In re Ades

• Decision Date: 19 March 1934
• Docket Number: No. 978.,978.
• Citation: 6 F. Supp. 467
• Parties: In re ADES.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

6 F. Supp. 467

In re ADES.

No. 978.

District Court, D. Maryland.

March 19, 1934.

J. Craig McLanahan and Eli Frank, Jr., both of Baltimore, Md., for the prosecution.

Charles H. Houston, of Washington, D. C., and Thurgood Marshall, of Baltimore, Md., for respondent.

SOPER, Circuit Judge.

Bernard Ades, a member of the bar of the state and federal courts in Maryland, was ordered by this court on November 29, 1933, to show cause why he should not be disbarred from further practice as a member of its bar, because of alleged misconduct on his part in connection with certain cases in the courts of the state. Previously, Ades had been suspended from practice in this court when, on October 23, 1933, the court was about to hear an application for writ of habeas corpus designed to test the validity of the proceedings in a state court wherein Euel Lee had been convicted for murder and condemned to death. Lee had been twice convicted in the trial court. His case had been thrice reviewed in the Court of Appeals of Maryland (161 Md. 430, 157 A. 723; 163 Md. 56, 161 A. 284; 164 Md. 550, 165 A. 614), and a writ of certiorari had been denied by the Supreme Court of the United States. 54 S. Ct. 56, 78 L. Ed. ___. At the time of the suspension from practice, charges of unprofessional conduct, growing out of the murder case of Page Jupiter had already been filed by the state's attorney for Baltimore City with the president of the Maryland state bar association. The present charges relate to three cases, in each of which a colored man was indicted for the commission of a crime of violence against a white person in one of the counties of the state, to wit, Euel Lee, alias Orphan Jones, charged with the murder of Green Davis on October 10, 1931, in Worcester county; George Davis, charged with assault with intent to rape Elizabeth Lusby on November 21, 1931, in Kent county; and Page Jupiter, charged with the murder of Evelyn Reifsnyder on July 8, 1933, in Charles county. Prior to the preferment of the formal charges against Ades, the final judgment of the court in each of these cases had been executed. Lee and Jupiter had been hung, and Davis had been committed to the Maryland penitentiary to serve a sentence of sixteen years.

Ades was charged with professional misconduct, malpractice, fraud, deceit, and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, substantially as follows:

Euel Lee Case.

(a) That he improperly injected himself into the case both in the circuit court of Worcester county after the indictment was filed, and in the circuit court for Baltimore county, to which it was removed for trial, not primarily for the purpose of defending Lee and protecting him in his constitutional rights, but for the purpose of presenting and exploiting the views of the International Labor Defense by whom Ades was employed; and that lack of proper motive on Ades' part was clear, because he knew that Lee had previously admitted his guilt and had said that he did not desire Ades as his counsel.

(b) That before the trial of the case, Ades attempted to intimidate, threaten, and deceive Martha Miller, one of the witnesses for the state, and endeavored to get her to commit perjury at the trial.

(c) That before the trial, Ades falsely represented himself as the sole attorney for Lee, although he knew that the circuit court for Worcester county had appointed able counsel to represent Lee, who had accepted the appointment and were so satisfactory to him that he had said that he did not desire Ades as his counsel.

(d) That Ades, on the day before the execution of Lee, and without his request, had visited him in the deathhouse of the Maryland penitentiary, and caused him to execute a will, making Ades his beneficiary; and after his death, Ades sought by legal proceedings in the circuit court No. 2 of Baltimore City to secure the body of Lee in order that he might take it to New York and hold a memorial meeting over it in order to incite race prejudice.

George Davis Case.

That Ades falsely represented that he had been engaged by Davis to represent him, although Ades knew that Davis had previously stated in writing that he was satisfied with other counsel appointed for him by the circuit court of Kent county, and that he did not desire Ades as his counsel.

Page Jupiter Case.

(a) That Ades, on July 20, 1933, secured from Judge Stein, a member of the Supreme bench of Baltimore City, a writ of habeas corpus for the production of Page Jupiter, although he had not been engaged as counsel by Page Jupiter or by any member of his family, or by any one authorized to act for him, and did not disclose the facts to the judge.

