The Court of General Sessions
The Court of General Sessions of the Peace of New York County devotes its entire time to criminal matters. It is English in origin, and was established by them after they became masters of the colonies in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The prototype of the Court of General Sessions is found in all the counties of England, and is known as the Court of Quarter Sessions. Since this court was established in New York County, it has undergone many changes. At first, like its prototype, its sessions were held quarterly, but with the immense growth of criminal business in New York, its sessions are now held daily, with the exception of Saturday.
Beginning on the left, Judges Rosalsky, Foster and Crane, of the Court of General Sessions, New York.
At present there are five parts of this Court that are in session nine months in the year. During the summer months two of the Courts close, which permits each judge to take a vacation. In each Court the District Attorney keeps two assistants, who prosecute all cases in the name of the people.
The General Session Judges at present are as follows: Judges Foster, Rosalsky, O’Sullivan, Mulqueen, Crain and Swann.
CHAPTER XXV
SCENES IN OUR POLICE COURTS
As is well known, the Police Court is the sorting Criminal Bureau of the city, where the murderer, highwayman, thief and burglar come to be classified. It is here that the criminal is confronted with the visible forms of law, and where the evidences of his guilt become so convincing as to be conclusive. All over the five Boroughs of Greater New York, the Magistrates sit in rotation in the various courts.
Every morning the police gather their prisoners into the court “pens,” where the Magistrate presides. After this, the prisoner is placed at the bar, where he is compelled to answer the question whether he is guilty or not guilty? In all of these courts, the wheels of justice move swiftly against wrongdoers, and frequently so fast that the innocent has a chance of being locked up for several days, without redress.
No one can be a spectator of what transpires in these petty courts during a morning session, without being deeply impressed, not only with the character of the business done, but the variety of the persons that come before the court. That the proceedings are genuinely realistic goes without saying. The work done in the Tombs Police Court may be taken as a fair example of what is done elsewhere, although it usually does twice as much business as is done in any other court in Greater New York.
The Magistrate’s Courts are supposed to be open for business as early as nine a. m. and continue in session till four p. m. Sundays and holidays are excepted, when there is only a morning session. Through the earnest work of Judge Whitman, a Night Court has been established in Manhattan, for the purpose of putting the professional bondsman out of business!
Lawyers are not necessary on either side in the Police Court, as the dignity of His Honor can be maintained and the interests of both sides conserved without a paid attorney. In some courts, a big crook with a crowd of ward politicians around him, has a splendid chance of getting clear, while the innocent moneyless unfortunate gets scarcely any consideration.
Powerful moneyed interests and political gamblers when brought to court and backed by an array of counsel known to the judge are sure to get some consideration. But this is what might be expected, and often strange things take place in the Police Court.
“The law condemns the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the Common;
But lets the greater felon loose,
Who steals the Common from the goose.”
The political “pull” has always been a power when exercised either by a Tammany judge or a “reformer,” as the supporters of both classes do their best to help their friends and spite their enemies! A few years ago I succeeded in closing a notorious gin mill in the lower part of the city, but not till I laid the matter before the Police Commissioner. Finally the law breaker was arrested and taken to the Tombs Court, where he pleaded not guilty. After a brief examination, the Tammany Magistrate discharged him, when he learned that the police went to the saloon on Sunday morning, and were admitted as sailors, with oilskins over their heads. Both Commissioners McAdoo and Bingham have criticised the Magistrates for discharging guilty crooks who ought to have been sent to prison.
Not a great while ago, a religious editor went to a reform Magistrate whom he had known in connection with charity work, and secured the discharge of an old crook that ought to have been sent to Sing Sing. The preacher told me afterwards that the work had to be done not in open court, but in the inner sanctum. If the reporters knew what had taken place, said this man, both of us would have been “roasted.” Investigator Mitchell has been able to unearth many things that would not stand the light of day. But they are done with the best intentions.
Here is a sample of Police Court realism:
“Patrick McShane,” said the Magistrate to a Hibernian defendant; “Patrick, what have you to say for yourself?” “I was not drunk, Your Honor,” said Paddy; “I was only sick.” “Loan the city two dollars, and go in peace,” said the Magistrate.
