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University of California • Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office University of California

The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

Northern California U.S. District Court Series

Alfonso J. Zirpoli

FAITH IN JUSTICE: ALFONSO J. ZIRPOLI

AND THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR

THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Interviews Conducted by
Sarah. L. Sharp
1982-83

All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal
agreement between the Regents of the University of
California and Alfonso J. Zirpoli dated June 6, 1983.
The- manuscript is thereby made available for research
purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript,
including the right to publish, are reserved to The
Bancroft Library of the University of California Berkeley
No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication
without the written permission of the Director of The
Bancroft Library of the University of California at
Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication
should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office,
486 Library, and should include identification of the
specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the
passages, and identification of the user. The legal
agreement with Alfonso J. Zirpoli requires that he be
notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which
to respond.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited
as follows :

Alfonso J. Zirpoli, "Faith in Justice: Alfonso J.
Zirpoli and The United States District Court for
the Northern District of California," an oral
history conducted 1982-83 by Sarah L. Sharp,
Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley, 1984.

Copy No.

ALFONSO J. ZIRPOLI
ca. 1972

TABLE OF CONTENTS— Alfonso J, Zirpoli

PREFACE i

INTERVIEW HISTORY ill

I CHILDHOOD AND YOUTHS MIDWEST TO FURTHER WEST 1

II YOUNG ATTORNEY IN SAN FRANCISCO, 1928-1933 9
Early Practice; Friendship with A. P. Giannini and the Bank

of Italy 9

Additional Notes on Family and the Italian Community 19

A. P.'s Proxy Fight; "Back to Good Times" 24

The Investigation and Impeachment of Judge Harold Louderback 27

III YEARS AS ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, 1933-1944 34

Cops and Robbers: The "Baby Face" Nelson/ "Fatso" Negri Cases 34

Preliminaries 34

Unraveling the Tale 37

Habeas Corpus Questions and Alcatraz Island Prison 51

Further Notes on Judge Louderback: The Herbert Fleishhacker

Embezzlement Trial 56

The Northern District during World War II 58

The Alien Enemy Control Board 58

U.S. v. Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu 75

In the Matter of the Application of Mitsuye Endo

for a Writ of Habeas Corpus 83

IV THE INTERIM YEARS, 1944-1961 89

Tokyo Rose and Other Prisoner of War Cases 89

Comments on Political Activities; Changes in North Beach 95

Origins of the Indigent Defendant Program 102

Lawyer Delegate to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference 106

Interlude on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors 108

V ON THE BENCH OF THE NORTHERN DISTRICT 115

Appointment in 1961 and Transition 115

Changes in the Code of Civil Procedure 122
Sampling Antitrust Cases: From Electrical Equipment to

Wall Products 124

General Concerns in the Area of Antitrust 138

VI THE JUDICIAL CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED STATES, 1962-1982 148
Perspectives on the Work of the Conference: Membership on
the Advisory Committee on Federal Criminal Rules and the

Committee on the Administration of the Criminal Law 148

The Federal Magistrates Act 160

Modernizing the Rules 161

Sentencing and the Sentencing Commission 167

VII THE NORTHERN DISTRICT COURT 171

Friendship and Service with William T, Sweigert 171

Courtroom Comments: Lawyers' Styles and Juries 173
Conscientious Objection and Selective Conscientious Objection:

U. S. v. McFadden and Other Cases 177

Tempers of the Changing Times 189

The Issue of Draft Resistance 194

A Note on Law Clerks 199

Judge Sweigert and the War in Vietnam 200

The Court in Wartime 204

Welfare and Aid to Families with Dependent Children 205
Substantive and Administrative Changes within the Court Since

1961 207
Issues for the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference: Sentencing

Institutes , Diversity Jurisdiction 215

Further Thoughts on Juries 217
Prisoners' Rights and the Court's Role: Examples from Santa

Rita and San Quentin 220

The Death Penalty 223
Aid to Families with Dependent Children: State and Federal

Responsibilities 225

Comparing the District Court and the Court of Appeals 229

The Craft of Trial Court Judging 232

TAPE GUIDE 239

APPENDIX 240

INDEX 245

PREFACE

The Historical Society of the United States District Court for the
Northern District of California is a non-profit organization established by
federal practitioners and judges and is dedicated to preserve and develop
the history of this court. The Society's goals are threefold: 1) to marshal
the sources for historical study of the District; 2) to initiate and encourage
comprehensive and scholarly study of the court; and 3) to develop inter
pretive programs and exhibits making the fruits of this research accessible
and meaningful to the legal community and the general public.

In 1980 this series of oral histories conducted by The Bancroft Library
was initiated as an important effort in the furtherance of the Society's
objectives. By preserving the personal reminiscences of individuals whose
experiences and memory can yield valuable "oral evidence" of the court's
history, the Society hopes to enhance and amplify the written record.

In addition to historical study of the District, the Society hopes to
promote greater public understanding and appreciation of the role of the
federal judiciary. Except for those involved in the legal process, the
operation, significance, and impact of federal trial courts remains largely
a mystery to most Americans. By focusing on the history and activities of
the Northern District, the Society hopes to bridge this gap between the legal
and lay world and even encourage other District courts to initiate similar
efforts. As the nation nears the 200th anniversary of the ratification of
the United States Constitution, it is an appropriate time to raise the level
of public understanding by placing the contemporary role of district courts
in historical perspective.

Thanks are due to the foresight and generosity of the individuals and
organizations whose support make this work possible.

Robert Peckham,
Historical Society of the

U.S. District Court,
Northern District of California

San Francisco, California
April, 1981

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA U.S. DISTRICT COURT SERIES
Interviews Completed and In Process, 1984

Harris, George B. , Memories of San Francisco Legal Practice and State and
Federal Courts, I920s-I960s

Phleger, Herman, Observations on the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of California, 1900-1940

Sweigert, William T. , Sr. In process.

Wollenberg, Albert C. , Sr, , To Do the Job Well: A Life in Legislative,
Judicial, and Community Service

Zirpoli, Alfonso J. , Faith in Justice: Alfonso J. Zirpoli and the United
States District Court for the Northern District of California

iii

INTERVIEW HISTORY

Researchers interested in the history of the United States District
Court for the Northern District of California, and in the evolution of the
modern federal district court, are fortunate to now have available four oral
histories conducted with individuals long associated with the Court: Herman
Phleger , George B. Harris, Albert C. Wollenberg, Sr. , and, in this volume,
Alfonso J. Zirpoli. In addition, an oral history completed with William T.
Sweigert, a recently deceased Northern District Court judge, under the
auspices of both the Court and the Earl Warren Era project, is in its final
stages of production and will be available in late 198U. Since 1980 the
Northern District Court has worked with the Regional Oral History Office to
research and prepare oral history memoirs with some of the Court's
distinguished attorneys and judges. These oral histories are part of a unique
effort on the part of the Historical Society of the United States District
Court for the Northern District of California to collect materials relevant
to the Court's history. These interviews complement each other in their
discussion of critical themes and topics.

Alfonso Joseph Zirpoli has been a judge of the Northern District since
196l, and is currently serving on senior status. The memoir opens with
Zirpoli 's recollections of his arrival in San Francisco from Denver in 1918
as a young boy, with his mother and younger brother, Armando, to meet their
father who had come out earlier to assume a new position at the Italian
consulate. Both boys matriculated through San Francisco grammar and high
schools. As Zirpoli characterizes Washington Grammar School, "When you
graduated from that school, you either ended up in San Quentin or you were
employed by the Bank of Italy." Zirpoli dates his interest in the law from
his father's own enthusiasm for it and his experiences in the debating society
at Lowell High School. As he reminisces about his youth, the reader can
imagine life in Italian North Beach in the period after World War I. This
young Italian American opened his first law office in North Beach and
counseled many Italian clients.

Clearly a highlight of this period for Zirpoli was his warm tutelage
under A. P. Giannini , progenitor of the Bank of Italy (which became the Bank of
America) and fellow Washington Grammar School graduate, and Zirpoli 's efforts
on Giannini 's behalf in the Democratic party and in the bank's politics, all
in the 1930's. Throughout his life in San Francisco, Zirpoli has kept close
ties with the Italian community and he has maintained memberships in numerous
Italian associations such as the Italian Mutual Benefit Society, the Italian-
American Chamber of Commerce, and II Cenacolo.

Several episodes dominate Zirpoli 's recollections of his years as an
assistant United States attorney in San Francisco between 1933 and 19^^,
including his role in the apprehension, investigation, and trials of the

accomplices of "Baby Face" Nelson; in the hearings before the Alien Enemy
Control Board; in the Northern District Court cases of Fred Toyosaburo
Korematsu and Mitsuye Endo; and in the courtroom of Harold J. Louderback, a
judge for the Northern District who was impeached by Congress in 1932.

Zirpoli has retained a lively interest in the "Baby Face" Nelson cases.
He had saved eleven case files from the trials and shared them with the
interviewer as part of her preparation. The details of the activities of
Nelson and his many accomplices were very involved, and Zirpoli strove to
recall them. During his review of the transcript, he rewrote several lengthy
passages to clarify the stories. Zirpoli 's account illustrates the
investigation and prosecution methods used by the FBI and the Department of
Justice in the 1930s.

During the early phase of World War II, Zirpoli 's assignments in the
office of the U.S. attorney in San Francisco led him to experience the
pressures and fears directed against Japanese, German, and Italian individuals,
both alien and citizen. He was a prosecutor before the Alien Enemy Control
Board, a hearing board which decided, on the basis of the evidence presented
before its officers , whether certain aliens should be considered dangerous
enough to endanger national security and therefore interned in camps. These
camps were similar to the camps which held so many Japanese and Japanese -
Americans later in 19^2 around the country; very little is known of their work
and the people which the boards assigned to be internees. Zirpoli 's account
reveals the procedures by which the San Francisco board did its work. At the
suggestion of Chief Judge Robert Peckham, the interviewer attempted to arrange
an additional session to cover the board more fully. The interviewees were
to have been Thomas Barclay and Edwin Owens, along with Judge Zirpoli, but this
session did not take place. Interested readers may see an oral history
interview conducted with Edward J. Enriis in, Japanese-American Relocation
Revisited, Volume _!_, which was completed as part of the Earl Warren Era project
in 1976, for additional information about the board.

Much of the documentation of the Korematsu, Endo and the other Japanese
American internment cases has focused on them as they came before the United
States Supreme Court in 19^3 and 19U1*. Zirpoli 's recollections of his role as
an assistant U.S. attorney in Korematsu and Endo as they were prosecuted in
19^2 at the lower level fill in many details about the roles of judges, of
Earl Warren as California's attorney general — all cast against the backdrop
of curfew and exclusion orders in force in the San Francisco Bay area during
World War II. As a side note on Endo and Korematsu, the timing of this
particular interview session coincided with the efforts of Fred Korematsu and
fellow internees Minor Yasui and Gordon Hirabayashi to have the Northern
District vacate their convictions for violating the militarily-imposed curfew.

Between 19UU and 19&1, Alfonso Zirpoli involved himself in a number of
political and legal activities — as a private attorney, as a member of the San
Francisco Board of Supervisors , and as a supporter for several state and
national candidates. Zirpoli worked on the campaigns of Democratic candidates
Adlai Stevenson and Stanley Mosk, and urged, though unsuccessfully, General
Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for the presidency as a Democrat.

One important thread for the history of the Northern District Court in
this period, and on which Zirpoli comments, is the establishment of the
indigent defendant program in 1951. Zirpoli chaired a special committee
arranged by the Court at the suggestion of Judge George Harris to Chief
Judge Louis Goodman. It was also in this period that Zirpoli registered
his interest in the administration of the federal courts in California by
becoming a lawyer delegate to the Ninth Circuit judicial conference.

The remainder of this oral history memoir concerns Zirpoli Ts career on
the bench of the Northern District. President John F. Kennedy nominated
Zirpoli to fill a vacancy on the Court in 196l. The nomination sailed through
Democratic channels quickly, despite the pressures of Governor Edmund G. Brown,
Sr.,for selection of another nominee. Zirpoli answered the interviewer's
questions on a wide variety of topics — substantive areas of adjudication such
as antitrust, conscientious objection and prisoners' rights, as well as his
memberships on the Advisory Committee on the Federal Criminal Rules and the
Committee on the Administration of the Criminal Law, both committees of the
Judicial Conference of the United States. Zirpoli had retained materials from
his work on these committees which he allowed the interviewer to review, such
as remarks before Congressional committees and annual reports of these Judicial
Conference committees. Along the way in these discussions, Zirpoli assesses
his own approach to trial court judging ("I probably interrogated witnesses
a little more than any other judge."), and sentencing, the role of the court
in wartime, the differences between the trial court and the court of appeals,
the role of attorneys, and other topics. By way of his description of the
antitrust cases, Zirpoli comments on a judge's expertise in understanding the
technical details of what cases are brought before him.

