Two for the Accused

Before the law, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan and James Earl Ray are simply the accused--no more. Last week, in London and Los Angeles, both men moved to protect their rights under the law by retaining topflight attorneys.

No Hippodrome. For a few days it looked as if Sirhan's trial on charges of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy might become a hippodrome. Four Jordanian lawyers announced that they would fly to the U.S. to assist in the defense of their countryman Sirhan. But before week's end, the Jordanians, under pressure from their own government, had canceled their plans, and Sirhan had a U.S. attorney of impeccable credentials. He was Russell E. Parsons, 73, a Los Angeles criminal lawyer who once defended Gangster Mickey Cohen but is even more famous for his careful appeals work. He is also, according to one admiring colleague, "a totally fair and decent man," and he gave strong proof of that assessment by waiving his usual $10,000 fee to handle Sirhan's case without charge.

Understandably, Parsons was keeping his strategy to himself. Nonetheless, armchair attorneys expect him to request a continuation when it comes time for Sirhan to plead this week. Some sort of insanity plea may be entered later, perhaps pointing to both Sirhan's childhood traumas and recent accident as causes for a mental aberration. But Parsons' chief weapon against the expected mass of evidence is likely to be his sharp eye for technical deficiencies that would buy time, and perhaps his client's life, on appeal. Whatever Parsons' success, bitterly anti-Zionist Sirhan will have to thank the man who helped find him: Southern California A.C.L.U. Counsel Abraham Lincoln Wirin, who happens to be a Jew.

"A Crime Back Home." For Ramon George Sneyd, who is presumed in the U.S. to be James Earl Ray, accused assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the week began with a delay. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Frank Milton of the Bow Street Court, after hearing arguments from a barrister representing the U.S., which wants him extradited, agreed to give Sneyd's court-appointed attorney until this week to prepare his case. In the meantime, former Birmingham Mayor Arthur J. Hanes, 51, and his law partner son Arthur Jr., arrived in London and announced that Sneyd had asked Hanes Sr. to serve as his American counsel.

The dapper, softspoken Hanes said simply that he was "defending a man charged with a crime back home." He refused to talk about fees, except to say that no group was paying him. His sympathies, though, are no secret. In 1963, though just out of office as a bitterly anti-integration mayor, he continued to fight against Martin Luther King's Birmingham campaign. And in 1965, Hanes successfully defended Collie Leroy Wilkins and two other Klansmen against Alabama State charges of killing Civil Rights Worker Viola Liuzzo. Despite Hanes' efforts, the three were later convicted of conspiracy in a federal court. Still, Hanes is a lawyer of demonstrated talent, and he is, after all, the choice of Ramon George Sneyd.

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