“Mickey Maguire, what have you to say for yourself?” “The officer found you trying to converse with a lamp post at one a. m. What was the matter with you?” Mickey replied, “Well, Your Honor, I am a fireman on the City of Rome and me ship goes out to-morrow.” “Discharged,” said the Judge. But Maguire was an old time liar. He had only been liberated from the Tombs the day before by the help of a missionary, who put him on a Pennsylvania ferry boat with the intention of going to see a “fake” brother-in-law in Trenton, N. J., but Maguire returned the same night and became helplessly drunk on West Street and was then “run in” by a cop. Keeper John Smith was in court at the time and saw the whole transaction and almost fell over in a faint when he heard Maguire tell so many lies to gain his liberty.
The common drunk and disorderly cases are frequently disposed of with lightning rapidity in most of police courts. Sometimes fifty and even seventy-five cases come before the Magistrate at a morning sitting, besides a dozen of felony cases that must receive a large amount of attention before he is able to arrive at the truth and decide whether he can send the prisoner to the grand jury or discharge him.
There is a woman with a child in her arms who charges her husband with non-support. Both use strong drink and are to blame for making the home a pandemonium. The magistrate tries to have them go home and stop drinking, for if the husband is sent to prison, what will become of the children? They return home to do better.
Here is a boy, sixteen years old, charged with stealing two pounds of old lead, worth about seven cents. The magistrate tries to settle the case with honor to both parties. The complainant refuses. He insists on “Shylock” justice. Finally the lad is sent to the Boys’ Prison in the Tombs. Poor boy, his career is blasted for two pounds of old lead, all because the hard hearted complainant shows no mercy!
Frequently there are lined up in the magistrate’s court thirty to forty bleared-eyed, disheveled hair, filthy, tipsy men and women, the offscourings of the city—made so by the city gin mill! I have often asked why the wise sages that run our Legislature do not put the whiskey and beer shops out of business, which would end most of the wretched scenes found in our police courts.
A frequent matter of injustice in our police courts is the treatment accorded the Italian, Greek and Jewish peddlers and push cart men. Although they are licensed by the city and compelled to carry a badge, hardly a day goes by without a score of them being hauled to court on the most flimsy charge. Indeed, every obstacle is put in their way to prevent them from earning an honest dollar. The city ordinance prevents them from standing more than ten minutes in one place. Often they are arrested before they are five minutes in a place. If you stand around Park Row you can see a dozen of these men picked up daily, while the notorious pool rooms and gambling hells of the city are in full blast.
Intoxication and disorderly conduct cases receive the least consideration. And then everything depends on what the policeman says against the defendant, but the presumption is that he is guilty. What we object to is that the magistrate allows the officer to whisper something into his ear, that the defendant knows nothing whatever about and is not related to the case, but that thing is usually the basis of the sentence. I hope that the day will come when the officer that makes the arrest will place the rum-seller at the bar with the “drunk” and make him responsible for the “output” of his own saloon. Indeed, whenever a policeman finds a “drunk” within a hundred feet of a saloon, it should be his duty to arrest the saloon-keeper who sold the liquor. Why not? As the officer on post gets all his “drinks” free at the saloon, which is only bribery in a mild form, it would be manifestly improper for him to give any other testimony in the proceedings other than favorable to the rum-seller, and this makes his relation to the case nothing short of a scandal! Almost every day some persons are robbed and flim-flammed in scores of city saloons. If they offer any protest or even ask for the return of their money they are forthwith “fired” to the street. Sometimes the victim is beaten into insensibility and left bleeding on the sidewalk. Soon a policeman comes along. He arrests the victim and makes a charge of intoxication or disorderly conduct against him. But, strange to say, nothing is done to the saloon-keeper and his assassins. The bloated gin-mill keeper is allowed to continue his business unmolested, and he waits for more victims. Good hearted people, and even ministers of the gospel, waste a lot of “gush” on the poor, persecuted saloon keeper, all of which is entirely uncalled for.
Strong drink is the cause of more than two-thirds of all the business transacted in the police courts. If we could only do away with this curse there would be little work left for the magistrates.
