Who will speak for the 60% of U.S.
criminal defendants who cannot afford lawyers? Will it be the courthouse hack who goes through the motions of defending indigents for piddling government fees because he has no other clients? Or will it be the able advocate who makes the U.S. adversary system of justice what it is supposed to be—a truth-seeking contest between equal rivals?
Such questions used to be a staple of law-school graduation oratory. And as such, they were all too often brushed aside. But U.S. lawyers can no longer ignore them, for the constitutional right to counsel is no longer limited to accused Americans who have the necessary cash. In its great decision of 1963, Gideon v. Wainwright, a no-fee triumph by Washington Lawyer Abe Fortas, the Supreme Court ordered all state courts to provide lawyers for indigent defendants in all felony cases—and Gideon may apply to misdemeanor cases as well. As the court simultane ously expands constitutional rights in other areas, the nation's lawyers may well be forced to live up to their commencement speeches—to serve rich and poor alike with no thought of anything but impartial justice.
Happily, some U.S. lawyers have never been afraid to defend unpopular people or unpopular causes—even if their efforts cost them dearly in money and community standing. In Birmingham, for example, Lawyer Paul Johnston last week began to pay the price of voluntarily representing FBI Informer Gary Rowe (by indirect request of U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach) in a lawsuit filed by Ku Klux Klan Lawyer Matt Murphy Jr. "It's not too popular to be involved in such matters around here," said one lawyer. Johnston was voted out of his eminent law firm by his prosperous partners—including his father and brother—thereby joining a hardy band of colleagues in conscience across the country. Among them: > Albany, Ga.'s Walter Jones, 51, used to be a thriving tax lawyer with a big office, an English secretary and a new suburban house. His Albany forebears go back five generations. In 1959 a local judge asked Jones to defend an illiterate Negro named Phil Whitus who was charged with murdering a white farmer. At first, Jones tried to refuse. Then he became so convinced of Whitus' innocence that he has since dedicated himself to keeping his client alive. Last winter, on his second try, Jones persuaded the Supreme Court to reverse Whitus' death sentence. Georgia may well reconvict, but Lawyer Jones intends to fight on—despite such white hostility that he has lost 50% of his practice, his house, his office and his secretary, whose salary he could no longer pay. So far, the Whitus case has cost Jones $8,000 of his own money, and he is threatened by anonymous phone callers ("You goddam nigger-loving shyster. We'll get you"). A local weekly recently ran a story about him under the headline: is SCION OF ALBANY FAMILY A TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS?
To all of which Jones replies: "If I hadn't done this, I couldn't have slept. And if I die before Phil Whitus is a free man, I'm going to will his case to another attorney."