"Creep. Idiot. Nut. Fool. Punk. Dirty s.o.b." For five weeks, three defendants hurled those epithets at Pittsburgh Judge Albert A. Fiok. At times, they threatened his life. Determined to avoid any conceivable grounds for reversal by a higher court, Fiok took it all for the sake of "a fair and impartial trial." Some trial. In frontier days, the defendants would have been hanged on the spot.
Charged with attempted escape from Western Penitentiary, Convicts Richard Mayberry, Dominic Codispodi and Herbert Langnes set out to goad Judge Fiok into declaring a mistrial. They demanded the right to defend themselves; and once they...
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