Conference on racism in the law ; no.2: "Recruiting Blacks into the bar" and "Racism in the courtroom" ; Conference on racism in the law

Our first Pam will deal with the recruitment into the bar itself and to serve as the moderator of that panel. Jerome Carlin who is both a lawyer and a sociologist and the director of the San Francisco neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation one of the most creative and legal assistance foundations in this country. It was the virtual exclusion of minority persons especially negroes from the legal profession as Judge Crockett has mentioned is of course a reflection of the racist society in which we live. This exclusion of minority persons is also in large part what we mean by racism in the law. And a major factor that reinforces racism in the legal process.

As we've heard there are less than 1 percent of the students enrolled in law schools today are negroes. One percent of the bar are negroes in New York's 30 there was a great advance made from 1900 to 9000 60 and there was a shift from point three percent of the lawyers in the New York City who were negro to 1 percent and 19 this thanks to. The few negroes who are in private practice are fired find themselves at the at the lower end of of the bar as the judges mentioned with the least affluent clients making the least money at the end of the profession doing the the unpleasant work of the bar. The exclusion of of the marginal position of the negro in the bar is that it is not just a problem of the negro and a problem of all minority persons.

Even now the those in control of the bar the leadership of the bar in most cities are still tend to be the old Americans. The white Anglo-Saxon Protestant the efforts to do something about this problem to increase the number of minority persons and especially negroes in the bar's problem that has been deferred for a long time. The law schools themselves in the past have done very little. I think it's of some significance. That it took I think the initiative of the OIO legal services program to really begin to move the law schools to do something about it to locate and find the resources through foundations and others to make a start I remember there was a conference meeting a year ago in Washington. Chuck Baumbach who was the founder of the legal service program here in San

Francisco and myself were there with their old Johnson's national director of legal services and we we all made sure and invited the representatives of the Association American law schools to sit down and talk hard talk about what is going to be done to try to do something about this problem. Our speaker though this morning on this topic travel Stoltz who's Professor of Law at Boalt Hall and also chairman of the admissions committee at Boalt Hall has been working on these problems and he will speak to us about I think some very hopeful programs that are in the offing with the help of the Ford Foundation in a way o to begin to move in this direction of increasing the number of Negro or other minority persons in the bar but I think it's very important to point out that it won't be enough simply to divert the so

called qualified students who may be going into some other field to come into the law or even to do something about the admittedly biased LSA t of. A measure for determining qualified law students. We have to move beyond this from beyond just trying to divert into it to locate and identify qualified Negro and other minority students in the bar we have to do. We have to find those who may not be qualified and there has to be a crash program to try to reach that larger population to really make an increase a meaningful increase in the number of Negro and other minority persons in the bar at this point let me introduce to you prevalence Stoltz who will speak to you on what is being done now in the effort to recruit increasing number of Negro and other minority persons into the vote. Thank you to Atlanta. Thank you Jerry.

Judge Crockett and Jerry together have set forth I think more than adequately what the problem is that we in the law school world in general. See there aren't enough Negro lawyers and obviously one of the principal obstacles to increasing the number of Negro lawyers is to get more Negro a law school graduate. Our problem is to try and find applicants and to admit applicants admit more Negro and minority applicants generally. I think it's fair to say that for at least five and probably 10 years most of the prestige of law schools in the country have been

applying some kind of. And hesitate to use the word discriminatory practice with respect to admissions. When we can see a negro or a Mexican-American applicant we apply. We have applied and we certainly are now currently applying a different standard for admission. The basic test we're applying I think generally this is certainly true of my own law school is whether or not the applicant can successfully complete the program. There were some disastrous experiments along a somewhat broader line in some of the Eastern law schools some years ago where they admitted nearly anybody who had who was of a minority background that proved to be disastrous when after admitting nothing was done to assist these students with their special problems as a result large numbers of

them failed out. That was doing nobody a kindness. And I had as a result of that. Increasing attention is being paid to the special problems that these applicants and students have. They typically have a weaker undergraduate background. And they typically also have very severe financial problems much the easiest problem to deal with is the financial problem. And there are in many law schools now as there are and there is a ball hall special scholarship fund available to minority applicants. Recently a special group of the American Association of law schools in cooperation with the Ford Foundation has set up a program which is called Clio the Council of

