Contempt of Lawyers

Federal Judge William Hawley Atwell of Dallas, a big blonde blue-eyed Texan, is a stern and conscientious jurist. For two months he has served on the bench of the Federal Court, Brooklyn, N. Y., during the absence of a resident judge. He took with him a righteous whip which he had learned to crack below the Mason-Dixon line. He flayed what he conceived to be the lax, despicable mores of New York law courts.

Last week he went home, carrying two mementos. One was a set of complimentary resolutions tendered him by admiring jurors; the other was notice of a $50,000 slander suit brought against him by Attorney F. R. Serri of Brooklyn, no admirer. And as he entrained for Texas, echoes of indignation from New York's Negro districts filled his ears.

A month ago, Judge Atwell called upon two policemen to testify that they had bought a pint of whiskey from Mrs. Angelina de Luca, defendant. Attorney Serri, counsel for the defense, remarked in his summation: "A modern miracle is a prohibition agent who tells the truth on the witness stand." Judge Atwell bristled, thought of the impeccable Texas constabulary. After the conviction he loudly rebuked Mr. Serri, said: "His recital of the bootleggers' game is astonishing to the court, and I cannot understand how any reputable attorney could have such first hand information. . . . In my country had you made such an accusation against an officer of the law he would have smashed your face before you got out of the court room." Continuing, he suggested that Mrs. de Luca should move out of the Negro neighborhood in which she lives, that she was unfortunate in her choice of counsel. The "atmosphere of a United States Court is novel to him." Then he climaxed: "Your client is now on her way to jail. Do you want to go along with her?"

Attorney Serri, fuming, not a bit rueful, retaliated with a letter of complaint to Chief Justice William Howard Taft, copies of which were sent to Attorney General John Garibaldi Sargent and the Brooklyn Bar Association. Wrote Mr. Serri: "By indirection, with almost unspeakable vulgarity . . . [Judge Atwell] practically approved and incited the repetition by the officers of such conduct in this city. I doubt whether in all judicial annals there can be found such open incitement to public disorder and breach of the peace as the words of this judge. ... I submit to you that for a Judge to act as an understudy of Providence and deliver pronouncements which are nothing but the expression of his private prejudices . . . reflecting a mixture of prejudice, naivete, ignorance and abuse of power difficult to match . . . not only merits the severest reprimand, but raises a grave question of his fitness to sit on the bench anywhere in America."

Chief Justice Taft replied that he had no jurisdiction to review the complaint. Attorney Serri, still undaunted, continued action with the slander suit, "as a test case ... to call the attention of the legal profession to the need of disciplinary power to punish judges for contempt of lawyers."