Devil's advocate

James Morton looks at the eventful life of William F Howe, the infamous criminal defence lawyer who took New York by storm in the 19th century

It is now 100 years ago that the great, if totally corrupt, New York lawyer William F Howe died.

I don't suppose there will be many tributes to him, so let me offer at least one.

His origins are uncertain.

Howe maintained he was born on 7 July 1828 at Shawmut Street, Boston, the son of the Rev Samuel Howe MA, and went to England.

He said he attended King's College, London and joined the office of George Waugh, the noted barrister.

He then moved to the offices of EH Seeley.

Unfortunately, records to support this claim do not exist.

He was certainly in England in November 1848 - as a witness for the prosecution in the celebrated Stanfield Hall murder, in which the feckless James Bloomfield Rush killed his landlord Isaac Jermy, the Recorder of Norfolk, who had threatened to have him evicted.

Howe's part in the trial was confined to producing some mortgage documents.

Another, less generous, version of Howe's life before arrival in New York was that he was a ticket-of-leave-man.

It is also said that, at times, he spoke with a cockney accent.

It is almost certain Howe had some sort of criminal record in England and when he was sued in 1874 by a pair of white slavers, William and Adelaide Beaumont, over his fees he was asked about his early life.

The lawyer appearing for him objected to the question on the grounds of its relevance.

The objection was sustained.

Other questions during the proceedings also went begging, such as whether he had lost his licence to practise medicine.

When asked, Howe denied he was the same William Frederick Howe wanted for murder in England and the same WFH convicted of forgery in Brooklyn a few years earlier.

Howe weighed nearly 300lbs (more than 21 stone) and, in later life, had closely cropped curly white hair and a moustache.

He was a flamboyant dresser besprinkled with diamonds which, for the afternoon, he sometimes changed for pearls.

He was one of the great old-fashioned barnstorming advocates but he must also have been a considerable lawyer.

He was responsible for the successful argument that the conscription regulations in the American Civil War were unlawful because they discriminated against the poor.

For a time he was known as Habeas Corpus Howe because of the number of soldiers he got out of the army on the grounds that they had signed their enlistment papers when drunk.

On another occasion, perhaps with less merit, he argued in October 1888 that his client could not be hanged because the state had passed a Bill ruling that all future executions should be by electrocution.

Since this was not yet in force, his client must go free.

It was an argument which brought terror to the hearts of the New York police and politicians.

Howe may have been right in law but no one was prepared to let him be right in practice.

Howe defended 600 murder cases - more than twice as many as all other lawyers in New York put together.

At one time he and his partner Abe Hummel represented 24 out of 25 men accused of murder and awaiting trial in New York's Tombs prison.

His criminal clients included the senior members of the Whyo Street Gang and the celebrated 'General' Abe Sheedy, leader of a nationwide gang of pickpockets.

But, undoubtedly, his most celebrated criminal client was Maram Mandlebaum, a receiver of stolen goods, who was said to pay him a $5,000 annual retainer.

There is no doubt that he masterminded her escape to Canada, where she was finally trapped by the Pinkertons.

Among his non-gangland clients, Howe defended William Chambers, accused of shooting Commodore Vorlis of the Brooklyn Yacht Club.

Chambers had insulted the American flag and told the Commodore to take it down.

The Commodore had refused and Chambers went home, found a gun and shot Vorlis.

Howe ran a plea of insanity and during the hearing Chambers sat with his head bandaged.

When Chambers was acquitted he snatched the bandage from his head proclaiming his sanity.

He also represented the Clafin sisters, Victoria - the first woman to stand for the US presidency - and Tennessee in their long struggle in criminal libel proceedings brought by the congregational divine, Henry Ward Beecher, against their magazine The Weekly.

Howe, clad in plaid pantaloons, purple vest, blue satin waistcoat and diamonds was at his most formidable.

Not one word published in The Weekly could be called obscene, he told the court.

If so, Howe maintained that it followed that the transmission through the mails of the Holy Bible, the works of Lord Byron (perhaps he was on shakier ground there) or any edition of the works of Shakespeare would be liable to the same penalty.

Not guilty, was the verdict.

Howe died suddenly on 2 September 1902, survived by his third wife.

The effective end of the firm came shortly after his death when Hummel was prosecuted and, after many years, finally convicted of faking evidence in a divorce case.

James Morton is a former criminal law specialist solicitor and now a freelance journalist