CORRUPT JUSTICE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18844, 6 April 1931, Page 3

CORRUPT JUSTICE.

BOGUS LAWYER’S CAREER. Further revelations of the remarkable conditions prevalent in New York city Magistrate’s Courts were made by Joseph Wolfman. He confessed before Referee Seabury that, although never admitted to the Bar, he had posed as an attorney for three years in Magistrate’s Courts, and had received fees averaging £BO weekly. His only legal training was a seven months’ course in a correspondence school, but his credentials as a lawyer were never questioned. In the course of his “career” he was permitted to appear as attorney of record in lower courts in 600 cases and about 700 cases not recorded. With the alleged aid of policemen and court clerks he won victories for about 70 per cent, of his clients. Once he appeared before the Supreme Court of Justice to oppose the extradition of a client wanted for grand larceny, and for this service he is said to have received a fee of £4OO, of which £6O went to a bondsman who gave him the case. Wolfman said he paid the court clerk £1 each time he recommended the dismissal of such cases on the ground of insufficient evidence, and that the Magistrate invariably did as requested. Court clerks, Wolfman said, were also very helpful in reducing for a consideration charges of felonious assault to disorderly conduct. Isidor Kresel, who is conducting the inquiry into Magistrate’s Courts for the Appellate Division, submitted records to show that in 1929, one of the years in which Wolfman “practised," only 160 persons out of more than 4000 charged with bookmaking were held for trial, and only 17 convictions obtained.