Evening star., 1944-07-30
Attorneys and Jurors
Find Sedition Trial
A Financial Burden
Continued From Page BIZ

of these. ana 1t is possible that not
all the witnesses slated to testify
actually will be called.
Even so, the trial will last long
enough to pose serious problems to
many persons involved aside from
the defendants.
Hardest hit, probably, are the de-
fense attorneys appointed by the
court to represent clients without
funds to engage their own lawyers.
There are IA court-appointed attor-
neys engaged actively in the trial
and others helping with prepara-
ton work and occasionally sitting
in. The others were retained by
defendants.
There is no statutory provision
appointed lawyers in this or any
other Federal court. Many States
courts provide such fees and in
some cities there are public de-
tenders.
Costly to Lawyers.
This means that the IA attorneys
required by the court to defend
accused persons in the sedition case
will receive no compensation what
ever unless Congress or somebody
else does something about it before
the trial ends. While it's a minor
inconvenience for a lawyer to serve
his turn in a charity cause that
lasts a few days or a couple OF
weeks at most, but this gargantuan
process promises to cost some of
these hapless lawyers substantial
part of their practice as well as
income.
Contrary to scurrilous comment
made about them in some publica-
tions, there are leading members of
the Washington bar-men Of keen
ability and unblemished record
numbered among the appointed at
torneys. And, after all, they've got
to live.
One of these lawyers confided to
this reporter: IF this trial goes
on, month after months, for the
year or more it threatens to last,
and I don't get some help so 1 can
keep up my own practice, I'm going
to ask the court for relief. If I
don't get it, I'm going to walk out,
and I don't care if I go to Jail for
contempt. I've got a family to
support, and they've never yet had
to live on charity, and I don't plan
for them to-"
Bar Association Acts.
Justice Eicher is taking up with
q bar association committee the
matter of providing full-time ap-
pointed defense counsel with help
of some sort. The organization has
discussed the sedition trial at two
membership meetings, with particu-
lar emphasis on the plight of these
lawyers, but it was decided that the
association as such should not in
trude at a trial in progress. Yet
the committee and others are still
working on the problem.
Legislation has been suggested,
and it has been pointed out that
just a portion of the Municipal
Court fines in the District would
be sufficient to compensate all
court-appointed attorneys in all
criminal cases without a dollar of
appropriation from Congress.
Only Four Sessions Weekly.
To give these attorneys at least
a modicum of time for their private
practice, Justice Eicher arranged to
hold the trial only four days a
week-Mondays through Thursdays.
But this was a palliative, not cure.
Most of the jurors also have a
living to make, and they can hardly
be expected to live lavishly on the
81 day which they receive as q
fee four days week. They are not
locked up, but allowed to 60 their
ways when the trial is not in ses-
sion.
There are two women and ten
men on the trial jury. and the two
alternate jurors are men. One of
the women jurors is listed as a
housewife. The other is a night
chief operator for the telephone
company. and she usually reports
to her Office two nights week.
There are, among the other
Jurors and alternates, two bank en-
ployes, teller and a clerk; a gas
company serviceman, a manufac-
turer's agent, proprietor of house
remodelling business, branch
manager of a drugstore chain,
metallurgist, pharmacist, a shop
foreman for the electric utility, a
life insurance salesman, an archi-
tect and a contractor of communi-
cations and amplyifying equipment
Utilities Pay Salaries.
The only Federal employe is the
metallurgist, who works for the Ma
tional Bureau of Standards, Depart
ment of Commerce
Those employed by utilities are re-
ported receiving their full salaries
during the trial, although they work,
at most, only two days a week. The
Government keeps up the salaries
of workers doing jury service,
merely collecting their jury fees.
The several jurors in business for
themselves or representing COM
panies as statesmen probably feel
the trial most. 1t came to the court s
attention that some jurors who were
proprietors of businesses wanted to
get some time to take over their
shops or Offices so their employees
could have vacation, and Justice
Eicher has announced that the trial
will take vacation late in August.
There will be no sessions from Au-
gust 10 to September S, inclusive.
But the jurors, whatever their in
ner feelings, have remained in health