Some of our magistrates show wretched judgment in handling the “down and out” unfortunates that frequent the police courts. Indeed, several sages of the “reform brand” act strange in dealing with beginners as well as habituals. With one or two magistrates almost every victim is sure of six months on the island and there is little or no discrimination. If this is what New York’s famous District Attorney had in mind when he said: “To h—— with reform,” it seems to me he was justified in using the expression. It is nothing short of a parody on justice to send a poor laboring man or mechanic, the victim of the ubiquitous gin-mill, to prison for six months for simple intoxication. For, as a rule, while he is in prison, getting three square meals a day such as they are, his wife and children are starving to death by slow process at home.
Judge Rosalsky recently discharged two men in General Sessions and scored the magistrate for such a foolish sentence. There are, however, honorable exceptions. Some of our magistrates are very humane and show excellent judgment in dealing with such persons. It seems to me that several Tammany magistrates who have come up from the common people and live in touch with them, show remarkable good sense in dealing with the “drunk and disorderly” cases that come before them.
It seems to me that Magistrates Finn and Breen, and for that matter several others, show good sense in dealing with unfortunates. Instead of sending every man “up” for six months, as some reform judges do, they fine them a dollar and after they are sobered, let them go. To stay a night in the stifling cell of a station house is punishment enough for any man. Such magistrates are certainly merciful, and do much to help the man fallen by the way!
One other magistrate who seems to possess the judicial mind, always careful, painstaking and just toward the unfortunate, is Judge Mayo, when he was a City Magistrate. He is now a Special Session Judge, and as I watched the proceedings in the Children’s Court, some time ago, where he presided, I saw that he still holds his good qualities!
Another gentleman for whom I always entertained the highest regard was Magistrate Poole. I liked him for his open and sterling qualities and often wished that more of his kind might adorn the magistrate’s bench. I never knew him to turn down a genuine case of mercy in the hour of need.
Old Police Headquarters, 300 Mulberry Street, N. Y. City.
The Bridge of Sighs, which connects the Tombs
with the criminal court building.
CHAPTER XXVI
SHARKS AND SHYSTERS OF OUR CRIMINAL COURTS
Within recent years there seems to be a bad odor in all of our Criminal Courts because of the sharp practices carried out by the “shyster” and “harpies” of the law. Most of these men, if they are not inferior in calibre to the other members of the bar, are intemperate in their habits. And they are severely criticised by friends and foes for their unjust dealings toward their clients. It is true, the modern lawyer is brought into fierce conflict with some of the sharpest temptations of the times, and are frequently drawn into the maelstrom from which they seek to extricate other men less fortunate than themselves. Since William Travers Jerome became District Attorney, he has sent more than a score of lawyers to prison for various acts of dishonesty, and some of them were men of prominence in the profession.
In almost every walk of life, if professional men received money for services which they promise to render and then do nothing, they are liable to prosecution for false pretenses. When lawyers treat their clients this way, they have much harsh criticism hurled at them, and deservedly.
It would be hard to estimate the number of persons who are continually robbed of money and valuables by legal sharks and shysters around the various courts of the city. Although complaints are made from time to time against these thieves, nothing is done to stop it. It is a well known fact that many of the lawyers that hang around these courts are of the poorest quality, and are often glad to get whatever comes their way. At any rate, these harpies of the law soon become adepts at “bleeding,” every victim that falls into their hands, including the prisoner, his family and friends.
As soon as a “shyster” secures a victim the first thing he does is to find out how much money he has on him. Then he demands a fee for his services which must be paid on the spot. If the prisoner has no money but has a gold watch, chain, ring or other jewelry it must be surrendered and sent to the pawn shop and the money given to the lawyer.
But if the prisoner has neither money nor jewelry, then he must give the names and addresses of his friends or relatives who are requested to furnish money for his defense. The shyster usually alarms the friends of the prisoner by telling them it is a hard case and expressing the opinion that he may be sent away for a long term of years. All this is done to deceive and make sure of a large fee.
