Speedy Justice

Although he was the first overage Supreme Court Justice to retire under last year's amendment to the judicial code, 78-year-old Willis Van Devanter deeply resented Franklin Roosevelt's implication that judicial gaffers were responsible for slowing up Federal court procedure. Last week, recalled to help clear the docket of the U. S. District Court for southern New York, Gaffer Van Devanter took the opportunity to put on a burst of speed that left habitues of the lower courts agape.

First defendants to file before sharp-eyed Willis Van Devanter in 28 years were a restaurant manager named Earl Frederick Palmer and his chef, Gabriel Morosi, charged with conspiracy and the passing of an altered $10.000 Treasury note which had been part of $2,000,000 stolen from United States Trust Co. of New York and Bank of Manhattan Co. in 1935-36. After tilting several times with celebrated Defense Attorney Samuel Leibowitz during the four days of the trial, Justice Van Devanter settled down to make his charge to the jury.

Exhibiting the $10,000 note, the Justice chuckled: "After a life of some years, I never saw one until this trial. There don't many men handle them. They're not like pennies and nickels."

Then, instead of directing the jury as is customary to deliberate simultaneously on all three counts of the indictments--pass-ing the note, possessing it, and conspiring to pass it--the Justice charged them to consider the first point alone. Neither Attorney Leibowitz nor Assistant U. S. Attorney John J. Dowling had ever heard of such a procedure, but they made no objection. When the jurymen returned from this simplified task in the record time of an hour and a half, announcing that they had found Palmer guilty and Morosi innocent of passing the note, Justice Van Devanter proceeded to a further time-saving innovation.

Briskly pointing out that it took two persons to make a conspiracy and that one had already been found innocent, the Justice observed: "I think that you should find a verdict of not guilty for both as to the conspiracy indictment." As for possession he suggested that they find Palmer guilty. Said he: "I am not instructing you to do so, but he couldn't have passed the bill without having possessed it." Then Justice Van Devanter gave the jury five minutes to return the indicated verdicts. The jurymen returned with them in two.

Lawyers in the courtroom goggled. Questioned by reporters, Attorney Leibowitz shrugged: "It must be right if it comes from the fountainhead."

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