legal educational opportunities which is designed to try and meet this problem on a somewhat broader scale. They are going to provide some scholarships assistance to minority applicants for law schools throughout the country. In addition they have set up two special types of special programs. The first is a program designed for students of minority backgrounds who have applied to and have been admitted or are marginally. Capable of being admitted into law school run during the summer between their graduation from college and their entrance into law school. The idea of the program is to give these give these applicants potential students a kind of Head Start program. The focus is obviously going to be on giving these students some contact with legal material so they'll have an advantage over their class over their future

classmates. Give them some special training or some special emphasis on the skills that some of them are weak in or many of them are weak in primarily. English composition and reading all these things are very important and very helpful and I don't don't want to minimize them. However the basic problem is not. Either special admission standards scholarships or special training of applicants the basic problem is to increase the pool of minority applicants. As such I can illustrate this I think probably most effectively by my own law school. We get we're getting this year roughly 2000 applications for a law school for the entering class next year. We had met about five hundred seventy five

and of the five hundred seventy five we have met roughly were aiming for and entering class roughly two hundred seventy five. Are minority applicants. I want to put a caveat here. We don't have any place on the form obviously for designation as to the race of the applicant. But in this day and age it's a rare minority applicant who isn't cagey enough or doesn't have somebody who's writing a letter of recommendation on his behalf to identify himself as a minority have there may be a few we miss but not very many. But in any case of those 2000 applications we have now more than 25 from. Minority background. That's all kinds of minority background Mexican-American and Oriental as well as Negro. I might point out that the Oriental problem is also very significant

particularly for us here in the Bay Area. That's an incredibly small number. Of the 20 I would guess that will be able will. We will be willing to take a chance on roughly 15 to 5 that we reject We will reject because it just doesn't seem to us possible that they can make it. It may be that with some other kinds of programs they will be able to make it. Jerry Carlin for example has got a program that he is trying to get funded at the moment to take students. For a. Or take potential law students and have them work in his offices for a year. Being around lawyers seeing what lawyers do and at the same time taking courses to meet the deficiencies in their background at local schools

perhaps with that kind of background they might be might have a reasonable chance of making all of the 15 I would. I will be very happy if we get 10. I'll be surprised if we get 10 although will be financing all of them quite highly. Quite heavily if past experience is any indication and I don't think it's fair to make this kind of projection because our sample is so very small if we do get 10 we won't have more than five by the end of the first year. The draft is obviously going to have another kind of impact that is unpredictable at this time. It's a very a very difficult problem and one that it's very hard for me to see any very easy way of solving it. We need more Negro lawyers we need more Negro lots of things for example policemen

social workers educators and so forth and so on the demand for people who have reasonably good. Undergraduate backgrounds is colossal and the attractiveness of the law as a potential career must seem. I would think to many Negroes is really pretty remote. There is first of all as Judge Crockett pointed out the relative scarcity of model are not very many Negro lawyers and not very many successful Negro lawyers. That people can look up to. I would guess that most of the most of our white students have some member of their family who has been a lawyer relatively. I don't know any of our negroes students who have that kind of background. The gratifications of being a practicing lawyer are really very delay that's three years of law school and three years of very tough law school. The alternatives are considerably easier and I would suppose that for

many. Potential law students looking at. Be the career of being a lawyer from the vantage point of one entering high school or rather entering college or a high school for that matter the experience with the law as an instrument of oppression must be very discouraging. I don't I'm not anywhere near as sanguine as some. I don't see any immediate large increase in the number of Negro graduates from our better law schools there will be some but I don't see any dramatic potential. I think in view of the lateness of the hour I bettered seats but I'd be glad to answer questions during the lunch period to those who want to come out. Thank you very much. All right. My pleasure to introduce a fellow I've known for quite a time. He's a member of the Virginia Bar the California bar and all A has

practiced quite extensively in the south. He's been involved in the civil rights cases and he will chair the session that we will have at this time where we will tell it like it is and tell it like it ought to be. Ed Dawley. Thank you Jim. Powell is concerned with racism in the court room. Due to the lateness of the hour. I will admit to special oration I had prepared for the session and will proceed immediately to introduce the speakers. Our next speaker is Mr. Clinton Debbie white. The law firm of white and Crue shanked in Oakland California. Mr. White is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and both all law school. Mr. White will speak on trial. Mr. Weiss.