In a great many cases the dishonest shyster intimates that he has a “pull” with the Judge or the District Attorney, to turn the prisoner on the street as soon as he gets a goodly fee, which may be a hundred dollars or five hundred dollars; not only do his promises to the prisoner prove to be absolutely false, but as soon as the shyster has entirely fleeced his victim he abandons the case, leaving the poor defenceless prisoner to the mercy of some other legal shark like himself.
A shyster who practices at Jefferson Market secured $75.00 from a prisoner on the strength of a promise to get him out of prison in two days. After he received the money he never came near him again. This is very common police court ethics.
When this same prisoner came to the Tombs he fell into the hands of another legal shark, who on the strength of a solemn promise to get him free within forty-eight hours, or at the furthest in a few days, made him sign over $80 cash which he had in the savings bank. When this last lawyer secured all his money he left him in the lurch like shyster No. 1. I know all about this case and am of the opinion that both of these lawyers should have been sent to prison and the defendant set free.
A man charged with murder and afterwards sent to the death house was given a lawyer through a “steering policeman.” The prisoner had just come out of the coroner’s office when the cop informed him that a lawyer would be sent to him by one of his friends, although he did not have a friend in the country. In less than an hour a young East Side “shyster” came to the Tombs, had him sign a paper retaining him as his attorney, and in this way secured the State’s allowance of five hundred dollars for the prisoner’s defense. This was the man’s ruin. The policeman doubtless shared the profits of iniquity with the lawyer when he fastened him on his victim. When the case came to trial the poor fellow was convicted by his own lawyer.
A poor Sicilian named Antonio fell into the clutches of a young Italian “shyster.” It was a homicide case, but the prisoner was only guilty of assault or at most manslaughter in the second degree. “For a hundred dollars,” said the “shyster,” “I will get you clear.” Antonio paid the money—all he had in the world. In a few weeks his lawyer brought him to court and made him plead guilty to murder in the second degree, so as to get rid of the case, and he was then and there sentenced to imprisonment for life. Then the lawyer disappeared. Such frauds ought to be disbarred and also jailed.
Another prisoner now in Sing Sing gave a hundred dollars to a lawyer with an unsavory reputation who frequently does business in Yorkville Court. The money was all the man was able to raise among his friends, and it was given with the full understanding that it would pay for his examination in the police court and his trial in General Sessions. That was the last the prisoner ever saw of that shyster. The prisoner wrote to him a number of times, asking him to fulfill his promise and defend him, but he paid no attention to his letters. Finally the prisoner in his desperation was compelled to ask a charity lawyer to defend him. The shyster got his money and that was all he cared for. If anybody else had swindled a man in such a manner he would be sent to the penitentiary for a year, but lawyers are allowed to rob people at will and nothing is done to them.
I personally knew the case of a German lad charged with a very serious offence. A lawyer, now dead, called him from his cell in the old Tombs to the counsel room and offered to get him discharged for one hundred dollars. He informed his married sisters (who were very poor) of the offer made him. They in turn sold their wedding rings and borrowed money to secure this lawyer his fee. Two days after receiving the money he sent word to the sisters that unless they raised $300 more he would not undertake the case. Of course they could not, and as a result they lost the $100 given this legal thief and had to secure a charity lawyer. During the trial of the young man this inhuman brute worked with the prosecution and did all he could to send him to prison. Just then Mr. Louis Stuyvesant Chanler, the poor man’s friend—God bless him for the thousands of acts of kindness he has shown to friendless prisoners—came to his rescue and aided the young man greatly.
We knew the case of a couple of Broadway lawyers who swindled a so-called “Count” of $1,000 cash and then abandoned him for some reason, which was manifestly unfair no matter what excuse they had.
There are hundreds of honest and upright lawyers in this city who would loathe to do the mean and dishonorable things done by the police court “shysters;” but there are others who are doing mean and dishonest things all the time, who bring disgrace to an honorable profession, but few try to bring them to justice.
Around all the district prisons and courts of the city may be found an army of unworthy vultures that prey upon the carcasses of the “down and out” unfortunates of all nationalities who are compelled to seek justice in such places. Not only do these “sharks” rob them of whatever they may have on them, but they send their “steerers” to the homes of the prisoners and compel them to pawn what they may have of value in the house to give them as fees. And when they have bled their victims almost to death they abandon them to their fate.
