Criminal Lawyers

Background.

William F. Howe, called "the father of the criminal bar in America," was British or American by birth. At about the age of thirty he arrived in New York, where by 1861 he was practicing law. During the Civil War he was very successful in getting men out of the Union Army. He would argue that they had enlisted when drunk, or that family circumstances exempted them from service. At one time Howe was credited with having an entire company (seventy men) discharged. In one criminal case Howe argued that his client had not received a fair trial, as only two of the three judges on the court had sat through the entire trial. Though other lawyers thought the argument a joke, a higher court sustained Howe, and his client went free. In 1863 Abraham Hummel, a fourteen-year-old son of...