
phonograph specifically for that purpose. I was
astonished that Traitz even knew the words, even though
they were only three repeated interminably. I later
learned from one of the flunkies of the Traitz entourage
that he had been forewarned and told to learn the words
and tune before going to the ward. Remarkable was the
event, every candidate singing, however badly, in front
of the assembled masses in the pub. I’d never seen
anything like it before. That same aide later confided, “If
O’Neil can get candidates to sing in public, think of what
else O’Neil could later get them to do behind closed
doors.”
Council President Swartz called Traitz in for a
meeting and suggested he bring his chief of staff,
Swanson, along. Carefully “tutoring” Traitz in the ways
of City Council, the president carefully asked Traitz just
what he hoped to accomplish. Prodding, cajoling, and
gently suggesting the reality of life in the early 1900’s,
the president came to clearly understand that the newly
radicalized city councilman was beyond practical
redemption. Traitz had so become enamored of his
radical transformative ideas that he completely failed to
mention the things he truly could have accomplished,
things Swartz would have gladly arranged—things like
street signs and sidewalks for his neighbors, the things
that originally caused Traitz to run his protest campaign.
Instead, forgetting (if he ever knew) that politics is the
art of the possible, without even consulting his fellow
councilmen to find out what was possible, Traitz
discussed a living minimum wage, child protection laws,
THE TRIALS OF A COMMON PLEAS JUDGE 221
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
❀
STRANGER IN MY OWN TOWN