As is typical of oral history sessions, both the interviewer and Judge
Zirpoli introduced many topics which could not be covered because of time
constraints, such as the judge's relationship with President Kennedy and
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, during his first years on the bench, or
cases which there was not time to mention, such as the collective bargaining
case involving Granny Goose Foods and the California Teamsters which went to
the United States Supreme Court in 1971*-*

The oral history process began with Judge Zirpoli in a preliminary meeting
with the interviewer to discuss a general outline of topics and time periods.
Zirpoli filled in additional topics which he wanted to cover. The interviewer
presented the judge with a Lexis printout of his district court cases, and the
judge selected many for discussion. For the most part, these are the cases
which were covered. The footnotes show some of the books and materials which
the interviewer used to develop questions. In addition, the interviewer drew
on oral histories conducted earlier and other research, as well as a tape

*Granny Goose Foods, Inc. , et al. v. Brotherhood of Teamsters and Auto Truck
Drivers, Local No. TO of Alameda County, International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
Chauffers, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, Ul5 U.S. ^23 (197*0-

recording which Zirpoli had made on his own and which highlighted his career
in the law. The library of the San Francisco Chronicle held several useful
articles detailing Zirpoli 's actions in draft resistance and death penalty
cases. Outlines of each upcoming session and copies of cases to be covered
were always sent several days ahead of the scheduled meeting. Many times Judge
Zirpoli had written notes about the topics included on the outline and
incorporated these ideas into the interview. The interviewer conducted all
taping sessions in the judge's chambers at the Court in the Federal Building
in San Francisco on 9 September, lU October, 2 and 2U November, all in 1982,
and 7 and 2k February, and 5 and 12 May, in 1983. Both the judge and the
interviewer sat at a large table in one corner of his private office, with case
reporters and other items spread out before them. At the far end of the table ,
current case records had been stacked in high piles, awaiting Judge Zirpoli 's
attention.

Judge Zirpoli reviewed the lengthy transcript during his convalescence
from a serious illness early in 198U. Fluent in Italian, he corrected the
spelling of the Italian words. He also corrected his phrasing in some
discussions of the cases, and made his language more explicit and added
descriptive phrases in other portions of the transcript. He loaned the
interviewer the photographs which appear throughout the volume; they are from
a small family collection. The judge's assistant of many years, Maggie
Anderson, was of invaluable assistance during this review process.

Many materials which relate to this oral history have been deposited in
the Bancroft Library to supplement the interview. They include "Oral Remarks
of District Judge Alfonso J. Zirpoli in connection with appearance before
Subcommittee on Crime Committee of the Judiciary House of Representatives on
S. 751*," dated 19 September 1971*; "Statement of the Honorable Alfonso J.
Zirpoli, United States District Judge, Northern District, California," on S.I,
dated 19 September 197^;" "Summary of statement of Senior District Judge
Alfonso J. Zirpoli concerning the Criminal Code Reform Act of 1978, S. 1^37,
and H. R. 6869, before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the Committee
on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, April 10, 1978;" a copy of
S. 1, a revision of Title 18 of the United States [Criminal] Code, dated h
January 1973; a copy of "Remarks by Judge Alfonso J. Zirpoli at the Historical
Society's Alcatraz Event, October 6, 1982"; and a transcript of an interview
with Harold Faulkner conducted by Judge Zirpoli in 1981.

As is frequently the case in oral history interviewing, the actual process
of recollection, once begun, is a tap that is difficult to turn off. Several
months after the interviewing had been completed, the interviewer saw Judge
Zirpoli at an eightieth birthday celebration for Bernard Witkin, a noted
California law jurist. The judge greeted the interviewer warmly, appeared
pensive for a moment, and said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you about my experiences
at Boalt Hall with Witkin when I proofread his first book...."

3 July 198U Sarah Sharp

Regional Oral History Office Interviewer-Editor

U86 The Bancroft Library
University of California at Berkeley

I CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH: MIDWEST TO FURTHER WEST
[Interview 1: September 9, 1982 ]##

Sharp: I know from the Jackson book* that you had been born in Denver
1905.

Zirpoli: Yes.
Sharp :

Zirpoli:

I thought we would start with your coming here,
remember the trip coming out to San Francisco?

I wondered if you

Yes, I remember the trip coming out to San Francisco, but I ought
to add a comment here that has some bearing on my being here. My
father [Vincenzo Zirpoli] met my mother [Stella Graziani Zirpoli]
in Rome. He had been in the Italian cavalry for seven years. She
had her family in Torrington, Connecticut. So he came to the United
States to marry my mother and they moved to Denver, Colorado
immediately, where she had a cousin residing. He got his first job
as a bronco buster in the stockyard. But he decided that he would
return to Italy, so he went to the Italian consulate with his little
horse and buggy and parked outside the consulate.

When he entered, the consul was interviewing a man for military
service and he was having some difficulty with the forms . My
father asked if he could be of assistance. After it was over, the
consul turned to my father and said, "What can I do for you?" My
father said, "I would like to return to Italy." The consul said,
"Why don't you remain here as secretary of the consulate. We don't
have a secretary for the consulate."

////This symbol indicates that a tape or a segment of a tape has
begun or ended. For a guide to the tapes see page 239.

*See Donald Dale Jackson, Judges (New York: Atheneum, 1974);
"Judge Simpatico" is the chapter about Judge Zirpoli, pp. 277-302,

Zirpoli: So he remained in Denver in 1904 and I was born in the following
year, 1905. Had it not been for that incident, I would have been
born in Italy. Who knows what my life would have been. We remained
in Denver until 1918 when my father was transferred to San Francisco.
The consul general in Denver was transferred to San Francisco. My
father moved over to San Francisco with him and remained his secre
tary of the consulate until 1939. During much of that time, he
also served as acting consul.

I recall the trip to San Francisco because my mother had an
uncle who was a priest at the St. Regis College and we went to a
very early Mass. I remember going to the Mass for prayers in
preparation for our journey to California. When we arrived at the
depot and were boarding the train, there was a tremendous thunder
and lightning storm that I always remember.

Upon our arrival in San Francisco, we expected my father to be
there at the Ferry Building, but there was some mistake and there
was no one there to receive my mother and me and my brother
[Armando Zirpoli], who was two years younger than I. It was the
first week of April. The Travelers Aid phoned the consulate and
my father came down and got us and had someone take care of our
baggage. We took the California Street cable [car] — it was my first
cable car ride — up California Street. The consulate was situated
at Clay and Montgomery and we went first to the consulate. That
was in the original Bank of America building at Clay and Montgomery.

I was expecting to see a lot of trees, especially orange trees
and some fruit trees. There were many trees on the streets in
Denver. To my disappointment I saw no orange trees, no fruit trees.
San Francisco was just a big city with very few trees and plenty of
hills. We stayed with the consul in his home for a few months.
Finally we found an apartment on the top of Nob Hill in a building
which has since been torn down. They have a big tower there now on
Clay, the Clay- Jones. That was our first location.

My brother and I enrolled in Washington Grammar School. This
was an all boys school situated at Washington and Mason Streets.
It has since been torn down. The fame of the school is the fact
that A. P. {Amadeo Peter] Giannini was a graduate of the school and
the district attorney (I am trying to remember his name) [Matthew
Brady] was a graduate of that school. These were the two most
important graduates. But as I say, it was an all boys school. When
you graduated from that school, you either ended up in San Quentin
or you were employed by the Bank of Italy.

My mother dressed us up in little Lord Fauntleroy clothes
consisting of knee britches, a little jacket, hat, and button shoes
and everything. But it was a pretty rough school and by the time
we got home, we were a mess. I attended that grammar school just

Stella Graziani Zirpoli, Judge
Zirpoli's mother, 1904. Photograph by
Noad & Brown, Torrington, Conn.

Alfonso Joseph Zirpoli, in 1905, at six
months. Photograph by Chase Studio 3
Denver.

Vincenzo Zirpoli with his sons, Alfonso
(.standing) , and Armando (sitting), ca.

Alfonso J. Zirpoli, U.C. Berkeley
undergraduate, ca. 1922.

Zirpoli: for a few months from April to June. When I graduated from

Washington Grammar, I was supposed to make a speech at graduation
day, but I was ill. What I was supposed to do was to make President
[Woodrow] Wilson's famous speech of declaration of war. This was a
rowdy bunch of boys and every once in a while they would interrupt
the class and ask the teacher to have me practice my speech, or
they would break out in song whenever they felt like it. The only
one who could handle them was the principal, McCarthy, and if you
didn't behave, he'd take you out in the yard and challenge you to a
fight. That was the way you learned to behave as far as that school
was concerned.

After I graduated from Washington Grammar, I entered Lowell
High School which was then the best school in the city and probably
still is. At Lowell High School, I took the usual courses including
a course in Latin, but I didn't learn very much or don't recall very
much as a result of that class, a few expressions now and then. I
also took a class in French.

Sharp: Did you remember any more of that?

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, a little more of that. But we were speaking Italian quite
a bit in the family and that facilitated my study of both Latin and
French. I also became a member of the debating society at Lowell
High School. My brother was two years behind me. His classmate was
Edmund "Pat" Brown [Sr.] who eventually became governor of Califor
nia, so we got to know each other fairly well. From Lowell High
School, I went to the University of California [Berkeley].

I might say that while I was in Denver, I used to work whenever
I could as a boy. I sold newspapers in front of the Brown Palace
Hotel, never dreaming the day would come when I would be a guest
there. When I came to San Francisco, I continued to sell newspapers
while I was in school. I remember selling papers on my arrival here
almost immediately, particularly one issue. I used to buy the [San
Francisco] Examiner at the Examiner building, an armful of them,
and walk to Nob Hill yelling, "Extra, extra, Big Bertha bombards
Paris," and that was the big headline.

In high school, I enrolled in the ROTC [Reserve Officers'
Training Corps] and they didn't have uniforms that would fit me.
I was too small, so it cost me $25 to have all of my uniforms
tailored to my size.

These are the basic recollections, you might say, in grammar
school and high school.

I tried out for the basketball team, but didn't make it. My
brother and Pat Brown made it, but I didn't. I used to be water boy
for the football team.

Zirpoli: When I entered Cal, I commuted. We used to take the ferry boat

every day. It was a very pleasant journey and we could study on the
ferry boat and on the train. I entered Cal in 1922 and received my
AB in 1926. (That AB included the first year in law school.) Then
I entered Boalt where I received my Doctor of Jurisprudence degree
in 1928. I was not on the law review. I did have a B+ average.

While at the University, I became interested in basketball.
I particularly became interested in Italian cultural activities
since I took courses in both French and Italian. I became president
of II Circolo Italiano of the University of California and later
the first president of Pi Mu Iota, the Italian honor society. I
also engaged in, you might say, dramatics. I played a part in two
different plays that we put on, Italian plays, and we had regular
meetings in which we would invite speakers, professors, or whoever
we thought could make a contribution as it related to some form of
Italian culture. I was also a member of the Congress Debating
Society in college.

While at Boalt Hall, I began buying stocks, that is to say,
Bancitaly and Bank of Italy stock, which brings me back to the
period just before I entered college. I worked as a messenger boy
for A. P. Giannini. This was a very wonderful relationship that
became more meaningful with the passage of the years .

After I received my degree of law, I entered the private
practice of the law. But before I get into that, I might say that
college life was very pleasant. I played on the college 145-pound
basketball team. I had taken a defense test and the boxing coach
wanted me to go out for the boxing team. I conferred with my father
and he said, "No, it's too rough a sport and you may be injured."
Then I asked him if it was all right for me to play basketball and
he said, "Fine, that's a very gentle sport." Well, as a result,
I had my nose broken twice playing basketball!

Sharp: I wondered when you came to UC Berkeley? It would have been right
after the close of World War I? Did you have many older students,
veterans, coming onto the campus then as a result?

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, there were some that came on later. Yes, there were.
Sharp: Did they change the campus?

Zirpoli: No, I could notice no change. There were some of the graduate
students who in those days were employed as Prohibition agents.
That was their outside work. We used to meet in the basement of
the old Boalt Hall building to talk about things. This being the
Prohibition era, once in a while we would go down to Broadway in
Oakland and have some beer that they called "near beer" with a
very low percentage of alcohol, half of 1 percent, I think.

Zirpoli: Of course, in Boalt Hall, I took a course in Roman law. I remember
after the examination was over, Henry Robinson, who became an
important San Francisco lawyer, and I were not in agreement with
the other students on certain interpretations of the Roman law,
and we talked to Professor Max Radin about it. He told us we were
wrong. We said, "If we are wrong, your book is wrong." We got out
his book, and sure enough, his book had it the way we said it should
be and he said, "That's wrong." Then we went upstairs and looked
at the Pandix, the original Latin text, and his book was wrong. So
he asked us to stay over an extra week after we graduated to review
his book [laughs] and make corrections if necessary.

