The United States Courthouse, Washington, D.C. — Courtesy, The National Archives AN ANECDOTAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 1801-1976 By MATTHEW F. McGUIRE SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE "When the public mind is agitated, when wars, and rumors of wars, plots, conspiracies and treasons excite alarm, it is the duty of a court to be peculiarly watchful lest the public feeling should reach the seat of justice, and thereby precedents be established which may be come the ready tools of faction in times more disastrous. The worst of precedents may be established from the best of motives. We ought to be upon our guard lest our zeal for the public interest lead us to overstep the bounds of the law and the Constitution; for although we may thereby bring one criminal to punishment, we may furnish the means by which an hundred innocent persons may suffer. "The Constitution was made for times of commo tion. In the calm of peace and prosperity there is seldom great injustice. Dangerous precedents occur in dangerous times. It then becomes the duty of the judi ciary calmly to poise the scales of justice, unmoved by the arm of power, undisturbed by the clamor of the multitude . ." —William Cranch, Chief Judge, dissenting: United States v. Bollman and Swartout, D. C. Reports 1, Cranch 1, December Term 1806 at Washington (January 23, 1807). Foreword This is not intended in any sense as a formal history of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Anecdotal and episodic, its only purpose is to point up the great traditions of a great Court, a Court unique in origin yet an integral part of the fed eral system. It has been written as time and opportunity provided and appeared originally for the most part in the Journal of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia from January to May 1966. It has now been rewritten to a large extent together with such emenda tions as were found necessary and the addition of new material, in order to point up the fact that the Court actually had its genesis in that of the Republic now celebrating in this Year of Our Lord its bicentennial year. By way of acknowledgment, thanks are expressed to Miss Eleanor Carr who typed the original manuscript and is responsible for the format and editorial work in general, to Chief Judge William Blakely Jones, Jr. who graciously wrote the preface and to former Chief Judge George L. Hart who with Chief Judge Jones read the proofs and gave helpful criticism and suggestions, to the Clerk of Court Mr. James F. Davey and Helene T. Beale for their help in obtaining illustrations. If there are any errors they are the author's own. VI 1 Preface This is a history of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia which was created by an Act of Congress in 1801. It is not a dry recording of detailed minutiae. Rather it is a readable work; an exciting story of people and events which for almost two centuries have made their entrances and their in evitable exits in the human drama of court trials. Judge Matthew F. McGuire, the author, comes well qualified as the story teller. A distinguished jurist, he has served this Court faithfully and well in the solemn responsibility of admin istering justice. His career as a member of this Court com menced in 1941. For six years he led this Court as the Chief Judge. He continues to lead the Court in wit and wisdom and to render his invaluable services as a Senior Judge. All who read this history will feel indebted to him for what he has recounted here. The Judges of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia proudly present this work as a contribution to this nation's Bicentennial Celebration. William B. Jones Chief Judge IX Contents Frontispiece, The Courthouse, Washington, D.C ,. ii Foreword vii Preface ix How Like The Unlike 1 As It Was In The Beginning— 7 And For Fifty Years Thereafter 19 The Dentist, and the General-To-Be 29 Even The Law Must Be Loyal 39 The Judge and The Lady 53 Who Mailed the Letter? 69 Summer Solstice 81 The Little Bronze Button 95 The Ghost Still Walks 99 A Miscellany of Men and Things 115 Up From The Vasty Deep 123 The Twilight of the Gods 125 Potpourri 131 The Bench, Past and Present 135 Addenda 137 Bibliography 141 Appendix: Laying of the Cornerstone of the United States Courthouse 145 XI How Like The Unlike As the recent Watergate Trials in the early 1970's demon strated, when large groups queued up and waited for hours in the hope of entering the courtroom, the conduct of trials at law has always stimulated an avid if not peculiar interest. Criminal courtrooms have never been at a loss for spectators. For here, so it seems, is theater in the real, the stuff of which drama is made: tragedy, sometimes stark and raw, passion in its most virulent manifestations, comedy which outsmarts not only the stage, but often enough the fantastic and the bizarre. The ancient Greeks were early aware of this odd preoccupa tion with other people's troubles. It was pity, they said, aroused in the mind of the onlooker for the individual caught up by the Fates in circumstances that were hastening him to a doom already fashioned, with a corresponding fear also —a fear of life itself with its uncertainties and vicissitudes. They called it tragedy. They were the first playwrights. In Britain the quaint practice has developed, always after the fact of course, of perpetuating some of the most notorious crimes in popular print. This, if not for the information of the reading public, then certainly for its entertainment —again the theater. Thus we find a few of the more violently dead achieving a notoriety or a fame, even if it be merely in the annals of crime, which would have otherwise been denied them—and the same for the perpetrators of that crime, which DeQuincy referred to as a fine art. Thus did Dr. Crippen, by the simple expedient of murdering his wife, and John Reginald Halliday Christie of recent day who not only murdered his wife but half a dozen other women, go down in British history along with the Iron Duke, Queen Victoria and numerous other famed of the stout little isle. True, the fame of Crippen and Christie is of another character, yet fame it is, and that which would never have been theirs had they not for a moment as history records time, stepped out of the law-abiding mass and thus taken their respective places in the history of British crime. So it is that the proceedings in London's Central Criminal Court, still colloquially known as the Old Bailey, have long evoked a world-wide interest. The origins of this famous Court go back deeply into the history of England. Today the name alone survives. Its judges no longer ascend the Bench with their nosegays of sweet herbs to stifle the stench from the prison pens below. The structure which houses today's Court dates back to 1907, standing as it does at the corner of Newgate and Old Bailey Streets in the heart of London not far from famous Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street, with the dome of St. Paul's in the distance. During World War II it was severely damaged but has since been completely restored. Over the years in its dock have stood, facing the bewigged and robed dignity of the full majesty of British law, such defendants as Oscar Wilde, Seddon the Poisoner, Joseph Smith of "Brides of the Bath" fame, the notorious Dr. Neal Cream, Dr. Crippen, Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce), and others more or less in famous, from murderers and traitors to pick-pockets and de faulters —the whole gamut of what society calls crime. We in America, in a country now celebrating its bicentennial, are not far behind in our own criminal "who's who." But the spread is as great as the country. Massachusetts has contributed Lizzie Borden, New York Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray, New Jersey its unsolved Hall-Mills case and Bruno Richard Haupt- mann, Chicago its gangland and St. Valentine's Day killings, California latterly its Manson gang, to mention a few of the more notorious crimes of passion, homicidal violence, and sheer bestiality. Even Congressional hearings, as remote from a trial at law as the Himalayas are from Pennsylvania Avenue, have their fol lowers, numbering in the millions when telecast. The British, in their portrayal of such matters with their usual fidelity to fact, present them as they are, or were. Rarely do they enlarge upon the obvious, being masters of the subtle art of suggestion. As far as courtroom scenes are concerned, the underlying purpose al ways present, apart from the essentials of the story, is to portray the majesty and fairness of Her Britannic Majesty's courts. We Americans do it quite differently. We seem to have an inherent aversion to letting well enough alone. If it is a play involving historical fact and history gets in the way then it may be diluted or strained or, what is worse, rewritten. And as for the courtroom, a little melodrama will help even at the sacrifice of truth, good order and good taste. And so, with the "crooked" lawyer, "stupid" prosecutor, and "corrupt" police, the much put-upon defendant and the inept "gavel swinging" judge, the portrayal of the administration of justice in American courts finally shows up as something half-way between hoopla and East Lynne.