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Watching Jenkins perform at the committee table in Washington, the U.S. television audience will not see him at his best. His most spectacular performances are his final arguments to juries. He pulls his big (6 ft. 3 in., 195 lbs.), rawboned frame out of his chair, opens his coat, loosens his tie, unbuttons his shirt collar, strides up and down before the jury box. At times he laughs, then he sneers, and then he seems to be on the verge of tears; first his voice roars out of the courtroom and echoes through the corridors, then it is a barely audible croon. Before he is through, the sweat is rolling down in rivers on his face and dripping from his chin to the floor. His style has gained him a nickname: "The Terror of Tellico Plains'.'
One of Jenkins' most publicized cases was his defense of Ed McNew, a camera-shy professional bondsman accused of shooting at a Knoxville newspaper photographer. The photographer produced a solid piece of evidence to support a charge of assault with intent to kill: a clear picture of McNew shooting at him. After postponing the case as long as possible, Jenkins produced McNew (who had been in an automobile accident) on a stretcher. A nurse and a doctor stood by, interrupting McNew's testimony to administer medications. After McNew faintly testified that photographers had hounded him, Jenkins argued that McNew had a "mental explosion" when one cameraman finally caught up with him. Said the jury: not guilty.
Two years ago, in a case that was followed tensely in Tennessee, Jenkins defended a Negro youth who had stabbed a white man to death. The prosecution contended that the boy had stabbed his victim in the back, and asked the death penalty. Jenkins proved that the white man was the aggressor, that he suddenly turned his back to get another weapon just as the fatal blow struck. The jury took only a few minutes to acquit the boy.
From such cases Jenkins draws a basic part of his philosophy: "You can always defend a man who kills a bully. You make the jury so damned mad that they want to dig up the body and kill the s.o.b. all over again."
The Barking Dog. The references to espionage in the current investigation are not Jenkins' first brush with that subject. 'In 1950 he was appointed by a federal judge to defend Alfred Dean Slack, who was accused of delivering secret information from the Holston Ordnance Works at Kingsport, Tenn. to a Communist agent. On advice of counsel, Slack pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 15 years. Then he appealed, contending that Jenkins had not advised him properly. The Circuit Court, ruling that Jenkins had done his job well, gave him an unusual accolade. Said the opinion: " [Jenkins] has earned and enjoys a fine reputation for professional ethics and personal integrity, and is generally regarded as one of the ablest trial lawyers in Tennessee . . ."
Jenkins was about to go to court in a case involving a barking dog* when he was called to Washington to handle the case involving Joe McCarthy. An old acquaintance, Illinois' Senator Everett Dirksen, had suggested him for the job. After the call came, Ray broke the news to Partners Erby and Aubrey Jenkins (brothers, but no kin to Ray) with the preface: "The most fantastic thing has happened."