We graduated, as I said, and I remember we had a big party
after the finals in which I supplied the wine. This was, of course,
during the Prohibition era, but each family was allowed to make two
hundred gallons a year. Throughout the North Beach section, you
could see the crates of grapes piled up on the sidewalk alongside
of garages or entrances to basements where the people would crush
their grapes and process them in the hope that they would get wine
and not vinegar. Quite often, they ended up with vinegar instead
of wine.

Sharp: Were you involved in any of the wine making in your family?

Zirpoli: Oh, for our own family. My great delight was after we drew the

wine, I would pour boiled water back into the barrels and we would
make a drink that we called aquarella meaning "little water." It
was more like a little light soda than it was anything else. But
of course, as I say, this was the year of Prohibition and it had
its effect on our society. The people used to like to go to parties,
young people, and drink what they called bathtub gin. I never drank
it. I would go to a party occasionally, but I would pour mine in a
potted plant or some other place. [laughs] In other words, I was
willing to participate in the party, but I wasn't interested in
the bathtub gin.

Sharp: It sounds like it might have been pretty rough tasting.
Zirpoli: Tasting, yes. I never cared for it.

Sharp: I have a few other questions about your law school. I wondered

what the main thrust of law school education was when you were at
Boalt Hall?

Zirpoli: They were the basic courses. The main thrust was to teach you

criminal law, torts, property, contracts, constitutional law, and
an elective would be one like Roman law, negotiable instruments.
These were all of the basic courses.

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

You also participated in moot court in my time and I was a moot
court finalist. Henry Robinson, whose name I just mentioned, and I
were finalists against the Johnson twins, Gordon Johnson and Gardiner
Johnson. Gordon Johnson became a very important lawyer in the com
munity and a member of the firm of Thelen, Marrin, Johnson, [and
Bridges]. His brother, Gardiner, became a state legislator and also
a very successful lawyer. They are both living. Henry Robinson
died about three years ago. In fact, we had our fiftieth class
reunion in 1978 at the Pacific Union Club and we will hold our
fifty-fifth reunion next year.

Another graduate of that class was Robert Gerdes [spells name],
who wrote a thesis on water law in his last year which was published
in the California Law Review. As a result, he was hired by the
Pacific Gas and Electric Company upon graduation at $600 a month,
which was a phenomenal salary .

What attracted you to the law?

Oh, I was interested in the law — my father had some small interest in
the law. My father was quite an historian for one thing and I became
interested in the law, became interested at Lowell, when we started
with the debating society. I indicated an interest in the law and
my father encouraged it. So I ended up, as I say, in Boalt Hall.
Also when I was an undergraduate, I was in the Congress Debating
Society. These were partial incentives to the study of the law.
Now, I will -go on unless you have some questions.

I have a few other questions. Did you begin your work with the Young
Democrats at this point or was that later?

No, that came later. In that regard I will say this, that I became a
young Democrat during the [Woodrow] Wilson election in 1916 when I
was only eleven! [laughter] He was the one I was rooting for and
so I stayed with the party from that day on.

Let me ask you a few other early questions,
about the Italian community?

I wonder what you recall

When I arrived in San Francisco, I noted that this was a truly
Italian community, that if you walked along say from Montgomery
Street and up Columbus Avenue, you would be more likely to hear
people speaking in Italian than in English. As a matter of fact, I
remember walking behind two gentlemen who were arguing vehemently
about a subject matter which I don't recall. They were trying to
impress each other with their arguments. Finally one of the gentle
men made a comment and his friend responded, "You goddamn right."
So for emphasis he reverted to the English.

Zirpoli: I also recall that in the Bank of Italy building they had two

elevators and the operators of the elevators were Genoese. As I
entered the elevator with my father and he spoke to him in Genoese,
I turned to my father and said, "Do you mean to tell me that this
man is an Italian?" Because there is such a wide difference in the
Tuscan and the Genoese dialects. Of course, what we spoke was
basically Tuscan. Although my father was born in Potenza in
southern Italy, my mother was born in Tuscany. Of course, my
father having been in the service, his basic language was Tuscan,
somewhat Roman, because his family had moved to Rome when he was
nine years of age. (His father had died and they all moved to Rome.)

The North Beach section was a truly Italian community, You had
restaurants that had been in operation for many years. You have to
remember that the Italian-American community in North Beach in San
Francisco I would say, in many respects, is the most exemplary in the
entire nation because it was composed of Italians, many of whom had
come to California in 1848 and even before 1848, most of them from
Genoa; most of them were Genoese or Piedmontese and then a substan
tial number of Tuscans.

In fact, San Francisco had the first Italian opera in 1850
followed later by another group that had a repertoire of fourteen
operas and Madame Bianchi and her husband ran the opera house. She
became known as the mother of opera in California. When she died,
they wrote quite an editorial about her and her contribution to the
music of the area.

But many of these people, as I said, came around before the Gold
Rush, including [Domingo] Ghirardelli, who arrived before the Gold
Rush. He had migrated to Peru and came to California in early '48.
He didn't go to look for gold. He opened his famous cafe and
ultimately went into the manufacture of chocolate and he is the
founder and builder of what is now known as Ghirardelli Square.

I use this as an example of the nature of the Italians who came
here before the turn of the century. After the turn of the century,
a greater number of Italians came from other parts of Italy, southern
Italy in particular. We had many successful Italians. The Italian
Mutual Benefit Society received its charter from the state legisla
ture in 1858 and is undoubtedly the oldest mutual benefit society in
California. There were two Italian [newspaper] dailies being published
when I came here that had originated — a morning and an afternoon daily.
The first one was published in 1859. One of them was La Voce del
Popolo and the other was L'ltalia.

These are indications of the nature of the Italian community in
San Francisco. They had their own dramatic societies, put on plays —
any number of societies. I am not going to go into all of them and
the nature of their work, but they opened the Italian school in 1885,

Zirpoli: Of course, after I entered the practice of law, I became interested
in Italian affairs. I became trustee and president of the Italian
school. I became attorney for and ultimately president of the
Italian- American Chamber of Commerce. I became a member and
ultimately president of II Cenacolo. I became president of the
America-Italy Society. I was also a member but never an officer of
the Leonardo da Vinci Society. I was interested in the work of the
Sons of Italy and joined that group in 1928. Eventually I became
the grand venerable for the state of California. Now, these are
some indications of my interest in the Italian community.

I was also interested in the work of the Italian Welfare Agency.
Then in 1931 I was one of the charter members and organizers of the
Columbus Civic Club, which was to become a political arm for the
Italians of this community. By that time, the Italians represented
approximately 16 percent of the population. If they had a cause,
therefore, they voted as a bloc. They were very significant in the
election of Angelo Rossi as mayor in 1931.

Sharp: I wondered if you remembered any family activities that you might
have had when you were younger, in grammar school, things that you
and your family liked to do together?

Zirpoli: When we were in Denver, of course, one thing I always remembered is
that we went to Steamboat Springs once for a big vacation. I also
remember going to Colorado Springs.

Here in San Francisco we had some social life based upon some of
these societies . My father was a very able speaker and much in
demand, so I would attend many of these functions where he would
speak. In fact, that was one of those factors that encouraged me to
get into debating and into speech. I started making speeches when
I was pretty young myself. I remember speaking in Washington Square
on more than one occasion.

Sharp: How old might you have been?

Zirpoli: Oh, that was after I got out of college on my graduation.

II YOUNG ATTORNEY IN SAN FRANCISCO, 1928-1933

Early Practice; Friendship with A. P. Giannini and the Bank of Italy

Zirpoli: Now, upon my graduation from college, I interviewed with a couple of
firms downtown and no one offered me a job. At that time, they were
only giving you $40 a month. I was walking along Columbus Avenue and
I saw the firm name [Julian] Pardini and [Angelo J.] Scampini, 21
Columbus Avenue. So I walked up one flight of stairs and asked them
if they could use a young lawyer. They were both fairly young them
selves. They said, "All we can do is rent you a room at $20 a month
if you'll accept it." I said I would accept.

I also had an immediate source of income because in those days
the Italians were numerous and still had substantial properties in
Italy, and they had to issue and send powers of attorney there from
time to time. Also, those who desired to have their relatives come
had to file with the Immigration Service affidavits of maintenance and
support which would be presented first to the American consul in Italy
from whom the visa was to be secured. That assured me a minimum of
$60 or better a month in income. In fact, I had forms printed because
the nature and volume of my business warranted it.

I did very well the first day of practice because my mother gave
me some furniture. I bought an oak desk, a typewriter, some chairs.
My first day, after the furniture had all been laid out, I was looking
out the window and saw a man across the street with his arm in a sling
and a card in his hand. He came across the street and up the stairs
to my office and when he entered he said to me, "I should like to
speak to Awocato Zirpoli." At the time, I looked more like a school
boy, I guess.

Zirpoli: I said, "But I am Zirpoli." He said, "Brother Cubiciotti of the Sons
of Italy sent me to you and I want you to be my lawyer. If you'll be
my lawyer, we'll go fifty-fifty." I said, "What is it about?" He
had his arm in a sling. He said, "I was riding the bus on the

Zirpoli: California Transit" (the predecessor of Greyhound), "and the bus
missed the bridge at Niles Canyon."

How could one ask for a more perfect case? An absolute
liability. I said that I would be delighted to represent him. And
it wasn't even nine o'clock yet in the morning!

I got the forms that Pardini had and prepared a complaint and a
summons and went over to Alameda County and filed it and served the
California Transit. I had lunch on the ferry boat and came back to
the office, and I was in the office about ten minutes to one. About
fifteen or twenty minutes later, I got a phone call from the
insurance carrier [Hartford Connecticut]. They said, "Are you
interested in settling this case?" I said, "Of course, I am."

In the meantime, when my client came to see me, I said to him,
"But we'll have to get a report from the doctor." "Oh," he said, "I
have it." He reached in his pocket and he pulled out a complete
medical report from the doctor which recited not only the nature of
the accident but the consequences thereof. He really didn't have any
serious injury, mostly a sprained shoulder.

The insurance man came over to see me and the same afternoon we
talked it over. He wanted to know how much I wanted in settlement.
I said, "$5000." He said, "I'll only give you $500." I said, "No."
We negotiated. Since my man had no permanent injuries, and I am
talking about 1928, we settled it for $1,300. I remember we went to th<
bank. We were able to get there before closing time and he signed all
of the necessary papers. We received the check, went to the bank,
cashed it. I gave him $700 and I kept $600.

Sharp: All on your first day!

Zirpoli: I said, "My gosh, is this what the law practice is all about?"

Sharp: It's pretty easy.

Zirpoli: Well, it was a long time before anything like that happened again,

but in all events, that was a very, very fortunate and happy beginning.
When I started to practice law, I received a phone call from A. P.
Giannini inviting me to lunch at Bardelli's Restaurant. Every once
in a while he would invite me to lunch.

In 1931, we had the big proxy fight for control of the Bank of
Italy.*

*For more information on this proxy fight, readers are directed to
Marquis James and Bessie Rowland James, Biography of a Bank, New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1954, especially pp. 305-346.

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:
Sharp :
Zirpoli;

I was going to ask you about that. I wondered if you had been
involved .

I was involved in a sense. I had previously prepared a memorandum,
a legal memorandum, for Pardini and Scampini with relation to a
concern in the East Bay which was involved in a proxy fight.
Because of that, they asked me to prepare a memorandum and indicate
how they could stop the [Elisha] Walker group from using Bancitaly
funds for the securing of proxies. [Lawrence] Mario Giannini (the
son of A. P.) asked me to do that. I prepared the memorandum and,
of course, they received it free. I guess they figured I was too
inexperienced, so they hired the attorneys Sullivan and Roche
who did exactly everything I said they should do, but they filed in
the wrong court. [laughs] They received $20,000.

In preparation for the proxy fight, we used to meet every day
at Petri's cigar factory, which is an enormous building on Sansome
Street. They eventually went into the wine business. It's a well-
known name in the wine industry. There they would have lunch. They
had a husband and wife who would prepare lunch early for the working
staff and later for the executives. We would all go there for lunch
and discuss the proxy fight. The proxy fight was conducted like you
would a political campaign.

That's what it sounded like.

Angelo Scampini became the firebrand for the proxy fight.

I understood there was sort of a campaign tour of the state,

That's right, there was a campaign. As you said, it was put on like
a political campaign. You went to Sacramento. You noticed a meeting
in the big hall there and invited all of the stockholders. Scampini
would get up and make a speech and tell them how Jean Monnet, one of
the Bank of America officers, was squandering the bank's funds by
spending it on gifts and flowers and the entertainment of women
[laughs] and things of this character. He also made a big speech at
Dreamland [in San Francisco]. When they would go out, A. P. would
make sure that Angelo got plenty of rest.