Thank you. You caught me a little unawares in the program seem to think the Swan was next. And if you'd like to analyse I didn't make any difference. Unfortunately I don't think any of us are going to be able to give the allotted time to our subjects. I feel privileged to stand here before you I do see faces out there. I guess everybody can hear me. I never have any trouble having a loud voice I wonder if this can you hear me now. I started to state that there are people in the audience who I feel are equally or more qualified to discuss this subject and I think that one of the difficulties that the speakers will have is this ability to break up this subject into nice little packages. I think that it's almost impossible. I wonder if it would help us. It would be a

help to me if we could define what we mean by racism. I don't think it's quite accurate to simply say that it's racial prejudice. To me it's a concept. It's a way of life in the United States of America. It means black and white it means black versus white. And it seems to encompass all our relations one of the other in all our existing institutions including the courts. And it's a very frightening aspect of our life. Certainly it requires us to do a lot of thinking and soul searching. Perhaps what I'm trying to say can best be brought home if I just simply read very quickly a passage from Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver. I came across this book as a result of several events in our city of Oakland and I can add my opinion to that of others that this is a rather brilliant young black man. But he

puts everything so personally and so simply it's not polite to read but I will read this. He points out in the chapter on domestic alone international order and I might stay to READ THIS IS NOT mean that the speaker adopts all of his views but he says to complicate matters there are also rich people and poor people in America there are Negroes whites Indians Puerto Ricans Mexicans Jews Chinese A-rabs and Japanese all with equal rights but on equal possessions some are haves and some are have nots. All are been taught to worship at the shrine of General Motors. I don't know where that applies to our judge but the whites are on top in America and they want to stay up there. They are also on top in the world on the international level and they want to stay up there too. Everywhere there are those who want to smash this precious toy clock of a system they want ever so much to change it to rearrange things. The pool of whites down off their high horse and make them equal everywhere the whites are fighting to

prolong their status to retard the erosion of their position. And in America when everything else fails they call out the police. Now that is a. Not a racist statement but that is an analogy that is an analysis of what I think we're talking about when we say racism and it's far more engulfing than just race prejudice. The reason I take this tact is that I belong to the advantage of Black Lawyers who have been practicing for now some 20 years and their motivation for going in the law was to fight racial prejudice. All of us didn't make the national border have anything to do with the civil rights cases except on the local level and they were subsequently taken over by representatives of the NWC. When they reached a certain status but that was our main motivation and frankly it worries me a little that even out of good intentions when I hear whites now say that for some reason there are not enough negroes who are interested in the law. I don't think that's the case but that's another subject and I said it's hard to not to sort of

wander. He goes on to say somewhere else in this same chapter the power structure without so much as blinking and I wouldn't mind tossing bovver to the mob to restore law and order their courses taken out of context. But it knows in the halls of its strength that at all costs the blacks must be kept at bay that it must uphold the police department its guardian. Nothing must be allowed to threaten the set up and this is what made me sit up and take notice. Justice is secondary. Security is the by word. Now if you are interested in a little more conservative approach to the same subject there was recently published which I think. Some of us were sucked into this bag. Two gentlemen came around and interviewed all the so-called leading Negroes or Negro leaders. And then they published in the Newsweek and that book by the way is a rather excellent book but it points out with in black and white that's the title of it with dark undercurrents of distrust and tragedy still running strong on both sides of the color line.

The NSA capable conclusion is that race will remain an overriding issue in America for many years to come. So now that seems to me to set the stage when I walk into court. I think it's the stage when Mr. Davis and open attorney when he walks into court I'm sure it's the case for Mr. Warden I'm sure it's the case for Mr. Ramsey. I'm sure it's the case for Mr. Geary. I think it's also our ratios view that we resent Mr. Geary always walking into court and some of us don't walk in winning. But the point is that. The law itself is an adversary proceeding. Some of you are white and I'm black. The more I understand about life in the United States in modern times racism then does not necessarily mean always a bad connotation. It can have some good connotations depending upon your point of view. Now I must hurry. I'd like to give you just a few

examples of what happens at the trial level. In my view that indicate this racism keeping in mind that nearly every arrest starts somewhere with a policeman involved and that it is the role of the power structure and we see this all throughout our public city our newspapers. It's even more evident in a city like Oakland where you only have ones that basically all the propaganda all the news media all the dissemination to the public. It is based on the idea that there is too much coddling of people who are involved in a social conduct of criminals that somehow law and order is being violated and never once stopping to understand you see that blacks be they poor blacks understand that on the white side there is rampant violation of law and maybe not at the local lower income levels all that is true

