Patrick Murfin: How I Became an All Expense Paid Guest of Uncle Sam — The Trial

In Patrick’s last episode….

The Dirksen Federal Building was just a few years old back in 1973.  It had replaced a large and imposing pile of stone in the Beaux Art style of the Columbian Exposition that had been reduced to rubble.  In a city that prided itself on architecture, the “glass curtain” sky scraper by superstar Mies van der Rohe was a source of civic pride.

As I approached it from a subway staircase on Clark Street, it loomed in the gray morning like a giant black shoebox stood on end.  It rose from a bleak and then unadorned plaza balancing on its central bank of elevators.  A skirt of floor to ceiling clear glass encased the first floor exposing and expanse of marble floor and a stone wall with aluminum letters reading The Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Building.

In those days there was no visible security.  Doors on all side were open and hordes poured through on the way to their destinations.  A lone figure stood at a desk under the stone wall.  His function was mainly to direct visitors to the correct elevator.

Senator Dirksen would be too liberal for today’s GOP.

 

After receiving the correct instruction, I squeezed into a packed elevator was zoomed to a courtroom floor.  I was supposed to meet my lawyer, the esteemed Jason Bellow, outside the courtroom a few minutes early for a last consultation.  I was early.  He was not.

I fidgeted in a charcoal gray pin striped three piece suite that I had acquired in high school and not worn since, a pair of highly polished western style side zippered boots that I had borrowed from my father and which did not fit well, and a recently acquired pearl gray Stetson, my new dress hat.  I wanted to look respectable.

Moments before the court call a bailiff stepped out and announced that anyone with business should come in.  My lawyer was still not there.

The court room was dimly lit, much darker than I had expected.  It had a large seating area totally vacant that day.  In front of a rail were two tables.  On the left sat two, count them two prosecutors, although only one of them would actually speak.  Several piles of documents and legal pads littered the table and on one corner a thick file marked FBI laid conspicuously.

I could have used a lawyer like Vinny….

 

A dark wood judge’s bench loomed impressively in front of a Justice Department seal on the wall.  A witness box was on the right.  Off to one side in the space between the bench and the counsels’ tables a woman in a tight, short skirt sat as demurely as possible behind a stenography machine.  Just like in the movies, only darker.

Moments before the bailiff was set to call the Court to order, Jason Bellow ambled in casually, a friendly smile on his face.  Natty as when I had first seen him, he carried a slender black attaché case.

After shaking my hand, he clicked it open and retrieved a single slender manila file.  So slender, in fact, that it contained nothing but a copy of the indictment.

He laid it on the table and leaned over to whisper in my ear, “Are you sure you don’t want to plead?”

Shocked, I could only shake my head before the court was called to order.

Judge Sam Perry was a small, elderly man dwarfed by his bench.  He had served on the Circuit Court since being appointed by Harry Truman in 1951 and was officially retired to Senior status, hearing a few overload cases each month.

He was most famous for presiding over the epic trial for civil damages against the law enforcement officials who had murdered Black Panther Fred Hampton in his sleep.  After the longest trial in the history of the circuit, Perry had dismissed all charges.  He was overturned on appeal.

Despite this, he was no Julius Hoffman, and had a reputation for lenience in draft cases.

When asked by the judge, Bellow and I rose together and when asked, “How does the defendant plead?” I replied as firmly as possible, “Not guilty, your honor.”

About that time my girl friend Cecelia arrived and settled into a seat in the visitors’ gallery directly behind the defense table.  This was a surprise to me.  At breakfast she said that she was busy and couldn’t make it.  I guess she changed her plans.

After a few formalities one of the prosecutors rose to make his opening statement.  “On the [blank] day of December, 1972 the defendant, Patrick Mill Murfin did willfully refuse to submit to a lawful order of induction into the service of the United States of America…”  Blah, blah, blah.  He laid out the facts of that day which were, as he pointed out to the judge “irrefutable.”

He could have sat down then.  But he strolled from around the table and neared the bench, “Your honor,” he said pointing to the thick FBI file on the table, “The facts will show that the defendant was not motivated by religious conviction or pacifism, but by an abiding hatred of the government of the United States as shown by his willing and boastful membership in a known subversive organization.”

This was the point when I expected my lawyer to leap to his feet and object.  He did not.  And when it was his turn to give our opening, he said, “The Defense has nothing to say at this time.”  I must have looked alarmed.

“Don’t worry, an opening would only prolong the trial and irk the judge,” he whispered to me.

Editor’s Note: Patrick‘s last post for The Third City was the aforementioned: How I Became….

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