I recall we were in Sacramento in the restaurant during the
proxy fight and some fellow entered the restaurant and he said,
"They tell me that SOB A. P. Giannini is here. Where is he?" A. P.
looked up at him and he said, "Yes, I recall you. You are the
fellow that always wanted to sell me the worst type of strawberries
when I was in the produce business!" [laughter]

Now, I mention that because A. P. had a phenomenal memory, an
absolutely phenomenal memory, which was one of his strong points.
A. P. was a man who would accept your word, but if you ever broke it,

Zirpoli: you were through. You couldn't get anywhere with A. P. anymore after
that. You have to remember that when A. P. started the Bank of Italy,
there wasn't a word in the local papers about his opening of the Bank
of Italy. There was in the Italian paper, but not in the local.
When he won the proxy fight by a landslide in 1932, all of the papers
had headlines that read, "Giannini ha vinto," Giannini has won.

Then, as I say, I had this experience. I was not as active in
it as, let's say, Scampini or someone like that, in the proxy fight.
I was somewhat reluctant to get too active because one of my dear
friends was Armando Pedrini, vice-president, who was on the other
side. So there were some small problems there. As a matter of fact,
Pedrini was the president of II Cenacolo at the time, and after the
proxy fight he had to resign. A. P. was a member of the Cenacolo, too.
We had club rooms in those days at the Fairmont Hotel. We had a suite
there and lovely club rooms which we gave up in the beginning of World
War II because of the lack of housing space for the military in San
Francisco .

In 1931, at the time of the proxy fight, I went to see A. P.
I said that I would like to be appointed assistant district attorney
for the city and county of San Francisco, and that the men in charge
of the office of the district attorney, Matthew Brady, would never let
me in to see him.

A. P. sent me to see Tom Finn. Tom Finn was then the Republican
political boss of San Francisco. When I sat down to talk to Mr. Finn,
I said, "Mr. Finn, you must understand that I am a Democrat, a
dedicated Democrat." He just turned to me and said, "A. P. sent you,
didn't he?" That was enough. He telephoned Brady and the next
morning, I was working as an assistant district attorney.

Sharp: Let me stop you right there because I want to back up and ask you
some other questions. I had some other questions about your going
into private practice. I wondered if you did any work at all for
Pardini and Scampini or were you just housed there?

Zirpoli: Oh, I did some research for them, yes. In fact, I remember the first
case I researched for them. My research proved that they were all
wrong, so they weren't too happy with that first research.

I remember another case that I wrote the briefs on for them in
the district court and the court of appeals and we won. That had to
do with a trust over in Marin County and the method of the use of the
funds of the trust.

But my practice moved pretty fast with Father's connections and
my Italian and knowledge of the language. When I started my first
month, I must have earned $120, which at that time was not bad. I
never earned less than $200 and up throughout the Depression.

Zirpoli:

Sharp:.
Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli;

Now, I had invested in stocks. I borrowed money and bought
Bancitaly and Bank of Italy stocks and when I graduated, I had an
equity of $46,000. When the crash came in 1929, the famous blue
Monday, I was sold out and I was left owing the Bank of America —
the Bank of Italy, I should say — $10,000. I went to see Mario
Giannini about it and said, "I don't see how I'll ever be able to
pay back the $10,000. If you could cut it down to five, I could go
out and maybe I could borrow five from here and there and eventually
I can someday pay back $5000." He said, "No, you are an honorable
man and we'll hold you to your indebtedness." Now, they did settle
with the people as to whom they had some question of whether they
would eventually collect. That experience had some value in later
years, in that when I returned to the practice of the law after
leaving the office of the U.S. attorney, Mario Giannini arranged
for me to rent a suite in the Bank of America Building, and he
also sent some of the bank's business to me.

As I say, this was the situation at that time. So I was doing
fairly well. I had cases in the federal court right off the bat.
I got a couple of Prohibition cases, too.

I was going to ask you about that.

I represented two pharmacists. The Department of Justice had
indicted some fifty persons for conspiracy to violate the law by the
selling of alcoholic beverages, presumably under prescription in a
conspiracy with a couple of doctors. They offered to accept pleas
of guilty from my clients and they would fine them only $250, but I
said, "No." The cases never went to trial. Eventually there was
repeal [of Prohibition] and that ended the cases as to my particular
clients .

I also represented one big bootlegger who was a heavy investor
and with the crash his brokerage firm sold him out, I concluded
that they sold him out at the lowest quotation presumably for each
day for each security, so I filed a lawsuit in the federal court in
which I was successful. They said that my client owed them [the
firm] a substantial amount of money. I was successful because I got
them to cancel this alleged indebtedness to them and to pay him
$10,000, which gave me a fee of $5,000, a lot of money at that time.

That's a lot!

[laughs] Yes, it was.

In fact, this was during the time when Judge [Harold] Louderback
was sitting and was passing out the receiverships that eventually
led to his impeachment, but that's something I will have to get into
at a later time in my story.

Sharp: Were you concentrating on a certain specialty?

Zirpoli: No, I didn't. I had a general practice. I had an early experience
in a personal injury case in which my client was truly at fault and
he couldn't win. This fellow was severely injured for life. I
remember going through the trial and Judge Shorthall sent for him
and asked me how I thought I could possibly win that case. The jury
was nine to three against me. During the trial, I was so worried
and concerned that I couldn't hold my food, and I just decided I
wasn't going to handle any more personal injury cases.

After that I farmed them out, which was better for me because
I did get a number of them. I was able to give them to the ablest
personal injury lawyers in the community and collect approximately
one-third of the fee. I would do a lot of the investigation for
them and help them in the preparation, but the responsibility would
always be theirs .

From 1928, when I got out of college, I decided to get into
politics and I joined the Al [Alfred E.] Smith [presidential] cam
paign and was assigned to the speakers' bureau. There were very few
Democrats in San Francisco and this area at the time and I didn't
make a single speech. I don't know that anyone else on our speakers'
bureau had an opportunity to make a speech either. In 1932, I was
very much interested in the [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt campaign.
The Young Democrats were just forming then.

Sharp: I wanted to ask you about that. Smith was the first Catholic to

have gotten the presidential nomination. Was that a pretty important-

Zirpoli: Oh, I don't doubt that it had some importance, but I would not say
that it was the most significant factor in his defeat. The most
significant factor in his defeat is that everything was going
beautifully. The stock market was rising, conditions in the country
were great, and there was no reason not to expect that [Herbert]
Hoover was going to give you a chicken in every pot.

Sharp: Your Democratic party work that you started in '28, was that part of
an Italian-American effort or just part of a San Francisco —

Zirpoli: No, no, it was part of San Francisco as a whole. Prior to that, I
had campaigned for Pat [Edmund G. , Sr.] Brown who was running for
district attorney [in San Francisco] under the banner of Cincinnatus
{New Order of Cincinnatus], as we called the society.* There were

*Readers are directed to lengthy oral history conducted with Edmund G.
Brown, Sr., Years of Growth, 1939-1966: Law Enforcement, Politics,
and the Governor's Office, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft
Library, U.C. Berkeley, 1982.

14a

California Young Democrat
Los Angeles, California
26 August 1935

PRESIDENT A. J. ZIRPOLI

Zirpoli, born in Denver, Colorado,
of Italian parents, on April 12,
19D5; has resided in California
since the spring of 1918, is a grad
uate of Washington Grammar and
Lowell High Schools of San Fran
cisco; received his A. B. degree at
the University of California at
Berkeley in 1926, and in 1928 re
ceived his J. D. (Juris Doctor) de
gree from the School of Jurisprud
ence of the University of Califor
nia at Berkeley.

Since 1928 he has practiced his
profession as a lawyer in San Fran
cisco, and in that year's embroglio
campaigned actively in behalf of
Alfred E. Smith, Democratic nom
inee for President. In March of
,1932 he- was appointed assistant
district attorney for the city and
county of San Francisco, which of
fice he held until August 30, 1933,
when he was appointed assistant
United States attorney for the"
northern district of California.

In 1932 he campaigned actively
for the cause of Franklin D. Roose
velt, both before and following the
National Democratic Convention.
In the same year together with
other Young Democrats in San
Francisco, he joined in the move
ment to organize the San Francis
co Young Democratic Club.

He is a director and counsellor
for the Italian Chamber of Com
merce, vice-president of the Colum
bus Civic Club, and is a member of
the Olympic Club and numerous
other clubs in San Francisco and
the bay region.

At the same meeting J. J. Irwin.
former national committeeman, was
appointed chairman of the southern
speakers bureau by Executive Vice-
President Robert Riddell.

Zirpoli: a number of Democrats there, but as I said, I always felt myself an
avowed Democrat and I joined the Al Smith campaign,

In 1932, A. P. Giannini decided he was going to support Roosevelt.
The Treasury Department and the California state controller's office
weren't giving him the bank branches and some of the concessions or
things that he felt he needed. So he decided that he was going to
support Roosevelt, but A. P. was not a man who campaigned. He dis
liked making speeches and so he sent for me and Scampini and we
became his representatives, so to speak.

I recall we went to southern California to a dinner at the
Biltmore Hotel and met with [California] Senator {William G.] Me Adoo,
and the president of the University of Southern California, who was
an active Democrat at the time. They had a big dinner to raise
campaign funds. But we had no commitments from A. P., so we couldn't
make any offers. He naturally contributed later. He already was
contributing almost — well, he was contributing to Senator Me Adoo's
campaign and supported Senator Me Adoo.

Now, I got to know Senator Me Adoo very well as a result of that
relationship. When he came to San Francisco on his Senatorial cam
paign in 1932, I arranged a big dinner for him at the St. Francis
Hotel. We had over 250 people there. That was pretty good for a
political dinner in those days. We had a half-hour of radio time and
he came out for repeal. He was always known as a dry and this was
a big event for Senator Me Adoo to come out for repeal.

All of the people who were interested in getting into the wine
industry and the grape growers were very glad to attend. It proved
to be a very successful dinner. I had Miss Italy there as our guest
to sit with Senator Me Adoo and then we put on a skit. We had an
Italian man who used to prepare the scenery for the S.F. opera
company. He put on an act showing repeal, recovery, and reconstruc
tion, the three Rs .

After the dinner, these famous plaques used in our skit dis
appeared. A few days later I went to the Orpheum Theater and Horace
Heidt put the same skit on the stage.

As I say, as A. P. 's representative, we got in pretty well with
the so-called leaders of the Democratic party. As I was then a
Young Democrat, in 1935 I became state president of the Young Demo
crats and presided at the national convention of Young Democrats in
Indianapolis. President Roosevelt spoke to us by means of a
phonograph disk that he had prepared. I made the introductory
remarks and then turned on the disk and he then spoke to us. Then I
introduced Mrs. [Eleanor] Roosevelt and she spoke to us, and I got to
know her. She was quite interested in the Young Democrats. J.F.T.
O'Connor, who became controller of currency, was also interested in
the Young Democrats .

Sharp: Let me ask you about Mr. Roosevelt. I had seen a note that Al Smith
was a real opponent of Roosevelt's New Deal policies. I wondered if
your work campaigning for Roosevelt, if that represented some sort of
major conversion for you?

Zirpoli: No, there was never a conversion of me. [laughs] As I said, I was
a dyed-in-wool Democrat and it didn't make any difference who the
candidate was. The only time that I ever changed was when Jim
{James] Rolph, who was mayor of San Francisco [1911-1930] and whom
I knew (in fact, I spoke with him at two big dinners that I recall),
became a candidate for governor [1930] . I changed my registration
so that I could vote for him for the Republican nomination. Then
I changed my registration back again because it was for that sole
purpose.

We'll get up to 1948 later and that's another aspect of my
political life.

As I say, as the state president of the Young Democrats and as
chairman of the national convention of Young Democrats, I got to
know Jim Farley fairly well. I was in the United States attorney's
office and we had no Hatch Act at that time, so even though you were
an assistant United States attorney, you could engage in politics.
In August of 1933, I was appointed assistant United States attorney
primarily because of my relationship with Senator Me Adoo . In fact,
there was another friend of mine who wanted to be appointed in
southern California. I contacted Senator Me Adoo and this friend
was appointed.

I continued in the United States attorney's office until 1944,
but in 1936 I was named as a delegate at large for Roosevelt for the
Democratic national convention in Philadelphia. Just before that,
Senator [Culbert L.] Olson, who later became governor [1939-1943],
was campaigning for "production for use." He wanted to send a
delegation to the Democratic convention of 1936 that would pledge
itself to "production for use" and, therefore, would not necessarily
be a Roosevelt delegation. But Henry H. McPike, who was the United States
attorney and who was very friendly to Olson, asked me to meet with
Senator Olson at the Whitcomb Hotel.

When I got there, Senator Olson asked me if I would have the
Young Democrats join and campaign for his ticket of delegates at the
Democratic convention. I said, "No, we don't participate in the
primaries. We go out and try to enroll people and register them
and do everything we can, but we accept the party nominees and we
don't indulge in these preliminary campaigns." I thought that
McPike would be sore, but apparently he wasn't. Anyway, we returned
to the office.