but certainly in the so-called middle class levels. Well a good example may be better to go by example. For example I say that it's racism I've always said that when you have wholesale arrests just daily and certainly every week of the negro prostitute who is a mentally is oppressed and the white prostitute defines it she would be next. Chooses to be within the group profit prostitution to the exclusion of the right. I don't know what to color because I never had the opportunity to come in contact. But I take it that. Petition exists I think if you could get a date in this hotel. And probably would be a rather high class call girl white Chinese or what have you. Now the important thing is this that this has gone on so much that blacks finally realize now that this system is unfair

and that it stinks. And so you begin to get an attitude I think Gary can bear me out on this. That yes will go to court yes we'll fight. He's now yes the judge respects you but there's no win in this court for me now this is what race is and this is an aspect of racism this is the frightening aspect of the statement of Cleaver that there are those who would change this system depends upon your viewpoint I happen to belong to the school as I said earlier that came into this with the idea of fighting racial prejudice and albeit it's impossible to try to follow my father's admonition that you can be twice as good as a white man you have to be. And little by little time by time you can make these changes. Essentially what has occurred. Racism has all types of proportions you find white judges who will say I'm a Clint white or a Don warden or Mr. Davis or a Claude Allen Those are fine fellows. You know why

don't you be like them. But what they're saying is that they can get a client in and out of court without a scene without a confrontation. And as a reward for these fellows they managed to see that their client doesn't go to jail. This has nothing to do with fines that are honored with conditions that don't make sense you're charged with battery and you're told that while you may not have committed the battery but I see here you haven't worked in three weeks or three months and I want to make sure that you support your babies. You see there's no there's an and that approach there is no consideration of the lack of dignity towards the accused party. Let me give another example. All men gamble men in this room gamble and some of us go to great lengths to gamble the most evenly the state. We have men who work hard every day men who have acquired property men that as they say they own two three apartment houses are duplexes and they their background in the Father and their fathers before them where they were talk players

and players and they're good at it and they have their own society. It's a black society. They exchange the money between them. They cuss each other out but no man leaves that teen unless he has a state. And in meddling on the other side some get broke and some children suffer. But what happens in a city like Oakland is it periodically. Somebody arranges for a man stand still for it and then a very degrading thing occurs because you go in and you see a calendar. You see 40 men stand up. I have had the experience when the various local high schools that have their youth come and witness the courtroom trials. One youngster point out well there's my father and everybody in the jury box that is where these youngsters were sitting. I would laugh but more and more degrading and that is the fact that all things judges always realize first of all they look at the report they try to make some crack about the type of game of what was involved.

It's a form of racism to say who is shooting the craps who is fading. This is maddening on the part and and white judges should understand this. For them to try to talk to us about something that we know they do but never never been called to chalk on. And then in the process. Try to educate if you take it as a joke you get off lightly. But if you stand up and fight then I am simple and then I am presupposed of free disposition to throw the book at you. And I don't know how it is for other practitioners only reason I'm telling you these things very frankly is that somewhere in our discussions there has to be some type of cooperation between wack white and black attorneys. My view is this to either a white or a black attorney. If you go to court with the idea of Tom and will then stay out of court. If you go with the idea of upholding the black man's dignity then come to court.

And what I have very very frankly referenced to it's alright to cop a plea. It's our right to make an arrangement with the district attorney but that can be done with dignity. Very frankly there's no need for any black man to appear on a gambling case it's a misdemeanor and you can appear foreign. And if all they want is the money. Well then you can arrange that in terms of fines. But I think it's very degrading to have grown men stand grown working men who have children who are paying taxes and let the public know that this system is so unequal that they can be made a laughing stock. While the whites in a comparable position do it in their homes without any fear or in their private clubs or in their shrines or in their various organizations without any fear in fact the police are members of those same organizations. In fact you cannot be a holder of high office and many chances unless you are a member of that organization. Now this is another form of racism.

Let me go on a very good example would be your welfare cases. Those in high places might as well face it. This is one of the most unequal approaches that we have in our law up to Mr mean level. Essentially what occurred. Well that will give us more time than that. The food just went down. I can stand it I don't need it. But what essentially occurs is simply this The investigator tells a party a woman that all they want is a statement. There must have been a mistake in the bookkeeping and that they'll be allowed to pay the money back. And you see what they prevail upon is really the basic honesty of the welfare recipient. Now I thought about going to an attorney.