It is well known to the authorities of all the courts that the disreputable lawyers who practice there have the cases against their clients adjourned from week to week for no other reason than to bleed them of all the money in their possession. At one of the district prisons in the upper part of the city a poor man was kept there two months by a “shyster,” for the purpose of getting the last dollar out of him. As soon as the Magistrate knew the facts he was forthwith sent to the Tombs to await the action of the grand jury.
A Jefferson Market Police Court lawyer was severely reprimanded in Special Sessions because he took a fee of $20.00 from a poor girl and gave her no service in return. He was afterwards compelled to return the money before he was allowed to leave the court. And furthermore the judges promised to have him disbarred for the wrong done. But this man is only one out of hundreds that do the same thing continually.
A lawyer whom I personally knew, who was afterwards made a judge, took a thousand dollar fee from a crook who stole two thousand dollars from a woman, but refused to do anything more for him till he gave the other thousand dollars. This the crook refused to do. The result was he had to fall back on friends to get him a charity lawyer to defend him in General Sessions.
Bold brazen shysters hang around the Courts of General and Special Sessions, who, with the aid of “cunning” steerers, probation officers and frequently with the help of policemen are able to rob their clients of all they have in the world, and render little or no service in return. The wonder is that the judges do not combine to put such men out of business.
The city magistrates and judges of the criminal courts have known the situation for several years, but apparently refuse to do anything to stop the abuses. The evil at present has assumed the proportion of a plague—crushing out the very life of the poor unfortunates and their friends, who are compelled to come to terms with the shyster.
Some of our city magistrates go into spasms over the iniquities of the professional bondsmen, but they do nothing to put down the professional shyster and harpies who are allowed to rob and ruin the unfortunates daily.
CHAPTER XXVII
CROOKED CROOKS IN PRISON
What brilliant minds are sometimes confined within prison walls! And how they work and fret and stew from morning till night and frequently from night till morning in an effort to “beat the prison.” Such men soon put certain kinds of machinery in operation which might aid their freedom, but when the authorities find it out they clip their wings, and their good conduct marks disappear.
A few years ago an old crook tried to get out of the old Tombs by digging through the wall of his cell. After he had made the “hole” he found to his surprise that it would land him in the warden’s office. A man named Smith escaped from Blackwell’s Island in the summer of 1905 by swimming across the East River. He did not make the attempt till he saw a schooner coming his way, then he pretended that he had cramps and must be rescued. It would fill a very large book to tell one-half of the crooked deeds done in an ordinary prison in one year.
In 1900 a young man was arrested in this city named George E. Shep. In due time he was indicted for the crime of grand larceny in the second degree, and sent to Elmira.
Dr. F. W. Robertson was then superintendent of that institution, and was able after a few interviews to “size up” his boarder. It could not be denied that Shep was a young fellow of considerable ability, but all who knew him believed that he needed “watching.”
Dr. Robertson saw that he was an expert bookkeeper and could handle both the pen and typewriter with amazing agility. As he showed unusual brightness and precocity he was made assistant bookkeeper in the Clothing Department under Officer Weinberg. In the summer of 1901 Shep came to the conclusion that he had better abandon the seclusive privileges of Elmira and seek “fresh fields and pastures new” in some more congenial climate where the restraints of prison life were not so oppressive and where he would have room for the development and display of his mental powers.
When Shep found that he would be compelled to live in the Reformatory longer than he thought necessary, he very cautiously put out “feelers” to see if money could help him to freedom. As we read over the ramifications of his correspondence and follow the unraveling of his deeply laid schemes, we are forced to believe that some person or persons in the institution must have given him encouragement. From this time on, Shep, who possessed the luxury of a cool, calculating head, set himself to work by a well laid scheme to secure his liberty.
Shep must have had a fertile brain. Whether the information was sent him or not we do not know, at any rate he knew that there was a large corporation in Baltimore, known as the Shep Knitting Mill Company. As he had access to the Prison Printing Office he had letter heads struck off with the name and address of the mill. After this he wrote typewritten letters to the chairman of the Board of Trade, of Spencer, Mass., offering to build a knitting mill in that New England city, on which he proposed to spend $14,000, provided the citizens would give a site and a bonus of $2,500. The correspondence between Shep and Spencer Board of Trade was voluminous.