Zirpoli: About four or five days after that meeting, I received a telegram
from Farley saying that he was naming me and three other Young
Democrats (that I could name) as Roosevelt's selection for
delegates to the national convention. So I became a delegate at
large and attended the Democratic national convention. I merely
served as one of many honorary secretaries.

I was assistant U.S. attorney at the time and I had some doubt
in my mind as to spending all of the money needed to go back to the
convention in Philadelphia, which was a foregone conclusion. But
in those days an assistant United States attorney could be named
as a deputy marshal to accompany the marshal when he was taking a
prisoner to some different locality. At the time, there was a
prisoner to be transported to Philadelphia. So I was appointed a
deputy marshal, and we transported the prisoner to Philadelphia,
and I attended the convention.

Of course, everybody is named — I was named an honorary
secretary. They take certain people in each state and each one
would be named an honorary secretary of the convention. This carries
me into the 1936 campaign.

Now, I haven't talked about my work in the U.S. attorney's
office.

Sharp: I thought we might do that next time.

Zirpoli: All right, now continuing then, as I say, in 1936, when I was then
thirty-one years of age, a vacancy arose in the office of the
president of the Federal Land Bank of the eleven western states.
I went to see A. P. — Armando, my brother, was with the Bank of
America at the time — and I told A. P. I would like to be president
of the Federal Land Bank. He turned to his secretary and said, "Get
me Senator Me Adoo on the phone." He talked to the Senator and then
he turned to me (I could only get parts of his conversation with the
Senator) and said, "All right, Senator Me Adoo said he is going to
send your name in to the president [Roosevelt]." He would have to
submit it to the Senate for confirmation.

I left A.P.'s office and I was walking down Montgomery Street.
I met Maurice Harrison who was the leading Democratic figure in
this area. He said to me, "How are you getting along, son? Why
don't you come upstairs to my office and we'll talk." So I went
upstairs to his office, the Brobeck, Phleger, and Harrison office,
and he asked me how I was getting along and what I was doing.*

*For additional information on this firm, see two oral histories with
Herman Phleger, Sixty Years in Law, Public Service and International
Affairs (1979), and Observations on the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California, 1900-1940 (1981), both completed by
the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley.

Zirpoli: I told him that I had just come from a meeting with A. P., and he
said, "Why do you want to do that? You're a good lawyer and you
have a political future. You shouldn't do that,"

So I thought about it for a couple of days and decided maybe I
shouldn't. I went back to see A. P. and he looked at me and in his
gruff way [laughs] said, "Ah, can't you make up your mind?" He
said, "Get me Senator Me Adoo on the phone." He got Senator Me Adoo
on the phone and I heard A. P. say, "Tell them to withdraw it." Then
he turned to me and he said, "Now, you see all the trouble you have
caused? The president is sending your name into the Senate and I
have to tell Me Adoo to tell them to withdraw it."

Sharp: Were you embarrassed?

Zirpoli: Yes, naturally I was embarrassed and to have A. P. say gruffly to me,
"Can't you make up your mind?" But as I said, I would still have
lunch with him occasionally.

Then there was a famous SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission]
hearing involving Bank of America, Transamerica, and branches
[around 1939], and the Securities and Exchange Commission was going
to stop, or wanted to stop, the tranfer of certain banks to the Bank
of America which would become branches of the Bank of America.

A. P. was attending the hearing which was in the grand jury room
of the old court house and post office building. A.P. was seated
right to my left in the front row. I was here [gestures seating]
and A.P. was to my left. They had a fellow who later became president
of the Central Bank of Oakland (I can't remember his name at the
moment) who was testifying, a man whom A.P. had thrown out of the
Bank of America and whom A.P, distrusted. While he was testifying,
A.P. got up, six-feet-two, pointed his finger at the fellow and said,
"That's a damn lie." I pulled on his coattails and I looked up at
him and I said, "Mr. A. P., you can't do that." He looked down at me
and said, "But I did, son, didn't I?"

So in later years when I went on the bench and my law clerks
would tell me I can't enter a particular order, I would tell them the
A.P. story.

Now, continuing, where am I now?

Additional Notes on Family and the Italian Community

Sharp: I wanted more about your political activities, but let me take you
back just for a couple of other questions.

I wondered how you might assess this whole period with respect
to the Italian community? There were a lot of things going — the
1929 crash, the Depression. But besides that, there were the
beginnings of fascism in Europe and some pretty extreme political
activity.

Zirpoli: Again, let's go back. First of all, the Italians were predominantly
Republican. They were property owners. The crash did not affect
them very much and the Depression affected them not to the degree
of others because, on the whole, they were in pretty good shape. As
I said, they were basically Republican in their politics. Many of
them undoubtedly voted for Roosevelt because of A. P. and his unques
tioned influence, and that influence was felt throughout all of the
branches of the Bank of America in the state of California.

Now, with the advent of [Benito] Mussolini, they all looked
favorably upon Mussolini. In fact, the newspaper, L' Italia, its
editor and publisher was a great fan of Mussolini, so he [Ettore
Patrizi] played him up big and they would praise him at most of the
rallies. This was true in the early thirties. I am not talking
about when you start getting close to '37, '38, and '39 when the
changes came. When Mussolini lined up with [Adolph] Hitler, some of
that attitude changed.

Zirpoli: Before lining up with Hitler he had accomplished many constructive
things which were praiseworthy. Now, this was before he really
lined up with Hitler, of course, in the early days of fascism. I
remember going to see the newsreel, like Pathe news. I remember also
sitting in the audience and they flashed on the screen, "The first
dictator governor of America, Governor McNutt of Indiana." So here
you are, this attitude with relation to fascism depended on the
period involved.

It wasn't until Hitler got into the picture, which was sub
stantially later, when Mussolini joined with Hitler, you had this
turnabout, so to speak. Of course, those Italians who were enthusias
tic for Mussolini, or could be deemed Fascists, eventually became
problems when we entered into the war.

Now, my father, I said, resigned from the [Italian] consulate
in 1939. He resigned from the consulate in 1939 because he saw
what was coming, clearly saw it, and he told all of the members of

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli

the family that it was inevitable that America would be involved in
the war on the side of the Allies and not the Axis and, he wasn't
going to be in the Italian service with that as a prospective future,

so to speak. So as
insurance business.

I say, he left the consulate and went into the

Sharp :

There was a period basically in 1932 when Hitler came into power
through 1939 when your father left the consulate. How did he begin
to see what was going on? Did he talk about it a lot?

He began to see what was going on because, after all, my father was,
as I said, quite an historian. As far as what was happening in
diplomatic circles, he was always very knowledgeable and he could
see this change in the movement of Hitler and the manner in which
Hitler was taking over. Not only that, but he had a cousin in Rome
who was the official photographer for the royal family and eventually
for Mussolini. He would send my father photographs. I recall a
photo of Mussolini greeting Hitler at the Rome railway station. We
received many photographs of Mussolini and Hitler and [Herman]
Goering; a fantastic collection, which, when Pearl Harbor came, my
mother burned them all. She put them in the trash burner and burned
them all. She didn't want them around. It was too bad; it was
unfortunate. It was a fantastic collection.

As I say, my father saw it coming. In fact, my father, he died
in 1942, not long after the war was declared, was somewhat broken
hearted by the whole thing. He wanted America and Italy to become
friends, particularly I would say because of his sons, if I had to
make an analysis of the reason therefor.

But there was this interest, as I say, because they were
getting good reports out of Italy. I mean Mussolini was doing some
good things. As a matter of fact, we copied our Social Security
system after the social security system he had invoked, so that this
was some indication of what he was doing. This social security that
he invoked in Italy and provided was a big thing. People talked
about running the trains on time and they joke about that, but this
program that I just mentioned was of real significance to the
populace. Of course, he was rebuilding everything. He rebuilt this
so-called Euro-village there outside of Rome. There was a great
deal that was done — drainage of the swamps, construction of roads,
and things of that character, so that everybody was getting involved.
Of course, he was boasting a lot about mare nostrum, for the
Mediterranean Sea. Then, of course, they made mistakes. They went
into Libya and got involved there and the island of Corfu, and other
problems for which there were mixed reactions, of course.

I wondered how your own activities in the Italian community changed
in this early Depression period.

Zirpoli: No, I didn't change. I increased, if anything, my relations. As
I said, from the point of view of the Italians it wasn't that bad
as far as the Italian community was concerned. I am not saying it
was good, of course. There were people out of work but most of the
Italians were, as I said, property owners. They saved their money
and we did get some help through the Italian welfare agency, but
the need therefor was not as great as it was to the remainder of
the community. My interest in Italian affairs just kept increasing,
it didn't diminish, and with the advent of World War II, I also did
some broadcasting to Italy, propaganda-type, Voice of America.

Sharp :
Zirpoli;

Sharp:
Zirpoli;

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

We'll have to talk about that.

I don't remember a great deal about what I said. [laughs] I mean
I told them that America and Italy had always been friends , the
Italians were doing so well here and it was unfortunate that we
should be enemies, Mussolini was not good for Italy, and things of
that character.

What other notes did you make?
a bit of writing.

It looks like you have done quite

[referring to notes] Of course, I started out with my grandparents,
but we'll leave that out. [pauses to go through notes] I've gone
through the 1932 and 1936 campaigns. Then I get to the '48 campaign,

Okay, maybe we'll hold off on that.

Then the '48 campaign and after that was my interest in politics
with Adlai Stevenson. Then, of course, there was [John F.] Kennedy,
Clair Engle, and the [San Francisco] board of supervisors, 1958 to
'61, volunteers for better government, my own marriage in 1936.

My wife [Giselda Campagnoli Zirpoli] taught at Galileo High
School. I met my wife when she enrolled at the University of
California, just before that, and I took her up to the campus to
enroll her. Then she graduated and taught at Galileo High School.
We were married in 1936 and I have two daughters by that marriage.
They're married and I have six grandchildren,*

I can see their pictures all over your chambers here.
Yes, this is the youngest one now.

*The daughters' names are Sandra de Saint Phalle and Jane Felder.

Zirpoli: The America Italy Society I have mentioned. The dinners we had, the
people we've had, I participated in the big dinner for [Guglielmo]
Marconi when he came to San Francisco and accompanied him to the
dining room through, the kitchen. When the dinner was over, I
accompanied him out of the dining room through the kitchen,

There was the enemy alien program, of course, I have to get
into and the war, my association with ^Harold] Faulkner in 1944.

Then I left the Faulkner firm in 1952 to go on my own. There
is the program for indigent defendants in the federal court from '51
to '56. There are a number of trials — "Baby Face" Nelson,
Fleishhacker, George T. Davis, Frank Flynn, Nye and Nissen,

Sharp: I thought we would talk about those later.

Zirpoli: My antitrust interest and association with Tom [C.] Clark. [pause]

Sharp: Let's talk a bit about your grandparents.

Zirpoli: My grandparents? There is a portrait of my grandfather on the east
wall there. That's a good painting. It was done by his cousin who
was one of the best-known artists in southern Italy, in Naples, at
the time. He operated a stagecoach line in southern Italy out of
the town or city known as Potenza. His name was Vincenzo. In my
father's family, the first son was Vincenzo and the next first son
was Alfonso, Vincenzo, and Alfonso, in that type of rotation. He
died when my father was nine years of age and the family moved
from Potenza to Rome. My grandmother was a Morgano. That was a
noble family of southern Italy. As I say, they all moved to Rome
when my grandfather died and my father went to school there until
he was seventeen. Then he entered the Italian cavalry, and remained
there for seven years until he came to America to marry my mother.

My mother was a Graziano and she was born near Lucca in Tuscany.
My father was born in 1880 and my mother was born in 1878. Now, my
mother's family was a relatively poor working family. She became a
governess for the children of an Italian consul who later became
an Italian ambassador. So, while she had no real significant prior
formal education, she used to sit with the tutor who taught all of
these children. She acquired a very substantial education herself
and traveled throughout many parts of the world. She was in Beirut
during the famous Christian massacre and was in Denver, Colorado
in the 1880s, about 1889 or approximately 1900; it was in that
period, I don't recall the exact years.

The Graziano family included one who became the commanding
general of the Italian forces in World War I. Also she was distantly
related to [Giacomo] Puccini, so she met with Puccini when she was
a child. Her family then moved to Torrington [Connecticut] where
they all went to work in the factories there.

Sharp:
Zirpoli :

Sharp :
Zirpoli;

Zirpoli: My mother had a phenomenal memory. She lived until she was ninety-
two and to show the value of the education she got, I remember a
doctor coming to visit her when she was eighty-two and she recited
a poem about doctors in its entirety from [Torquato] Tasso, So she
could recite to you from memory from Tasso and from Dante [Alighieri]

She sounds like a remarkable woman.

Oh, her memory was just fantastic. We would visit people who had
moved and bought a new home and she could tell them more about what
was in the living room of their old home than they could!

Did you make any notes there about your brother?

