Judges: Julius the Just

Defense attorneys at the raucous trial of the Chicago Eight are doing their best to show that U.S. District Judge Julius Hoffman is biased. The little jurist often seems determined to prove them right. Before the jury, he has praised U.S. Attorney Thomas Foran as one of the finest prosecutors in the country. On the other hand, he badgers and belittles lawyers for the eight men who are charged with conspiracy to foment a riot at last year’s Democratic Convention in Chicago.

The 74-year-old judge unquestionably has been provoked. Last week, for example, the defendants draped a large Viet Cong flag over the counsel table after Hoffman denied them a day off to participate in the nationwide peace demonstrations. Foran denounced Attorney William Kunstler for supporting the defendants’ efforts to bring the Moratorium into the courtroom. After an angry exchange, Foran growled: “I have contempt for Mr. Kunstler.” The judge rebuked only Kunstler. As the dominant figure in the courtroom, a judge can easily influence the jury if his likes and dislikes are too obvious. If convicted, the Chicago Eight are likely to argue on appeal that they were unable to get a fair trial because of Hoffman’s attitude.

Quoted in Jerusalem. As might be expected, Hoffman bristles at criticism of his handling of the trial. “I don’t want to be glorified,” he told TIME Reporter James Simon in an interview, “but I don’t want to be vilified either.” To prove that the press attacks are undeserved, he produced a thick file of testimonials; he read from a speech by one federal judge who praised him as “warm at heart and a gentleman of character.” Another judge interprets Hoffman’s self-advertisements as “a search for reassurance.” He says: “I think that underneath Judge Hoffman’s appearance there is a deep concern and striving to be worthy of the power he possesses.”

The son of a furrier, Julius Jennings Hoffman grew up in Chicago, graduated from Northwestern University Law School and went into corporate practice. At 33, he married Eleanor H. Greenebaum, whose family controlled what became the Brunswick Corp., which makes bowling alleys and other products. He served as the company’s counsel until he was elected a state circuit-court judge in 1947. A generous supporter of the Republican Party, he became the first Jew on the federal bench in the Northern Illinois district when President Eisenhower appointed him in 1953.

Illinois lawyers respect Hoffman for legal knowledge and craftsmanship. Last year he upheld the Government’s first suit to desegregate a Northern school district. In his decision, which involved the Chicago suburb of South Holland,

Hoffman eloquently described desegregation as “a very small down payment on an investment whose dividends are good citizenship, justice and the welfare of the nation.” The judge proudly notes that his words were quoted “around the world—even in the English language newspaper in Jerusalem.”

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.