Shep had also written to a Philadelphia firm who promised to furnish the machinery and he was able to have an architect and a representative of the machinery firm meet in Spencer and look over the site for the new mill—all of which impressed the citizens of Spencer with the “realism” of the scheme. By December, 1901, the Spencer Board of Trade had raised the necessary bonus of $2,500 to send to Shep, as soon as the details were arranged, but alas, the whole project had no foundation whatever except in the fertile brain of Shep, the Elmira convict!
About this time Dr. Robertson, the superintendent, was making herculean efforts to stop the importation of tobacco into the Reformatory. Some person was smuggling the contraband, and the authorities set themselves to find out who it was. One of the first to be suspected was Officer Weinberg, who was instructor in the tailoring department. One evening after Weinberg had gone for the day, Dr. Robertson and some of his associates raided Weinberg’s rooms and captured some tobacco and many letters that came through the mails addressed to Shep. The correspondence between Shep and the Spencer Board of Trade showed clearly that for months this convict had been “dickering” to secure from them by fraud the sum of $2,500. During all this time Shep’s mail had been clandestinely brought into the Reformatory without the knowledge of the Superintendent and in violation of the rules. Officer Weinberg was at once suspected and a watch put upon his movements. Weinberg’s letter box in the Elmira post office was also watched by detectives, for mail addressed to Shep. On January 2nd, 1902, a letter reached Elmira by the morning mail addressed to George E. Shep, Esq., Elmira, N. Y. In the afternoon Officer Weinberg came to the post office, looked all around to see that no one was looking, secured the letter from the clerk, put it carefully in his inside pocket and departed. At that time, Dr. Robertson, the superintendent, had a detective in the post office concealed from public view, who saw all of Weinberg’s movements from the time he came into the office till he carried the letter away. That afternoon he reported the matter to Dr. Robertson, who awaited further developments.
Next morning at exactly six o’clock Officer Weinberg reported at the Reformatory, as was his usual custom, signed the register, and then went to breakfast. Afterwards Weinberg was called into the front office, where he was closeted with Dr. Robertson and several of the officers for two hours; he was asked if he had been in the habit of carrying tobacco and mail matter into the Reformatory against the rules, all of which he denied. Then he was asked to surrender the letter he had received the day before in the Elmira post office addressed to Shep, which had the postmark of Spencer, Mass., and which he had then in his pocket. Weinberg finally broke down and surrendered the letter. This letter was from the chairman of the Board of Trade of Spencer, Mass., asking for final instructions as to how the bonus money should be sent to Shep and closing the bargain for the bogus knitting mill.
While Weinberg was undergoing a rigid examination at the Reformatory the police searched his rooms in Elmira and found more letters and a suit of clothes belonging to the Reformatory. He was then placed under arrest charged with petit larceny. Further investigation revealed the fact that no less than two hundred letters for Shep had been brought into the Reformatory in the course of six months. Some of the letters showed that Shep had secured a firm of architects in Worcester, Massachusetts, to prepare plans for the new $14,000 building and that Weinberg was to be general manager. Arrangements were also made with a Machine Company, of Philadelphia, to furnish the plant with several thousand dollars worth of new machinery.
About the same time a long article appeared in the Spencer Herald, on the new Shep Knitting Mills, so soon to be operated in that city, and congratulating the city fathers on the success of their negotiations, and promising that the city would build new sewers and some of their enterprising citizens would erect a row of houses and possibly a street for the mill hands.
After several weeks of investigation the authorities came to the conclusion that all that convict Shep wanted was the money to bribe some of the Reformatory guards so as to make good his escape. In working up his scheme, Shep showed himself to be an expert forger, as he involved several other persons in his plans by forging their names to his papers, although they denied all knowledge of it. Great credit is due to Dr. Robertson, who nipped the scheme just in the nick of time and before the Spencer people had paid over the money to the noted crook.
Soon afterwards Shep was transferred to Auburn Prison to serve out his maximum sentence of five years.