I'll talk about my brother now. Now, my brother went to Washington
Grammar with me and he attended Lowell [High School] and played
basketball. When he graduated, he wasn't interested in going to
college, so he went to work immediately for the Bank of Italy and
remained with the Bank of Italy until his retirement. He ultimately
became a vice-president and a significant officer of the bank. He
became branch manager out in the Park Presidio, branch manager at
Stones town, and branch manager at the Columbus branch and also the
Clay-Montgomery. He also had some responsibility in relation to
coordinating the work of all the branches of Bank of America. As I
say, he wasn't interested in going to college. He did attend the
American Banking Institute classes, of course, after he got into
the bank. He was a good athlete. My brother was a great basketball
player, a soccer player, and a baseball player. He was very good as
a baseball player, although he never tried to do anything profes
sionally. He used to play in what they called the winter league
here which was baseball played out at Golden Gate Park primarily on
the part of professional players during the winter months,

Sharp: Who wanted to keep in shape?

Zirpoli: Yes, so he played with the Bank of America team, the basketball
team and baseball team, and played with these people during that
period. One of the fellows he played with a little in later years
was Joe DiMaggio, who became my neighbor in 1937. In the beginning
of '37, I bought a little home in the Marina and Joe [Joseph P.]
DiMaggio bought the home next door for his father and mother. His
mother was a very aristocratic woman in appearance. His father was
just a fisherman. He couldn't read or write, but he could read the
box scores. So he would go to Chestnut and Fillmore every day and
buy the paper to read the box scores to see how his son was doing.

DiMaggio was very nice to the children in the neighborhood.
He would play ball with them on Sunday, play catch with them.

Sharp :

It must have been a pretty big deal.

Zirpoli;

Sharp :

It was a big deal for the kids of the neighborhood. Yes, it was
indeed. I attended his first wedding and the reception, His
second wedding I did not attend because that was not the same formal
type of thing as the firs-t one. But I always enjoyed him. Of
course, his brothers were all very successful. Three of them made
the big leagues.

Now, I don't know what you want to discuss with me further this
afternoon, whatever you have in mind.

Okay, let me look over my notes,
everything.

I think we have just about covered

A. P.'s Proxy Fight: "Back to Good Times"

Sharp: I do remember, as a result of the winning the [Bank of America]

proxy fight, Giannini then launched a campaign that he called "Back
to Good Times." It was a campaign to gain depositors.

Zirpoli: What A. P. did was as soon as they won the proxy fight, he sent a

telegram back to San Francisco, "tear out the partitions." It was
A. P.'s philosophy that the president of the bank had to be accessible
to the public, so the president could not have a private office.
The branch managers had to have their office right out there in front
where everyone could see them and do business with them. A. P., as I
said, was a man who, if he had faith in you, he would loan you money,
and the best proof of it was the history of the bank after the [1906]
fire and the things that A. P. did after the fire.

Of course, when A. P. came back, out went Elisha Walker and all
of his group, Pedrini and so forth. A. P. was letting the people
know that the bank was their bank; it was intended to be the
people's bank. His philosophy was that this was a bank for the
people, for the working man. This is not the bank for the owner of
the steel mill or the owner of the railroad. "We want the people
that work in the steel mill, that work on the railroad, that work
on the farms."

His branch banking theory was a very good one and was very
beneficial to California because he was able to move funds from the
south to the north when they were needed in the north, and from the
north to the south when they were needed there — depending upon the
period of the year and the agricultural needs, primarily, of the
state at the time.

24a -

Keep your dollars

SIGNS OF
BETTER TIMES*

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FARM PRODUCTS OAT

Premiiwnt Sp«ek*rt • Fin* Mutic
Soturdays . . . 7:15 P. v.

KFI-KGO

•IACK TO 0000 TIMES*

The nation's dollars are rapidly getting back to work. Con
fidence and common sense are with us again. This is especially
true throughout California . . . The moving dollar is the stabi
lizer of prosperity, the life of industry, the power behind the
payroll It is the infallible remedy for unemployment . . . The
goal of "Good Times" can be reached only by dollars that
move! . . Move your money by banking, sensibly spending or
investing it Banked dollars create credit — credit finances
business— business creates prosperity . . . California courage
and initiative are leading the nation back to good times!

Ojxn • Cotltamki -tatk lo • Good -Timci" AttOUM hi thU b<»nk — or any

BANK of AM ERICA

NATIONAL TRUST ft SAVINGS ASSOCIATION

But of Arena fotiorul Trim & Siting} AiMciuion 4 Halianat £"**
tad . . . Bant of Americ*. • California Sou* &UU , , . «ro iienlir«l n
OwTKnbip *ad n*a«geaeal . . . 410 office* ia 2U OUomU coauiuaitie«

ADVT. — BACK-TO-GOOD-TIMES, 1932.

This illustration appeared in Biography of a Bank, The Story of Bank
of America, N.T. and S.A. , by Marquis James and Bessie Rowland James,
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954, p. 355.

Zirpoli: A. P. didn't believe in accumulating wealth for personal use and he
didn't want the bonus of $2.5 million that Bancitaly gave him, He
turned that over to the University of California. These were
indications of the type of individual he was. He didn't believe in
any lavishness because he felt you could only ride in one automo
bile, you could only sail on one yacht, even if you wanted to sail
on a yacht. He hated to make speeches. He would appear at the
dinner but you didn't call on him to make a speech.

Sharp: Did you consider going to work for him instead of going out on your
own?

Zirpoli: No, I really didn't except that one time in 1931. A fellow named
Angelillo was then the head of the Federal Land Bank. He was an
Italian and his term was expiring, so I thought, "Why don't I get
this job as head of the Federal Land Bank?" Well, I didn't, so
who knows what my future would have been.

I will say this, too, with A. P., later on we had these various
campaigns for the governorship and the like. There were times when
people, like the controller of currency, and our Sheriff [Dan C.]
Murphy were all candidates, both candidates for governor among others
A. P. was very friendly to both, so he couldn't take sides. So he
called me on the phone and he said, "Look, I want you to take care
of the campaign for J. F. T. O'Connor," the contoller of currency.
I said, "Sure, you give me a headquarters and I'll set up a campaign
structure for your friend," and I did. But he would call on you
once in a while f.or something of that nature.

He would not support Roosevelt for a third term. He didn't
believe that the president should have a third term. He believed
in compulsory retirement at sixty-five. That is still the practice
at the Bank of America.

Sharp: That's really about all of the questions that I have. I thought that
next time, we would focus a little bit on your short period as
assistant DA for San Francisco and then move into the period when
you were assistant U.S. attorney.

Zirpoli: Assistant DA of San Francisco, I have very little to relate. As a
matter of fact, I was only there a year from 1932 through '33 (the
early part of '32). I was down in the bond and warrant office, which
means that I would receive bail and issue warrants of arrest, and I
would occasionally appear in the municipal court. The first case I
tried in the municipal court or prosecuted was a fellow who was
charged with drunk driving. He defended himself and he got an
acquittal.

Zirpoli;

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp:

There was a big trial of the public defender of the city and
county of San Francisco, Frank Egan. While I didn't participate in
that trial, the jury was out for several days and everyone thought
the jury would be coming in on a Sunday that I happened to be on
duty, and that was going to be my big moment. I would appear in
court and receive the verdict of the jury, but they didn't come
back that day! {laughter^

So you lost your big moment.

I lost my big moment, but as I say, that job was a half-day job so
to speak because I could have my practice in the afternoon and the
same was true with the assistant U.S. attorney when I was first
appointed in August. It was presumably a half-day job. It turned
out to be more so that eventually, by 1936, I had to give up my
office downtown because I was spending too much time in the U.S.
attorney's office and it didn't pay me to maintain an office down
town. It was fairly costly although I was still receiving good
fees on the outside for work.

I did render some services even after I gave up my downtown
office. I remember in particular one instance in which I helped
purchase or participate in the purchasing of a big winery wherein
the buyers offered to give me a one-third interest. I turned them
down and said I was just interested in my fee. I made a terrible
mistake because we had a tremendous wine inventory and we sold the
inventory and made enough money to pay for the whole winery, so I
would have had a one-third interest in the Windsor winery without
cost! [laughter]

So there was nothing particularly exciting during [District
Attorney] Brady's regimes except on those occasions when I would go
out with the homicide squad, and take a dying statement or interview
someone in connection with a homicide or attempted homicide. Those
were harrowing experiences in many respects. First of all, the speed
with which they would travel in the car would endanger my life. We'd
come up Market Street and it was like a Keystone comedy. You would
see the streetcar coming toward you and your car was going to pass
the streetcar. I turned to the detective and told him, "Look, I'm
not worried; I want to be alive. If the other fellow is dead before
I get there, it's just too bad." [laughter]

But as I say, those were the basic experiences
number of statements.

I took a

We'll start then with your period as assistant U.S. attorney. Maggie
told me that you made a tape of some information.

Zirpoli: On one aspect of it, so she will give you the tape, I have been

asked to give a talk on Alcatraz Island because I was in charge of
habeas corpus, so I got to know the island and some of the people
fairly well.*

Sharp: Great, that's fine.

Zirpoli: I don't know whether this is going to be interesting or not.

Sharp: It is so far. I think we are getting a good start anyway, but you
have a lot of material to cover.

Zirpoli: I have some more to cover, yes.

Sharp: I really like your making notes. It helps you to begin to really
think about some of the things you were involved in.

Zirpoli: I have the files for "Baby Face" Nelson [Lester M. Gillis].
Sharp: When we get to that, I'd really like to see those.

Zirpoli: I have some of them here and I have some at home. I was going to
write that up one day, write the story. I was going to write a
book entitled To Harbor and Conceal , but it's more the story of
Fatso [Joseph Raymond] Negri, the messenger boy, than it is, in a
sense, of "Baby Face," for he had contacts with [John] Dillinger
and everybody.

Sharp: What year was the "Baby Face" Nelson trial ?

Zirpoli: The trial was in March of '35. He was dead, of course, by this time,
if

The Investigation and Impeachment of Judge Harold Louderback

Sharp: I have brought some questions about "Baby Face" Nelson.
Zirpoli: All right, we'll see if I can answer them.

*Judge Zirpoli spoke about these experiences on 6 October 1982 to
members of the Historical Society of the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California. A copy of these remarks has been
deposited in The Bancroft Library.

Sharp: I am sure you can.

Zirpoli: On "Baby Face" Nelson, there are two methods of telling that story.
One of them is to put Negri on the stand and let him tell it and the
other is for me to just narrate it. But anyway, we'll go ahead.

Sharp: Let's start first with the impeachment of Judge lHarold] Louderback
if that's all right with you.*

Zirpoli: Now, on the impeachment of Judge Louderback, I did not play any
significant role.

Sharp: I had a few questions down here. I wonder if you could just set it
up for me and tell me first of all what your initial acquaintance
with the judge was.

Zirpoli: My initial acquaintance with the judge arose when he became a district
judge, not when he was on the superior [court] bench [in San Francisco]
When he became a district [court] judge, I first met him, in a sense,
after the famous crash of 1929 when a number of the brokerage houses
were going into receivership. I had filed a suit to recover some
money which I won and thus benefited the estate of one of the bank
rupt brokerage houses. I got them a considerable amount of money,
about $50,000, and I petitioned for $500 for attorney's fees. Judge
Louderback denied my petition.

I was not aware that there were any real problems arising until
I received a telegram from the Italians in the redwood empire country,
in Eureka and its environs , in which they asked me to accompany
Fiorello La Guardia to Eureka for a reception by the Italian community.
I then visited La Guardia at the Palace Hotel [in San Francisco] and
he couldn't make it, so we never did make the trip.

But by this time I knew that Congress was looking into the
activities of Judge Louderback as it related to the appointment of
receivers in these bankruptcy estates. He had favorite persons whom
he would appoint. Therefore, they would be getting the benefit of
the compensation and fees for serving as receiver. Congressman La
Guardia didn't like this and he was behind the investigation of Judge
Louderback. Judge Louderback was impeached by the House of Represen
tatives for his conduct in this regard and they subsequently had a

*Joseph J. Franaszek is currently researching a monograph on Judge
Louderback 's life. An excerpt is included in The Historical Reporter,
Vol. 2, No. 2 (Fall 1982), p. 2, as, '"It Was Decided that the Cat
Should Stay and the Judge Should Go': The Impeachment of Judge
Harold Louderback."

Zirpoli: trial in the Senate in which they failed to receive the necessary
two-thirds vote by one vote. As a consequence he returned to the
bench-,

I might say that anyone with a prior history of that character,
where more than a majority voted for removal, would resign, or some
of them would resign before the case ever got to the impeachment
stage (even though the number is relatively small in the history
of the country).

I had no significant role in the sense of offering information
and being of any particular help to anyone in connection therewith,
but he came back to serve on the bench and I think he served well.

