Thursday - August 06, 2009

SOMETHING JUST A BIT DIFFERENT FOR BMEWS. THE SAME SUBJECT BUT SOMETHING NEW.

Bit of legal history from a book called “Gangland Lawyers” by James Morton

Anyone who reads BMEWS on a regular basis, not just the brave few who leave comments, but everyone, already know my views on what we laughingly call the Criminal Justice System.  More Criminal then justice.  Just ask any victim.

In line with that attitude, an article in our morning paper today claims that victims of crime are not well served by the justice system.  The actual headline reads, JUSTICE SYSTEM FAILS VICTIMS.
Well then, if it indeed does that, and we know it does, then it is not a “justice system” at all.  I’m not sure exactly what to call it, but justice has little to do with it.

Many of us both here and in the USA have ranted and raved about slick lawyers and how often bad guys are out on the streets doing the same thing they were jailed for originally.  And we’re all agreed ( I think we are ) that lawyers are well versed in making the worst appear the better cause, and get away with much.  Or their clients are.
Which brings me to my posting here.

We are used to how things are and have been for a number of years.  The Twinkie Defense comes to mind and of course there was OJ but those are the cases that make national news and we all complain how awful things are and how deceitful and manipulative lawyers are these days.  These days? Just these days?
Of course it started long ago when a miserable SOB murdered the guy who designed the Madison Sq. Garden. Stanford White. An architect famous in his day.  The killer’s lawyer used the insanity defense for the first time and got his client off with a few years in a mental ward somewhere.  Well, I learned an expression many years ago in the music industry and probably used by other professions as well.
“There’s nothin’ new.”

There was a lawyer back in the 1920’s named Chippy Patterson who died in 1933.
The guy was always broke and lived between feast and famine.  Apparently he was a whiz in court and had quite a track record getting freedom or very reduced terms of incarceration for his clients.  He was truly a gangster’s lawyer and here’s just one very unbelievable and truly bizarre case and jury verdict. 

In 1930 Patterson won six acquittals and five manslaughter and second degree murder verdicts for his 11 clients. His last great defense came in June that year when he represented a guy named Pete Valenti.  Valenti was a a burglar and drug dealer who was on parole after serving just two years of of a ten to twenty year sentence for armed robbery.

Valenti was accused of a grocery story robbery-murder on April 9th.  The prosecution reasonably thought it had a good case and a simple one. 
Valenti and his partner, Vincent Minotti, neither of who were masked, held up the store and without warning, Valenti shot the owner.  Both Valenti and Minotti accused the other of firing the shot, but the prosecution regarded Minotti’s version as the more reliable and he gave evidence for the state.

Unexpectedly, Patterson made NO objection when the prosecution introduced Valenti’s criminal record in evidence.  Instead, he waited until his closing speech to the jury when he laid the blame for the killing at the feet of the judge who had paroled Valenti.  Here from the transcript are Chippy Patterson’s words.

“Valenti is no good.  His record proves it.
If society releases this type of man it deserves just what it gets.  Damn the law for this, but don’t damn the prisoner.”

The jury agreed, working on the curious thinking that if Valenti had not been paroled he would not have been able to commit murder.  Instead of the electric chair he was sentenced to separate and solitary confinement for the remainder of his natural life.

Not one BMEWS reader will believe the following but it’s true. This story isn’t over.

The author of the book who, no surprise, was a gangland lawyer writes an update in the footnotes with regard to Valenti by stating as follows:

“It is pleasant to be able to relate”

that … Valenti was released in the late 1940s.
He married and had three children. He was thought of as a reliable and trustworthy employee, who eventually became foreman of a small printing works.

-end-

Posted by peiper     on 08/06/2009 at 09:40 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • History • Lawyers •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink •  

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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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