This is really what gave rise to welfare rights organizations an awful lot of protecting themselves simply trusting in those parties that are entrusted with explaining the law. With the idea of working out any problems that they might have then because of political considerations. A district attorney announces that if he gets so much more money he will put on a fraud be a governor or a governor elect takes the position that there's too much of this and they go back two or three years and then they start prosecuting people again in a very degrading fashion in a very nonsensical fashion. We don't want to get in the bail I know our But you know the problem with me discussing it somebody is arrested on a $5000 bail that goes $500 goes to the bail bondsman on a charge in which the person is accused of taking maybe 23 hundred passengers on its face. And then when you get into court. The well I won't get into probation reports but you have to read some of them. A well-developed female well-nourished showing no

remorse but no real concept and I don't wish to be so cynical as to say that there are not prepared people who are white who are in the probation. But I'm just sort of skimming. The point is that in my view that type of case should be far. In my name and I'd fight it with the idea of winning it. But you bring out every sordid aspect of our system and you put the judge on the spot or jurors and I leave that to Mr. Geary. The thought at this point and in fact anything that I'm about to say. We were supposed to list and make Mr Hernanes job a lot easier by some suggested changes. I've been intrigued and we can kick it around for many years with the idea of three man judges one of which I would hope would be Blackwood requiring them to unanimously agree in a misdemeanor case.

Because you see a judge brings with him maybe not his race prejudice but his racism. In other words a man who's worked hard in the Democratic Party and Brown appointed even though he had a background of being a poor youngster still feels that by the time he makes judges makes a judge that it is a fair. And we can have any more of these and you're hurting the taxpayer and I and I'm a taxpayer. And so there are four basic concepts in the law or really never change. It is criminal in my view to take people all be it black mothers. Who are raising six and seven children who with all the other problems they have I can't. I could care less how much of this money they got I know for a fact that when they got it it went right down the swan's market it went right over to Gerber's jewelry and went over to brew ners and they had and they were saddled with high interest rates it makes no

difference to me but a year or six months later to say Aha you're a thief. And then to think that somehow blacks are going to have confidence in this system and I take the view that the system if it's worked right is a salvation for all of us. But I take the view that trials must be brought you must at least sometime in your career. Simply try these kind of cases and bring out all these points in that connection. Another very prominent thing that is occurring now is that when you began to try such cases and you began to make the social argument and you began to point out. What is wrong with the system. Well the idea of making progress the judges now have a very convenient remedy and you must be aware of it and that's simply the 50 100 dollar content and it's very easy to put a black lawyer in condemned because all you have to do is be white and tell him to shut up. And there are very few black lawyers that I know that will shut up.

In fact they will change the issue and they say you have no right by any means to tell me to shut up and that will cost you one hundred dollars and our office it runs about $100 a month. Now I'd like to get into something that I think is very appropriate at this time and that is the disturbance of the peace case or cursing. I don't know what kind of judge I would make. I'm not that good a lawyer because I just don't follow through. Someone of us should an established that when somebody uses the word motherfucker it's not personal because when you go to court any time a policeman wants to be to blab. All he has to say is Well Judge I really like I would want to see it in court it's kind of embarrassing. Everybody knows what he's going to say and there is absolutely no black man alive that's ever been arrested the mone use the word motherfucker cornered that policeman and this is simply not the case. We happen to know about that in just many whites as blacks use that word.

But you see the only remedy dioceses say well is no longer Carson. Or you could say we could undertake a program going to a lot of money and educate every black man and leave out the word fucker and just simply say Mother hunky. But the point is the point is that when you get into statistics when you pick up Tribune articles and you hear people talking about law and disorder and protecting the policeman and you begin to understand that all those little disturbance of the peace cases have been counted against the black race then you get a little riled because most of them amount to more and that and they only occur in truth. Ladies and gentlemen the only occurred when that policeman in the first instance has done something insulting towards that black man. And then I don't have to you know I don't have to research that point. If I go to the A's game tonight and a policeman says something to insult me he becomes a motherfucker. Now that doesn't mean that he does that to his mother. That means he simply white

policemen that can't treat me with respect. And of course that will stop when the day comes when judges white or black. White or black just simply tell the DA and tell them don't bring me that type of case again. That's when it will stop. Well let me conclude this way because I think this is very important in the case of the gun law. Now racism. Very interesting thing is occurring to me. First of all traditionally I can say most or all or even have but a good percentage of all Americans including blacks. Have a gun. This is not good. I've never tried a murder case yet that couldn't have been avoided with a gun if you just simply didn't have the gun around. But. Now we've been we're witnessing the situation where it's our right to have a gun unloaded if it's fully displayed.