He was a person who adhered strictly to formality and court
procedure. I remember on one occasion we had a small case involving
the railroads and failure to comply with the safety requirements.
These were misdemeanor charges that the government would file against
the railroad. I received a case of that character from the appropriate
department of the government and filed an information against the
Southern Pacific (I have forgotten the number of counts, but a
substantial number of counts), and the attorney general suggested
that I permit them to plead nolo contendere and recommend a fine of
$300 on each count.

I made the mistake of going into Judge Louderback's chambers and
suggested that this was the disposition that we would like. He threw
me out of the chambers, and properly so all considered, since this
was the wrong approach. But I went into court and he accepted the
nolo contendere and he proceeded to fine them $300 on each count!
Ilaughs] He wanted, as he should have, that this be the action of
the court and not the action of the attorney general or someone
representing the attorney general.

I tried a number of cases in his courtroom thereafter but, as
I say, he was a stickler for formality. He used to address every
body as Mr. Jones or whatever the name of his clerk was by his last
name and always Mr. or Mrs. or Miss. There was no informal approach
to anything on his part.

Let me back you up a bit and ask you a few other questions. With
the actual impeachment, the charges made by Congressman La Guardia
were that Louderback had used his powers as a judge to extend favors
to his friends by appointing them receivers. I wondered how you
heard about these charges, if it was pretty common knowledge —

Zirpoli: I have no clear recollection, but it was in the press, primarily from
the press . Then I knew that there was some talk about who would
represent Judge Louderback. At one time there was some talk about
Harol-d Faulkner representing him. He eventually ended up with James
Hanley.

Sharp :

Sharp: Was there a special role in the impeachment for U.S. Attorney George
Hatfield?

Zirpoli: No, I don't recall any special role. Hatfield, who knew him

personally, I assume was questioned as was one of the assistants,
Al {Albert C.] Wollenberg ISr.]* But I don't know anything about
the details of that. In other words, they did approach Al Wollenberg.

Sharp: It was the La Guardia committee that approached Wollenberg?
Zirpoli: Yes, the La Guardia committee or an investigator for the committee,
Sharp: Apparently, Judge Louderback felt that the charges were untrue.

Zirpoli: It isn't necessarily that he felt that the charges were untrue; he
felt that they were not justified. There was no benefit to him for
it. He was appointing these people because he felt that they were
competent and would do a good job. He didn't know that there had to
be a special rule as to who you might appoint and that you shouldn't
appoint a friend.

I would even question that today, if the person you appoint is
competent. For instance, there are occasions when I will appoint a
doctor. I had a medical evaluation to be made with relation to a
very wealthy individual in San Francisco. I called a friend of mine
out at Mt . Zion [Hospital] who I felt was one of the leading heart
specialists in America who wrote the book on A and B types. He gave
me an opinion. I thought that this fellow was feigning and the
doctor said, "No, he's not feigning and not only that, but he's crazy
for doing some of the things that he does. He is further imperiling
his life."

So what I thought was going to be some form of contempt order, I
was all wrong. So I see nothing wrong personally with that as long as
the objective is an honest and honorable one.

Sharp: But apparently he felt that —
Zirpoli: He thought it was political.

Sharp: He did; he felt apparently that there were some forces, real forces,
within the San Francisco legal community that wanted him out.

*Wollenberg was an assistant U.S. attorney, 1928-1934, Readers are
directed to his own oral history, To Do the Job Well: A Life in
Legislative, Judicial and Community Service, Regional Oral History
Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley,
1981.

Zirpoli: Heller, Ehnnan, White and Me Auliffe was the [law] firm that he felt
was out to get him.

Sharp: What do you think about that?

Zirpoli: I don't know. I have no way of offering any opinion on that. Judge
LouderBack was a man without friends.

Sharp: How would you describe the discontent that surrounded Judge Louder-
back then?

Zirpoli: The discontent is hard for me to evaluate after the passage of all

this time. I don't know how much discontent there was because of the
appointment of the receiverships. I think there was some, but I
think most of the discontent was the fact that he was a strict
disciplinarian in the courtroom. You couldn't get near the witness
box or if you wanted to offer an exhibit, you had to pass it to his
crier or the clerk who would then pass it to the witness or the jury.
Then when they finished, the crier would have to pick it up and
bring it back. If you did anything of that nature, got too close to
the jury box, he would call you on it in the courtroom, and in a
sense bawl you out.

Sharp: He was then significantly different in terms of his approach than,
say, Judge [Adolphus F.] St. Sure?

Zirpoli: He was significantly different than Judge St. Sure in that Judge St.
Sure wasn't as strict in the application of the procedure or decorum.

Judge St. Sure was pretty tough on sentencing, however, and they
used to call him "Sure Shot" Sure because of the nature of sentences.
The story they liked to tell is about the fellow who borrowed some
stuff from the naval yard where he was working to work on his home
and his neighbor's home. They charged him with theft of government
property. Judge St. Sure asked for a probation report and he got
one. The probation report showed that he was a good neighbor, and
he was very nice and kind to the children, and worked with the Boy
Scouts, did everything he could for their benefit, and the judge
commented, "This is an excellent report." Then he turned to the
United States attorney and said, "What is the penalty prescribed by
law?" The U.S. attorney said, "Five years in jail and/or $5000 fine."
Judge St. Sure would say, "Commit the defendant to the custody of the
attorney general for five years. That is all, Call the next case."
So he got the title of "Sure Shot."

Sharp: It sounds worthy.

Zirpoli: He was a fair trial judge and he was a good trial judge.

Sharp: I will be asking you more about him later.

Sharp: Hatton Stunners was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and
La Guardia then was a member of the committee. It was La Guardia
who was in charge of the investigation. The committee came to San
Francisco at some point in September of 1932. Before that, there
was a committee of the San Francisco Bar Association that had already
done its own investigation sometime between May and July of that year,
'32. Randolph Whiting was the president of the San Francisco Bar;
Adolphus Bianchi was chairman of the San Francisco Bar's committee
investigation of Louderback. I wondered if you had any connection,
any relationship, with either the San Francisco committee, the bar
committee, or with the La Guardia committee?

Zirpoli: No, I did not, but Whiting was a member of the firm of Heller,

Ehrman, White and Me Auliffe. So that may be one of the reasons
that Judge Louderback felt that the firm was against him.

Sharp: The Senate trial then was in early 1933. I wondered if any members
from the U.S. attorney's office went back for the trial?

Zirpoli: Not that I know of.

Sharp: How did you hear about what was going on, just through the newspapers?

Zirpoli: Through the papers. I mean that was a subject of daily news, so to
speak, and basically it was through the papers. As I said, I had
had just the one experience with Judge Louderback and I didn't give
any real importance or significance because I didn't come into the
U.S. attorney's office until August of '33.

Sharp: And you hadn't had any contact with them in the San Francisco district
attorney's office for any reason?

Zirpoli: No, I did not.

Sharp: I wondered if you thought that the impeachment created some sort of
shadow for the district court?

Zirpoli: It unquestionably did, but what evaluation I made on it then I can't
recall. There is a young man who is writing a story on Judge Louder-
back.*

Sharp: Yes, I talked with him and he is going into quite a bit of detail.
There seems to be a pretty full record of all of the impeachment.
So he is using it and hopes to write just a monograph on the whole
impeachment.

*Judge Zirpoli here refers to Joseph Franaszek, footnoted above,

Sharp :

Zirpoli;

What happened within the court once Judge Louderback came back?
people sort of avoid him in the hallway?

Did

No, I mean nothing happened. First of all, he was never friendly
anyway, so it wasn't a question of avoiding him. He always avoided
everyone and so when he came back, he behaved very much in a sense
the way he did before, possibly a little more aloof. Of course, he
had some problems arising out of his marriage as well. I don't know
too much about those problems. I don't know whether he was living
up at the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill at the time.

Are there any other notes about the impeachment that you wanted to
make? I didn't know if you had done any more writing on it.

No, I am not going to do much on the impeachment. It isn't a narra
tive that I have enough knowledge of to make whatever I say worth
while. It would take a tremendous amount of research or comment
from someone, if there is anyone still living, who was an active
participant. One person that one might talk to might be Harold
Faulkner on his role.

Sharp: Did Judge Wollenberg ever tell you very much about his speaking with
the committee?

Zirpoli: All I remember is that he did tell me that they came to see him, but

I have no recollection as to what he said to them. [pause]

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

III YEARS AS ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, 1933-1944

Cops and Robbers: The "Baby Face" Nelson/ "Fatso" Negri Cases

Preliminaries

Sharp: I'd like to move on then to the "Baby Face" Nelson material. I

have some questions from the tape that you made and some questions
from the eleven files on U.S. v. Negri that I saw, and the case of
John Paul Chase . *

Zirpoli: I had nothing to do with John Paul Chase in any real sense.
Sharp: Right, I didn't think that you did.

On the tape, you mentioned that as assistant U.S. attorney you
had responsibility for all of the flight and interstate commerce
cases .

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: Was that a large number of cases?

Zirpoli: No, but there were a number of them. I remember there was a Point
Lobos [steamer] murder case which rose out of an indictment in
Alameda County and we then undertook that as an unlawful flight case.**

*Judge Zirpoli made his own tape covering some of the topics discussed
in this and later interviews. It has been deposited with his inter
views in The Bancroft Library. The judge allowed thetinterviewer to
review his original files of court records from the Negri trial,

**This is also known as the King-Ramsay-Conner case. See a volume of
oral history about it, The Shipboard Murder Case: Labor, Radicalism,
and Earl Warren, 1936-1941, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, 1976, as part of the Earl Warren
Era Oral History Project.

Zirpoli: I was then in contact with Earl Warren, who was district attorney of
Alameda County at the time; I mean I use that as an illustration.

You had s-ome s-ubstantial number of what we called white slave
cases at that time, which was the transportation of a female in
interstate commerce for purposes of prostitution. There were quite
a number of those.

In fact, I tried a very significant case. It had to do with
the importation of three women from Hong Kong to be used for purposes
of prostitution in San Francisco. It was a very famous case [U.S. v.
Wong See Duck, et al . ] as far as Chinatown was concerned and it was
reported in the Chinese press each day and with all of the details.
There were two trials. The jury disagreed on the first trial. The
second trial, we had Judge Walter C. Lindley. He was from Danville,
Illinois. We received a conviction in the second trial because we
had found another of the three women who had been imported from Hong
Kong and she was able to corroborate the only witness I had, who was
the girl who was brought here from China and then ran away to
Donaldina Cameron's home on Sacramento Street, in Chinatown.* I
don't know whether you want any details of that case. If you want
them, I can give them to you.

Sharp: What I would like for you to do is essentially set us up for talking
about the Negri cases and give me sort of a general idea of the
other kinds of cases that you were involved in. A little more
detail, I think, on this would be good.

Zirpoli: I'll give it to you now. What happened was that the immigration

attorney, Arthur Phelan, came to see me and said that this woman had
fled to the mission and she had a story to tell as to how she was
brought to this country. So the story as it unveiled was that a
Chinese who made numerous trips to China, every time he returned he
said his wife was pregnant and was to have a child. When he got
older, he sold the right to bring one or more of these children of
his to the United States, so that he built a form of insurance for
himself in his old age. So if you paid him, let's say, $1000, you
could bring someone over.

A syndicate in San Francisco headed by Wong See Duck, who had a
big store in Chinatown, would send a lieutenant, a young man, to
Hong Kong who paid $250 Hong Kong money to the family of the young
Chinese lady and they would then give her a family history with
photographs saying that you were born in this village, you lived in

*Donaldina Cameron, 1869-1968, grew up in San Francisco, and opened
a Presbyterian mission in Chinatown to aid female Chinese prostitutes,

Zirpoli: this house, you had to go so far to find the fountain for water,

th-ere were so many rooms in the house, the people who lived in the
house were the following, and this is a photograph of your uncle
whom you will recognize. She would be given the life story of a
family and her role in the family so that when she would arrive in
San Francisco, she would then identify her uncle immediately and
say, "That's my uncle," The immigration authorities would be
satisfied that her story was true, that she really was the daughter
of a Chinese. She would be shown photographs from her father as
well and she would be admitted to the United States.

One girl they bought in Hong Kong and brought to San Francisco
had relations with a young man (Wong See Duck's lieutenant) on the
boat and she became pregnant. Of course, this was not readily noted
when she arrived. When she arrived, she was put up for sale and the
syndicate bought her, but they bought her on condition that the
payments would be in three equal monthly installments to insure
undamaged goods, so to speak.

As I say, she also had the right to buy out. That is to say
that as she earned money, all of the surplus she could accumulate,
she could use to buy an interest in herself. I have forgotten what
the exact figure was, but let's say she had a responsibility of
earning $20 or $30 or $50 a day. Everything she earned over and
above that she kept and eventually used it to buy herself out. One
of the girls that I eventually had as a witness is one who had
bought herself out.

