ay- - . '
JACK RIDER
Lawyer J. Frank Wooten is dead, and
with hint died an era in the courts of our
area. At 77, after suffering a broken hip
earlier in the winter, Wooten died largely
from j broken heart,
In the past year or so .he’d sit in the
court rooms and watch ids junior colleagues
of the bar practice their trade.' He seldom
had .a, client. His hearing bothered hiqa in
court and far worse his -style had gone
“out of style”. V ' ^
Today tie soft spoken, serious-minded
young lawyers snicker at the bombast, the
outraged innocence, the subtly humor, tie
belt-tightening belly-laugh, the Bibical
quotation, the bitter irony and the earthy
philosophy of the J. Frank Wooten type of
lawyer. Wooten sat in court and watched
these younger men as a tempestuous Ty
Cobb must watch the polite young men play
baseball today.
st;
In the Lenoir County Bar there is no
successor lor Wooten. Today’s lawyer de
pend* upon die supposed solidity o? “facts”
and “law" and high court opinion. Wooten
• would have none at such flimsy, temporary
tools. He dealt with people'!' He worked on
judges and juries. He used every tool in
the trade of the great actor. He could be
outraged, bumble, witty or flattering—
whichever fitter the mood of the case, fee
could not quote law -so accurately nor so
profusely as his junior partners of the bar,
but he had the penetrating ©ammoo-sensical
eye that could see through the intricate
of the law and reach the
Parker i
decorum. Wboten was successfully winning
the lifelong devotion of Parker with his
famous jury speeches. Another dyspeptic
and much-feared judge, Sumner Bungwyn,
once tried to brow-beat Wooten into sub
mission in open court. That was a mistake
Burgwyn never made the seated time.
Burgwyn, suffering from Ids constant
melancholia, rudely stopped Wooten in the
middle of a speech to the jury. Alter about
30 seconds to get his temper in rein, Wooten
told the jury, “You 12 men are responsi
ble, for determining the guilt or innocence
of this defendant” Then he turned toward
Burgwyn and added, “That judge up there
on that bench has nothing to do bulj tell
you the law, it is your job and your job
alone to try this case.” Wooten’s client was
daringly guilty and the jury so found.
Burgwyn quickly gave the defendant an
ltMnonth prison tom.' Wooten announced
notice of appeal, and Burgwyn was awake
enough to realize that his dwn rudeness in
speaking to Wooten as he had was suffi
cient to secure a reversal in supreme court.
Burgwyn told Wooten, privately, a few
minutes later that if he’d withdraw the ap
peal, be would cut tho sentence to 90 days.
By his courage under fire, Wooten had
saved his client 15 ntotaths in prison and
had won the respect of another judge whom
most lawyers stm shy ftram.''
-. i -v: --■■■-".T"...‘Trasa:
Pious Hypocrites
The Washington (D. C.) Post and Times'
Herald has earned itself the reputation of
being just to the rigit of the late Daily
Worker insofar as its. efforts to fasten
state socialism upon these United States
are concerned.
The editorial staff, including its prize
winning- cartoonist have walls Covered with
plaques and scrolls testifying to the bleed
ing-heart slant of perverted liberalism
which they practice.
. The executive editor of this crying-rag
for the-“codnmon man”, one J. R. Wiggins,
is now and has been for some little time
chairman of “The Committee on .Freedom
of Information” of the American Society
of Newspaper Editors.^ _
No newspaper in the “land of the .free
and home of the brave” has more contin
uously worn its “concern for the public”
nakedly for all to admire and some to
“Tiie right of the people to know” is a ,
phrase Wiggins has built Into a monument -
for himself and the paper who hires his
pen.
Now, a prominent citizen of Washington, '
a noted author,.air line executive, native
of Near England has written an open letter
to the president, pointing out what the
writer of the letter believes to be import
ant considerations, about the hasty effort
to enforce immediate mixing of the white
and negro races, in the pttblic schools of
the nation.
This sacred' cow of American journalism
not only refused to publish this even-ten
ored letter in its news columns but has also
refused to print the letter e/vein as a paid
advertisement. ”V *J '
, And so, Vulgarly and quietly one more
bleeding heart liberal organ passes from
the public scene, tint not without leaving
a scar on the bo^y- of journalism, a body
that already bears wounds so grievous it
may never recover, _
The Chicken or the Egg?
i' -.. .-"V •
One of the oldest questions confronting
le curious mind has been; ‘*wybb came
rst: The ducked or die egg?” .
Such eminent sociologists as Ball Warren,
19*5 haVe had identical test boohs and su
perior faculties to instinct then.
Currently apologists tor (he “Black
board Jungles” in New York and other
metropolitan areas - are bktmine 'these
edtooh on file South, and in fact are Warn
ing these miserable -conditions on ewgiy
thjtng »w«p* (he reel trouble.
**** undeglaMe differences be
whether driver
under the Maeact". ^
We veto the suggestion for a number of
reasons. First of-Jhkse being the serifcis
invasion of an individuals’ rights and sucjv
state. - • . . - r.
haver and attitude of a suspected
are sufficient to convince any reasonable
person on this point. * \
Hie problem ,witb drunken driving' in
North Carolina is that the law as
now imposes upon the jury the (
t:on jhb of jury and judge. *
When and if a jury fi
guilty of drunken'driving- —
maticaUy sentence him to the ndnteiush
fine of $100 and mina.miwn lops of driver’s
license for 12 months. This is a job that a
jury should never he asked to perform.
Juries are finclpra of facts, not judicial of
ficers. • y
The'problem of sentencing prisoners at
the bar should be upon the judge. A 1100
fine and one, year toss-bf driving license is
not a fair sentence for"' every defendant.
To ope man this sentence is “small beer”
but to another it may be catastrophic.
The law should be changedto 'eliminate
the dual role now fdrced upon jurors and
give back to the judge the responsibility of
determining the degree of punishment. This
should apply to all crimes, and not only
to drunken driving violations. .
The current law on capital punishment
in North Carolina makes the jury determine
guilt or innocence and also impose .the
sentence. This is pot the part juries should
play, and when this part is fenced upon'
juries a serious breakdown results to the
pea. ■ ••
The negro who flunks a course at a-negro
school is just a dumb, lazy negro. But a
negro who flunks a course in a predomin
antly white school, and with a white teach
er is a “yictkn of white bigotry”, .''flu* '
same rule applies when the white-black
situation is reversed.
This situation exists in every school,
elementary or secondary. When seven ne
groes were admitted to the law school at
ith^ University of North Carolina by federal
court order, four flanked their courses
straight through, but were passed by cow
ardly faculty members who preferred
turning loose illiterate lawyers to facing
the screams of the bleeding-heart liberals
who would have immediately proclaimed ,
that the would-be negjro lawyers were
“busted out" because they were negroes,
and not because they were failing their
Courses. These same four negroes in any
reputable negro school in tfae South would