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Personally Involved. Unhappily for Hoffman, his self-righteous manner has earned him the sobriquet of "Julius the Just." He claims that his reputation as a tough, pro-Government judge comes from a series of highly publicized trials in which he sentenced such Mafia figures as Sam Battaglia and Nick Palermo to stiff prison terms. He also presided over the nine-month fraud trial of the promoters who had marketed Krebiozen as an anticancer drug. To this day, Hoffman is puzzled at the jury's verdict of acquittal. "If I had been trying that case without a jury," he says, "I would have found the defendants guilty right off. I don't know what went wrong."
Hoffman's penchant for getting personally involved in trials has led to his being reversed at least once. Overturning the verdict in an auto-theft case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit pointed out that Hoffman had helped counsel develop evidence by interrogating witnesses himself. "The record in this case," declared the appeals court, "reveals no justification for the extensive intervention of the able trial judge."
One of his least defensible actions in the conspiracy case was to cite four defense lawyers for contempt because they did not appear for the start of the trial in September. U.C.L.A. Law Professor
Michael Tigar was arrested in Los Angeles and brought to Chicago to answer the charges (which were later dropped). "It is an outrage almost unparalleled in American judicial history," Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz says about Hoffman's order.
Missing Humor. Hoffman's real problem may be that he is two generations older than seven of the eight defendants. He has spent so many years demanding strict courtroom decorum that he is upset by defendants who openly flout his authority. "Despite his technical judicial competence," says Law Professor Jon R. Waltz of Northwestern University, "Judge Hoffman is the wrong man for this case. What is needed is a judge with a sense of humor who will maintain absolute impartiality."
The political aspects of the proceedings recall the celebrated trial of Eugene Dennis and ten other Communist leaders in New York City in 1949. In that case, defense lawyers tried to confuse the jury by raising barrages of motions, objections and charges of prejudice by U.S. District Judge Harold Medina. Only after months of this did Medina show signs of anger and threaten to discipline the lawyers.* Unlike the Communists, the Chicago Eight are not without popular support. Even those Americans who do not sympathize with their cause want to see them treated fairly. By overreacting to the defendants' shenanigans, Hoffman may not only give them good arguments for appealing a conviction but also strengthen their claim that U.S. institutions are inherently unfair.
* Dennis and his fellow defendants were convicted of conspiring to advocate the violent overthrow of the Government. After the trial, Medina also sentenced five of their lawyers and Dennis, who was acting as his own attorney, to prison for contempt.