Get Me Ellis Rubin! 1

Get Me Ellis Rubin! 1 Get Me Ellis Rubin! By Ellis Rubin and Dary Matera Get Me Ellis Rubin! 2 Introduction When I was thirteen years old, growing up in Binghamton, New York, I summoned up the courage to go on a camping trip with my Boy Scout troop. I wasn't afraid of being out in the woods at night. It was the thought of being with a group of people that terrified me. I had a severe stammering problem, and kids sometimes made fun of me. I decided to go on this outing because I knew there'd be at least one person I could spend time with. He was my best friend and had never been put off by my handicap. His father owned a meat market a block away from where my father operated an Army/Navy store. We were about the same age and had been friends for years. My friend was unusual in his own way. He had a strange and wonderful imagination. As we sat apart from the other campers, in the dark of the woods, alert to the spooky night sounds, my friend began telling stories. He spoke of life on other planets and had some delightful views on the types of beings he imagined would be found there. He talked about traveling to these worlds, time travel, ghosts, and the possibility of freezing time. He told me about extra-sensory perception, the meaning of dreams, reincarnation, and being able to read minds. My friend had an endless string of "what if" stories to tell, and I was spellbound. He wanted to be a writer, and I was certain he would Get Me Ellis Rubin! 3 succeed. My best friend's name was Rod Serling. He became the writer he dreamed of being, and more. As the creator of the television show, "The Twilight Zone," Rod became one of the most influential mystery and science fiction minds in history. I can't describe how it felt, and how it still feels, to turn on a television and see one of Rod's engrossing campfire stories come to life. Back then, I was so certain that Rod would attain his dream that I was almost too embarrassed to tell him mine. I wanted to be a defense attorney like Clarence Darrow and Sam Leibowitz. I read everything I could get my hands on about them, including transcripts from their trials. I spent hundreds of hours alone at the library, imagining myself as a golden-tongued attorney pleading sensational cases before juries. But I was a stammerer. I could never be like Clarence Darrow and Sam Leibowitz until I overcame my speech impediment. "You'll make it," Rod would say, never once laughing with the others or discouraging me. "Don't worry. The stammering will go away. You'll be a great lawyer one day." When I was down over my inability to speak, Rod would cheer me up with a tale about an attorney defending a three-eyed creature from another planet. I'd laugh and feel better. His confidence gave me a boost. Incredible as it sometimes seems, I did attain my dream of becoming a trail lawyer. It wasn't easy. I labored Get Me Ellis Rubin! 4 to overcome my stammering and stuttering and made great strides, but I still had the problem when I graduated law school. It was preposterous to think a stammerer could perform in a courtroom. I conceded as much and intended to return home, help my father run the Army/Navy store, and then branch into legal research or another area where I could hide behind a desk and silently make a living. I was thoroughly depressed when I sank into my chair at the 1951 University of Miami Law School commencement. I had come so far, but ultimately had lost. When I looked up, I couldn't believe my eyes. There at the podium stood Sam Leibowitz! He was the keynote speaker. Leibowitz was the famous New York attorney who went to Alabama to save the lives of nine black men falsely accused of raping two white women in the classic "Scottsboro Boys" case. I knew the transcript by heart. Leibowitz gave an unforgettable speech that afternoon. Full of conviction, he told us that defense attorneys were the key to keeping America free. He said the protective ideals of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights were constantly under attack. The "authorities" were chipping away at the right to a fair trial, presumption of innocence until proven guilty, unreasonable search and seizure, and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. He warned us that the old guardians like himself were dying out, and without a new generation to take up the fight, America would succumb to a re-emergence of robber barons and torture chamber Get Me Ellis Rubin! 5 confessions. The average man and woman would be stripped of their dignity and liberty, and would be legally and economically enslaved. Leibowitz challenged us to take the torch he was passing, become defense attorneys and protect America. It was as if he was speaking directly to me. I wanted to leap out of my seat, grab the flaming torch I imagined him holding, and charge into the first courtroom I could find. Because of Leibowitz's speech, I decided to remain in Miami and become a defense attorney -- stammering or no stammering. Shortly afterward, I got my first case. A black man named Henry Larkin had shot and killed a man in the hallway of his apartment building. He was charged with murder. Larkin said the man had come after him with a knife. In those days, there were no public defenders. Everyone was on their own. Groups of young attorneys used to mill around in court, laugh at all the judge's jokes, volunteer for cases and hope to be appointed. I was hanging around the courthouse when someone told me about Larkin. I went to the jail. He nearly cried when I offered to represent him. The day before the trial, my first trial, I read in The Miami Herald that Leibowitz, then a New York judge, was back in town for another speech. I found out where he was staying and went to his hotel. "Mr. Leibowitz," I stammered, standing paralyzed at Get Me Ellis Rubin! 6 his door, case file in hand. "I was in the audience when you gave the ca, ca, commencement address here. I became a defense attorney because of what you said. Now I'm facing mm, mm, my first case tomorrow. Can you give me some help?" It was an incredible intrusion, and I must have been one pathetic sight. Leibowitz just smiled and invited me in. He then proceeded to outline my entire defense. He raised his eyebrows everytime I tripped over a word, but never said a thing about my speech impediment. The next day, I stood before twelve people in a court of law. The life of Henry Larkin was in my hands, or more precisely, in my misfiring mouth. Only instead of fear, something strange came over me. I felt taller and stronger, and for the first time in my life, I was confident. My own troubles vanished and were replaced by the far greater problems of Henry Larkin. He was a good, honest man who had never broken the law in his life. It was up to me to convince a jury that he had acted in self-defense and shouldn't be sent to the electric chair. I talked for hours that day, remembering everything Sam Leibowitz taught me and pleading in every sense of the word for the man's life. I was raw and unskilled, but enthusiastic and determined. The jury was out three minutes. When they returned, the judge joked, "What took you so long?" The foreman, a local newspaper columnist name Jack Bell, joked back, "We had to take a cigarette break to make Get Me Ellis Rubin! 7 it look good." The verdict was not guilty. Henry Larkin hugged me and broke down in tears. A newspaper reporter was in the courtroom and wrote a story the next day about the green young attorney saving the black man's life. But there was one thing the story didn't mention. I hadn't stammered once during my entire argument. I hardly ever did again. I tried to call Sam Leibowitz, but he had left town. Needing to share my multifaceted victory with someone, I called Rod and told him about "the miracle" of my untangled tongue. He was elated. Then he grew serious. "Ellis, it's a sign!," he proclaimed. "You've found your place in time. You were destined to speak for the innocent and oppressed. Never forget that!" Rod was quick to see some unexplained universal phenomenon in practically everything. In his eyes, what happened to me could only have happened in "The Twilight Zone." Actually, stammerers and stutterers have been known to lose their handicap in similar situations. Country singer Mel Tillis is but one example. Still, who can say? Some of us like to live in a world where everything has a clear-cut explanation. Others, the more romantic among us, prefer Rod Serling's landscape where anything is possible. As an attorney dealing with facts, figures and provable documentation, I should be steadfastly entrenched in the Get Me Ellis Rubin! 8 physical world. In reality, I often wander into that other, more interesting place. For whatever reason, Rod's words have stayed with me throughout my life.

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