But if you've got any kind of good sense as a citizen your inclination is not to want somebody to see your gun. So you put it in a glove compartment. Now your motive for putting it there is not what that judge things as a result of all the propaganda including the newspapers and what have your motives there is for your own protection. And it's absolutely asinine to have it there without the clip in it. A gun is pretty worthless unless it's prepared to fire. Now this is a matter of choice. But a lot of people make this choice then you get a situation and trial since that's my subject and a non-jury trial since in terms of fee that's all he could afford. And since the issue really is search and seizure where a policeman and it could have been a black policeman but it was a White Plains who was making out a report and because he sees four negroes together and because the report he's made out was a

robbery in the vicinity and of course in the vicinity means anything within 12 hours he decided to stop his car. Now. A lot of things occur if the Panthers go to jail and then a man who works in Naval Air Station who's letting his hair grow natural and growing his beard decides to say to the policeman what are you stopping me for. He said Well don't get smart you must be one of those panthers. Well if I am it's none of your business. And you see he's already wired for his reinforcements they arrive about that time. Good police practice dictates that you get everybody out of the car. You search the car and you find the gun and you tell a lie to the judge and say that you either had consent or you thought you saw that gun as they drove by. Now this occurred this occurred. It's not winning or losing that's important. And then I quit sit down. What is important is that if you're talking about better race

relations if you're talking about saving an institution if you're talking about upholding the law then yes we must have a remedy whereby we can get at this insidious device because I know what the judge wants he simply wants the gun. And he doesn't want the gun in the hands of the black man. It matters not that we happen to know that all the. Because it's an economic fact that darn near all the purchases of gun that are cleaning out the gun stores happen to be white people buying a gun but they are never brought into court on and they're carrying. I get worked up but this gives you a little insight I think is just about where we stand. The remedies. I don't know I like the idea of a check on a judge.

It would be beautiful to see how three minute three men judges three man judge court could rule on whether or not the officer acted reasonably. I'll say this about even black judges. They're like anybody else I know one judge of Teles named Judge Wilson he took the position don't you bring me a black prostitute let you bring me the white male that broke up a lot her ass. But you see it's important for trial judges to make pronouncements from the bench that indicate that there are social problems that these crimes or alleged crimes reflect and that the system is not working fairly. I think that's what I really want to say. Well you've been very kind and I've taken too long. But thank you. Church. I want to apologize for calling this because of what I had my glasses on.

Our next speaker is Mr. Eugene song. As a former deputy district attorney Contra Costa County he is president of the executive director of neighborhood legal services of Contra Costa County is a graduate of Temple University and has a master's degree in economics and University of Massachusetts and is a graduate of both tall. Mrs. Rond will speak on bail. Oh are. The soft. Touch. Thank you. If I don't keep my voice up would someone raise their hand it's an indication you can't hear me. I am a basically a neophyte in the law compared to Clint. But I remember my first client when I passed the bar a weapon to be a young gas station attendant who was white and he was been picked up for driving on a suspended license for the third time. The law says after the second time

he has to go to jail for five days so we knew that was in the offing. And I went down to the meat grinder that they call the traffic court in Oakland. And I walked in with my client. He had acknowledged that yes this was the case and so we were going to save the court some time and expense and get the five days and be on our way. And we pled him guilty and the judge gave him 90. And all of a sudden it struck me something that I observed before with the lawyers black lawyers and that is when they get cases important cases significant cases they tend to go to whites and when they go to Negro attorneys Negro attorneys give them to white lawyers because somehow or other there is the feeling justifiably I believe that whites can do more with white judges than can Nigro lawyers. And I find it amusing. And here I step on toes I imagine that Muhammad Ali uses

