JUDGE SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS' GAOL,

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 144, 21 June 1939, Page 11

JUDGE SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS' GAOL,

USA SENSATION.

Corruption On Bench Of

Highest Court.

SOLD VERDICTS FOR FORTUNE. United Press Association.—Copyright. (Received 1 p.m.) NEW YORK, June 20. Judge Martin Manton, of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and fined 10,0*00 dollars for betrayal of his judicial trust. It proved a sensational case, in which evidence was. {riven that the accused had accumulated a huge fortune by selling verdicts. He is the first Federal Appeals judge ever to be convicted. The Court, in imposing sentence, said that the case "had no such conspicuous parallel in history of PZnglish or American high judiciary since Francis Bacon, then Lord Chancellor of England, was deprived of ofliac for a similar cause over 300 years ago."

Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam and Yiscotiut of St. Albans, was, in addition to •being a noted essayist, a lawyer and statesman. Aβ a member of Parliament he ranked high, in favour, but in 1393 offended the Queen and her Ministers by opposing: them on important points of Parliamentary procedure. His real rise to fame 'began in the reign of James 1. He became Solicitor-General, then AttorneyGeneral, and finally Lord Chancellor and Baron Verulam. Hie rise to greatness was, however, soon followed by disgrace, a fall that was mainly owing to his taste for magnificence and his lack of good judgment. In 1631 charges of corruption were made againet him in the House of Commons. He was found guilty, was fined £40,000, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London during the King's pleasure. He died five years later.