(b) That at the hearing on the writ on July 21, 1933, Ades falsely represented that permission had been refused any counsel to confer with Jupiter, although Ades knew that Chief Judge Digges, acting for the circuit court for Charles county, had previously allowed two attorneys full opportunity to confer with Jupiter, and that said attorneys, after the conference, had filed a report with the state's attorney for Charles county in which they stated that Jupiter had not been deprived of his constitutional rights, but was being fully protected therein by the circuit court for Charles county.

False Statements to the Press.

That Ades published from time to time in the public press in Maryland false statements embodying criticism of certain state judges and other officials of the state of Maryland.

An answer was filed denying the charges, and the District Judge being unwilling to sit in judgment upon charges preferred by him, the Senior Circuit Judge of the Circuit assigned another judge residing in the state to hear them.

Euel Lee Case.

During the night of October 10 and 11, 1931, Green Davis, his wife, and his two daughters were shot to death as they lay sleeping in their home in Worcester county located two miles from the town of Berlin. Their bodies were discovered on October 12th, and late the same afternoon, Lee was arrested. He was an elderly colored man, accustomed to farm work, but of an unusually high degree of intelligence for a person of that class. He had done some farm work for Davis a short time before, and had lived at the Davis home; but on October 12th, he was living in a room in the house of Martha Miller, a colored woman of Ocean City, and it was there that the arrest took place. He was taken to the magistrate's office in Berlin and locked up, and when he was searched, some articles, later identified as belonging to the murdered family, were found upon his person. The officers returned to the Miller house and found in Lee's room a shotgun belonging to Green Davis and various articles of feminine wearing apparel and jewelry, which also were subsequently identified as belonging to the family. The same night the prisoner was taken to the jail at Snow Hill in an automobile, in which he sat handcuffed between two county officers. They accused him of the crime and endeavored to persuade him to confess, and when he refused and made profane replies to the officers, one of them struck him on the forehead with a blackjack. Arriving at the jail at Snow Hill, the county seat, he was given medical treatment for his wound, and was then continually questioned until on the afternoon of October 13th, he confessed the crime. Fearing that he would be lynched by lawless people of the community, the officers brought him by automobile to the Baltimore City jail. There on October 15th he made a second confession. It is noteworthy that neither confession was offered in evidence at either of the two trials of the case on the merits which ensued, and it is reasonable to infer that the state did not care to meet the charge of duress that doubtless would have been made had the confessions been offered in court. No doubt as to the guilt of Lee, however, is implied. On the contrary, the evidence subsequently offered against him at his trials was overwhelming, and, in the final trial, no witness was called in his behalf.

The newspapers in Baltimore were filled with accounts of the crime, and in the evening of October 13th and the morning of October 14th, the story was carried that after a grilling of sixteen hours throughout the night in the Snow Hill jail, the prisoner had confessed. Ades' interest in the case begins at this point. He was then 28 years of age. He had been educated in the academic department of the Johns Hopkins University, and at law at the University of Maryland, and had come to the bar in 1924. He had never had a criminal case. His reputation as a practitioner in civil cases was good. He belonged to the Communist party, and believed that it is difficult in the courts of this country to secure full recognition of the rights of laboring men or of members of inferior races, because judges and other officials are usually chosen from the ruling or favored classes, a belief not commonly held in a country where officials are elected by the people or chosen by their representatives.

Ades was a close friend of one Louis Berger, secretary in the Baltimore district of the International Labor Defense. This body, while not formally connected with the Communist party, is offered by Communists, and within its scope, has like purposes and beliefs. It interests itself in cases in the courts which involve classes of persons whom it regards as victims of oppression or prejudice, and frequently offers its assistance when such persons are charged with crime. Berger, acting for the International Labor Defense, employed Ades to investigate the Lee case with a view toward undertaking its defense. No fee was promised or given. In fact, the uncontradicted evidence is that Ades received no compensation for any of the cases covered by this investigation, although substantial sums were raised to pay the court expenses of the Lee case which included three appeals to the Court of Appeals of Maryland.

On October 13th or 14th, Ades went to...