Mr. Covington. That Mr. Newton uses Mr. Gehring for all the blackness all the pride. There is still that awareness as to how the system may be manipulated. And this is one of the ways to get there. In my experiences in the DA's office and I've had several that were I think illustrative of some of the problems that are faced. I remember going into Superior Court in Martinez which is the county seat and twice I was referred to the defendant's chair by the bailiffs once by a judge. I remember sitting in Martina's when a woman came into the office and said a negro woman and she said we had just moved into a neighborhood and we're the only black people there and the neighbor's kids are giving us trouble. You know they go to school together walk down the road and the words go back and

forth and the old man comes out on Sunday morning and MO's along Second Old Black Joe and all the rest. And the children are getting upset. I'm getting upset. What can we do about it. You know that there's no crime here. I said all right I'll write him a letter and I'll have him come in which I did which shocked him at that point when they walked through the door. But the interesting thing was that. As the woman was leaving she turned to me and she said My little girl when she knew I was coming down here she asked Is the DA white. And I said you can tell or you know yes Virginia there is a Santa Clause and the DA is not white. And she was very pleased that she could go home and tell that little girl that the D.A. was not white. The owners of the other property came in and denied it all. I said that's all right. So it doesn't happen again. I remember one of the jury trials in which a

young man was accused white man was accused of having a gun and he had an attorney. And as we were beginning to go into the courtroom I later find out I had a witness who saw him fire the gun and he was going to claim the gun was an operative and therefore not in violation of the law. And so the attorney relates to me a good friend. He says my client turned to me and said My God he's got the witness who saw me firing the gun shooting the birds off the telegraph wire. And he says what are we going to do. And my and my friend turned to him and says Your defense is the DA's black and I'm afraid sometimes it's not articulated but that's the defense or that's the crime. That one or the other is black. Now. With regard to O.R. I think that. It is important extremely important for the courts the judges the people to understand what is. In our county we began an inst program of all our

and work for a law I think that the two are intrinsically and twined work for and always when you do sentence a person to a county jail and they do have a job you enable them to leave and work at the job during the day and return to the jail at night until their sentence is served. And in this way you can obviously preserve the job preserve the family preserve the income reduce the possible welfare roles and we began using the old procedure in our county and we got all the interested people together the welfare department a lot of other sheriffs office the police department the local police departments and so on down the line and some of the judges and we began educating them as to the value of all our. And there was one judge who was forever hopping on the rising welfare rolls and. One day doing chambers I sat down with a many picked out the county budget showing the tremendous increase in welfare and obviously you know he says he gets right to the point you know you've got to do

something about this Jane. And I said Well Judge you know I don't know exactly what you have in mind is this is this is getting too costly. So I then proceeded to find out some of the statistics of people on welfare who were there because of the breadwinner being in jail or losing his job because of an unable to post bond. And I brought this back to him I says Judge it's not made. You can do something. You can release people on their own O.R. and you know you can save the county damn near $50000. And he began that struck home with me like that I did. Well you know how do I know that they're going to appear. And then we went down all the list and checklist and judge you got to do it because we're going to save everybody money. We're going to save the police department money that they're not going to be walking out of a county jail like it's a hotel. We're going to cut down on the food. You've got to cut down on the transportation cost and everybody's going to win. And even some of them may keep their jobs and keep their families off welfare. Won't that be one. And he bought it he bought it. And in the district attorney's office I

push a lot. Sometimes I push a little too strong. I remember standing mute in a check case where the defendant the check was drawn on a bank in Hawaii and there were problems getting all the information from Hawaii and the defendant gave his home address in Seoul Korea. I do not object to a law. The judge was a little shocked but he granted it. It's also an easy way of getting rid of a doggy case as well. But the thing that the basic thrust of all on our end work furlough is an educational job with attorneys with lawyers and judges that they've got to be made to realize the economics of the law that it is profitable for all are to be instituted that the time and effort of chasing down some of these people is not worth it if they go they go.

