Review: The Jury Returns

The Jury Returns by Louis Nizer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In this large tome, Nizer gives us book-length legal considerations on these subjects:

Paul Crump author of Burn, Killer, Burn!: Twice-convicted of murder during a botched burglary and given the death sentence. Can rehabilitation be proved and does it merit commutation in such a case? Does society owe even death row's inmates opportunity for rehabilitation and thus some level of legal redemption? This case is thought-provoking.

Divorce: This is the shortest part and the names are obscured. Parking lot adultery photographed by private investigators.

Roy Fruehauf: In 1959, Fruehauf Trailer Corporation, Roy Fruehauf, Teamsters Union President Dave Beck, and others were indicted on charges that the company had illegally lent $200,000 to Beck in 1954. The Teamsters had previously lent $1.5 million to Roy Fruehauf to finance a proxy fight against his elder brother, Harvey, and Roy Fruehauf was alleged to have returned the favor by making the loan to Beck. As the Teamsters represented some Fruehauf employees, the loan was alleged to be an illegal gift or bribe, in violation of the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the indictment in 1961, but the case was subsequently dismissed. At this point, Nizer's involvement makes it appear more than RFK was bullying the Teamsters rather than that any illegal collusion was going on.

John Henry Faulk: Last, but certainly not least. John Henry Faulk from Austin, Texas, was a storyteller and radio show host. The successful lawsuit covered here helped to bring an end to the Hollywood blacklist. That blacklist always makes me cringe to think such witch hunting happened here. The House Un-American Activities Committee and its California counterpart figure in notoriously here. More new to me is a pamphlet entitled Red Channels focused on the field of broadcasting. It identified entertainment industry professionals in the context of "Red Fascists and their sympathizers." Soon, most of those named, along with a host of other artists, were barred from employment in most of the entertainment field. Even more obscure to me but essential to this case is the role of Laurence A. Johnson, an owner of four supermarkets in Syracuse, New York. The elderly patriot involved the American Legion Post in Syracuse (a single post!) to become a force felt throughout radio and television. His one-man "Syracuse Crusade" in the 1950s to force television advertisers to cancel sponsorship of programs in which "suspect" actors appeared. Johnson's pressure tactics were a manifestation of McCarthyism and the Hollywood Blacklist and the end of the trial may have brought the fraud to be a suicide.

(I see from the inscription that my copy found wended its way into my hands from the estate of recently deceased Michigan lawyer Karl Vasiloff.)

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