Most of them don't and there is a tremendous amount of evidence and studies that you can shove under judge's noses that you could present to them in all sorts of fashions. I think that in some of these cases it's very important that. That people who are interested in improving the system in making it better in making justice approach what it is supposed to be become more involved. I know I have this problem or I didn't have it at least with my liberal friends who said Swan. How can you sit in the DA's office and be part of the establishment and do this and do that. And I tell them this you know they've forgotten the lesson of the Trojan horse that one good man on the inside is worth 10 on the outside. That they see the stuff that has been filed. They should see the crap that hasn't been filed. And to sit on the outside of the structure and throw bricks when you can walk into the door and open it

from the inside. I think it's sometimes lost sight of. That your public stance and position is all that's important not actually what you're doing. I for one and am interested in impact not the program the philosophy or what have you. And I think the impact. Of the oil law program in our county. Reached sort of a zenith in the recent al Pueblo incident in out near Pittsburgh. That there was the police showed up. I'm not going to talk about you know exactly what happened to develop what the police showed up about 150 strong and El Pueblo. There are only a hundred seventy two houses in El Pueblo but they were there. And it was triggered by a crap game that had been going on there for 20 years which everybody knew went on for 20 years and all of a sudden the police were going to now give law and order. So they did it and it elevated and elevate

it until you got 150 officers shooting and counting shots all through. But when the deal went down. They only arrested 10 people. And one of them is a spectator for a gambling game and yeah there's a gambling in a lot of them for curfew. But when it it all boiled down. Not one of them was charged with a felony. And they all were O.R.. And to me and they were back in the community in their homes within 48 hours. And I think and the result has been beneficial both from the county's point of view from the community's point of view and I think that this kind of reaction this kind of understanding is important. I speak of it in the Pueblo incident I. Sense being it was very interesting. Half of the police officers in the county still think I'm a D.A. which I don't discourage but. I happen to have been in the police headquarters where

all of the brains of the operation were telling the police what to do by radio. And I used to take periodic trips out to see for myself. And with another attorney and the stuff that was coming across in the control tower if you will was not or let's put it this way was an adequate description of what was going on. But it was in such an atmosphere that it was charged. Now we see a man running down Seventh Street heading in a northwest direction. He's running home. That's where he's running. But the cars and you know all right let's let's move caught 32 out and then get that intersection take care of the problem. You know that there are two people that are running across the you know running from one house to another and the tension that was built up in inside the control tower was had no relationship to what was actually going on. In that incident. I sort of split myself which was my job

and my heart was in El Pueblo and my mind was in the police station and they got they declared a state of emergency. And on the basis of that state of emergency they issued curfew orders and on the basis of that state of emergency they issued a general search warrant. And it was to be o'clock in the morning. And they got the general search warrant the police the sheriff who was commanding the operation said Well now do we go in and do a search. And I told the D.A. who was my former boss I said don't do it. Don't go around knocking down doors with people who are hiding under beds behind couches on the belief that just because you've got the right Elise to quit this point and the sheriff admitted that all they were after were done so they weren't after really anything else. But they had this blanket warrant and I said you go in there and you do that and the people who were concerned about their own safety are going to be out in the streets an hour after you leave.

And mad as hell and so he says All right we won't do it. We won't search on an indiscriminate basis that we will only search where we believe there is gunfire coming from a home or probable cause or if consent is given. This directive was not always followed by the officers in the field. But I think that if this is the kind of cooperation this is the kind of approach that needs to be undertaken by the bar and by lawyers now in keeping with my instructions I was to make recommendations. I may be the only speaker to do so. I think that every attorney who appears in court and observes an incident of racism whether it is as an attorney to record or whether it is as a spectator should write a brief description of the incident including Time Place judges and facts. And it doesn't take much and send a copy to the Charles Houston Law Club. Which is a negro Association of Attorneys in the Bay Area. One the American Civil Liberties

Union to the National Lawyers Guild of this area and with a question mark maybe the state bar. That with enough collection of these particular incidents or patterns of particular judges that there began an educational process in the community of these judges that these judges be challenged in elections. And I am somewhat surprised that not more judges are challenge because I think judges are a hell of a lot easier to knock over than incumbent congressman. But it is not done and it should be done. Now we're asking for sacrificial lambs here I imagine in many respects that once you challenge a judge in an election and lose you chalk is caught off. But that's a sacrifice that has to be made I think. And this pressure must be put on the judges they must be made aware of the fact that their actions are being in a sense documented

because a judge is at the new level of the justice court level. All want to go higher. At some point they are going to have to answer to someone who may be interested in. What does the whole community feel about your presentation and not just the chamber of commerce but this and I and I think that this is important. I don't know how you implement it I throw it out for what it's worth. I close with the argument and the plea that judges and lawyers and the public. And the public must be impressed and educated as to the economic benefits derived from our. Work furlough. H.