Phelan presented these facts to me and I said, "I'll interview
her." I interviewed her and I was satisfied that she was telling
the truth. I said, "I think the jury will believe her." We
presented it to the grand jury, the grand jury accepted it, and the
indictment was returned. At the first trial, the jury was a hung
jury — it was her word, a prostitute and so forth.

In the second trial, we found the other young lady, the one
who had bought herself out. She came and told her story and on a
second trial we got a conviction.

This was a famous case for Chinatown because of the nature of
the people involved. I mean a man who owned this big hardware store
in Chinatown was the prime investor in the syndicate that bought her.
He and two other ladies bought this girl and they were all convicted.
So it was an interesting case, as I say, because the Chinese papers
carried a transcript of the trial day by day.

Sharp: Was this fairly typical of some of the white slave cases?

Zirpoli: There were quite a number of white slave cases in those days. One
ring was transporting girls from the United States to Hawaii and we
prosecuted that gang successfully.

Also, during this same period, there was a famous San Francisco
police graft where the police were taking money from madams in the
houses of prostitution in the San Francisco area. That was one of
the primary sources of graft money. The FBI got into that and I
prosecuted one of those cases — in fact, the only case that ever
went to trial. None of the state cases went to trial, We had a
successful prosecution there.

Sharp: Do you remember the name of that case?

Zirpoli: I will have to think about it. I know that Jake Ehrlich was in the
case. Jake Ehrlich is the lawyer who wrote the book, Never Plead
Guilty. However, he pleaded his client guilty in that case. This
was an important case because it also involved the McDonough brothers
who were the principal bail bondsmen of San Francisco at that time.
They operated their bail bondsmen office like you would a bank. They
had a teller's window and everything. They were very wealthy. They
had invested a lot of money in the old Bank of Italy and made a lot-
of money. They were using their money to put up bail for people
accused of crime in San Francisco and they were the principal bail
brokers. If you jumped bail, they'd send a man to England or
wherever you were and bring you back, so that they wouldn't forfeit
bail. Sometimes the bail was pretty high and, in fact, this did
occur in one instance which was $40,000 bail. They went to England
and brought back the defendant and the court remitted the bail.

Sharp: Forty thousand dollars sounds like an extraordinary sum.

Zirpoli: At that time, it was. These were some of the activities that were

transpiring. There were others. I would say, I must have prosecuted,
all told, maybe ten or fifteen white slave cases in that period. In
later years, the government quit prosecuting those cases,

Sharp: They were too numerous, or the prosecution couldn't get the evidence?

Zirpoli: I guess they would now, but they won't pay much attention to that

now. People move about regardless of their relationship today, they
don't feel the same moral obligation to prosecute that they did then.

Unraveling the Tale

Sharp: Let's move on to talk about the "Baby Face" Nelson material

Zirpoli: All right. In 1933 when I came in, there were very few FBI agents,
so you knew them personally. There was a question of locating
"Baby Face" Nelson. That question arose. So I talked to the FBI
and heard about [Joseph Raymond, "Fatso"] Negri and I then decided
I would try to help them, I went undercover.

Sharp: Let me just stop you there. You said went undercover as Tony Damico,
Was that something that you volunteered to do or was that something
that was assigned?

Zirpoli: No, that wasn't assigned to me. I was under no obligation to do
anything of that character. They were telling me about their
problems. I indicated that because of my knowledge of Italian I
might be able to telephone his mother and maybe as a result of that,
make a contact with Negri. So I took that name, and we put a tap on
the phone of his mother. It wasn't proper to do so, but we did it.
We had an FBI agent in an abandoned service station and I got my
brother-in-law, who was then in high school, to be excused for a
week from school so he could sit there at the phone because of his
knowledge of Italian. He is now a lawyer.

#//

Zirpoli: I got to know something about FBI agents. These were the agents that
were ready to shoot things out. These were not accountants or
investigators of bank embezzlement. These were agents who were
trying to track down gangsters. As I say, they put the tap on the
phone of Negri 's mother, and, unfortunately, the tap went on one
day too late. If we had the tap on a day sooner, I might have made
a contact with Negri. But anyway, I never made the contact.

We also knew that John Paul Chase was a friend of "Baby Face"
Nelson, so what we did was to try to contact people who knew Chase.
Chase's girl friend more or less submitted herself to a pickup by
the FBI because Chase wanted to know if they had photos of him.
They took her to the Shaw Hotel to interrogate her. They didn't
take her before the nearest United States magistrate, as they were
obligated to do. There was no magistrate then — it was the United
States commissioner.

An attorney named William Ferriter then filed a petition for writ
of habeas corpus for her release and I filed a pleading in those days
known as a demurrer on the theory that he had not alleged that he
was doing this at her request. The court sustained my demurrer and
dismissed the petition. In the morning after the hearing in the
afternoon, the FBI shipped her out of the Shaw Hotel to Illinois and
when the attorney filed a new petition the next day with the proper
allegations, I filed a return to the effect that this young lady was
no longer in the jurisdiction of this court, and that ended the matter.

Zirpoli: She talked, and as a result of her conversation, they did catch up
with "Baby Face" Nelson and John Paul Chase and Nelson's wife in
Harrington, Illinois, In the shoot-out there, two FBI agents IS. P.
Cowley and H.E. Hollis] were killed and "Baby Face" was also killed.
After cruising around for quite a while, they finally went to look
for a priest for the last rites for Nelson,

They picked up Chase and Nelson's wife iHelen Gillis] and then
they started looking for Negri.

They eventually picked up Negri in Portland, Oregon. Negri
was coming out of church, midnight Mass [1934]. He had been
attending Mass with a madam up there. As he came out and walked
down the lane, the church was set back, he suddenly saw the FBI
agents and all guns were pointing at Negri. They took him immediately
to San Francisco. In so doing they did not have to go through formal
removal procedures because Negri consented to the removal. They
brought him to the jail in Piedmont, a very elite jail, but it hadn't
had any prisoners for a long time.

Then from the jail, they brought him to my office for an inter
view and the first question I asked him was, "How do you like that
jail in Piedmont?" He said, "Oh, that's the jail for you! They
even give you napkins." I laughter]

I then interviewed him and we had a series of interviews. Some
of the statements given by Negri are reported at great length in the
files.

Negri first met Nelson in 1932 when Negri was working for Hans
Stritmatter and Joe Parente who were notorious rum runners at the
time. They hired some of these fellows as toughs to go with the
trucks to avoid having their liquor hijacked. Chase was also so
employed. The employment arose through Graham and Me Kay, notorious
Nevada gamblers and proprietors of a hotel and gambling institution,
the Golden Hotel.

Nelson actually told these people about the fact that he had
been an escapee from the prison in Joliet [Illinois] and then they
read in newspaper articles and particularly in a magazine story
about this shoot-out with [FBI] Agent Baum, who was killed and [FBI]
Agent Newman who was wounded. At the time he was under indictment
in Wisconsin and was then a fugitive from justice. The [Lindbergh]
statute which applied to interstate flight then applied to him and
it would apply to anyone that harbored and concealed him.

As I say, Nelson came back to this area. He wasn't a rum
runner anymore. He was now a part of the Dillinger gang and a bank
robber. He went to Spider Kelly's cafe on the Barbary Coast where
Joe Negri was working as a clean-up man. He cleaned up the place,

Zirpoli: washed the windows and the floors and the bathroom and everything

else. Nelson saw Joe Negri and asked him how he was getting along.
Joe said things were pretty tough, he didn't have any money, and
"Baby Face" peeled off $700 and gave it to him and said he would be
in contact with him. "Baby Face" contacted him later. I have all
of these dates written somewhere. Let me see. [pauses to go
through notes]

Negri had first met Gillis ("Baby Face") in March or April of
'32 while they were employed as truck drivers for Hans Stritmatter
and Joe Parente, who had a liquor smuggling gang at the time. Gillis
told Negri that while serving a life sentence in the state peniten
tiary in Illinois on a bank robbery job, he escaped and made his way
to Reno, where he contacted William Graham, of the notorious Graham
and James Me Kay gambling syndicate. Graham provided refuge for
Gillis and thereafter sent him to see James J. Griffith, proprietor
of the Andromeda Cafe on 155 Columbus Avenue in San Francisco. At
the time Gillis saw Griffith, Gillis was using the name of Jimmy
Burnett and also the name of Jimmy Burnell. Griffith introduced
him to Stritmatter, proprietor of the Bridge Cigar Company in
Sausalito .

The rum running activities of Stritmatter and Parente at the
time were extensive and required the hiring of a number of toughs
to serve as armed guards. Stritmatter gave Gillis a job in which
he was working in association with John Paul Chase and Joe "Fatso"
Negri, Anthony "Soap" Moreno, Louis Tambini ("Doc Bones'"), who had
read about Nelson's activities in True Detective magazine. I think
it was True Detective, July of 1932.

Negri didn't see Nelson again until sometime before Christmas
of '32 when he met him in Spider Kelley's bar. Then he didn't see
him again until January of '34 when Nelson told him to meet him in
the Vallejo General Hospital. Negri was familiar with the hospital
because it was a stop-over station for them during their rum running
days and it was operated by [Thomas C.] "Tobe" Williams, also known
as the Guniff from Galway. Negri had heard that "Tobe" was all
right and could be trusted. He went to the hospital and asked "Tobe"
where Nelson was. "Tobe" told him he would be in in a little while.
He met Nelson in the reception room where in a bookcase they had
a book with false covers in which Nelson used to keep some of his
cash. For the purposes of the trial we had him describe exactly
where the reception room was. We reconstructed that room, the
bookcase, and everything else.

After meeting with Nelson at the hospital they went to a
restaurant to eat with Nelson's wife, who later checked into the
hospital for medical attention. Negri would make various trips to
the hospital and bring her flowers on some occasions. There Negri
met Chase and Nelson and they agreed that they would contact him.

Zirpoli: Nelson and Chase asked Negri if he wanted to join their gang, which
meant he was going to join "Baby Face" and Dillinger and Hamilton
and who were the others—"Pretty Boy" Floyd. Anyway, he would be
joining up with this gang and he wanted to know whether he had to
participate in bank robberies. They told him, "No, you don't have
to. We've got the mob to do that. You will be the messenger boy."
So he knew that that was going to be his assignment and they would
let him know when they wanted him by sending a letter to "Frenchy"
Mazet (also known as "Blondie"). His true name was I Eugene] Gene
Mazet.

Sharp: Right, that's the name that I have.

Zirpoli: Gene Mazet, yes. When Negri finally got a letter in June of 1934,
he was told to go to Chicago. He did go there, and there he met
Dillinger, Hamilton, Van Meter, Jack Perkins, and some others whose
names I don't recall.

In one of the interviews Negri said that the day after the
disappearance of the Reno bank teller, Frisch, he met Chase at the
bank buffet restaurant on 22nd Street in San Francisco, which was
operated by "Soap" Moreno. Chase told Negri he had been in Reno
and had to get out in a hurry because things were getting too hot
for him — Chase's Buick had blood on the back seat and was suspected
to have been used in connection with the disappearance of Frisch
and eventually was torched.

Frisch was to have been the government's star witness against
Graham and Me Kay, who were charged with unlawful use of the mails
to defraud. Of course, his disappearance ended the prosecution, so
to speak, of Graham and Me Kay, but brought many FBI agents into the
Reno-San Francisco area and prompted Chase and Negri to go to
Chicago .

There they planned a big bank robbery in the countryside and
Negri was to be the messenger boy. They cased the place first and
mapped out the roads. They committed the robbery and met Negri at
an intersection and gave him the suitcases with the money, which
he then brought to the hotel in Chicago. When the members of the
gang returned to the hotel, they each gave Negri a tip out of their
respective share of the money. So each one gave him $100 and he
ended up with $600 or $700 for his role in the robbery.

In one of those robberies an officer was killed.
Sharp: That was Baum, the FBI agent?

Zirpoli: No, Baum was killed when "Baby Face" escaped from Joliet and the
FBI was trying to pick him up.

Sharp: That's right, but I also have Cowley and Hollis. Is that —

Zirpoli: No, Cowley and Hollis were the two agents that were killed in

Harrington, Illinois. The fact that an officer was killed in the
bank robbery constituted some leverage on Negri. and I am sure the
FBI used it to get his full confession.

Sharp: So there are three agents that were killed. The ones that you are
just going to talk about, Baum, Cowley, and Hollis. They were all
agents that were killed as part of the search for "Baby Face"
Nelson —

Zirpoli: That's right, and Newman was wounded. Now, Newman became important
to us because he testified before the grand jury in Wisconsin and
he was the first witness we called to the stand because he was able
to lay the groundwork for the court's jurisdiction, flight in inter
state commerce,

Negri, the day before the trial, was in my office with me and
Tom [Thomas C.] Lynch and Vernon [E.] Criss, the FBI agent. It was
approximately noon hour. I said to Negri, "When you testify tomor
row — " And he said, "Who me? I'm not testifying tomorrow." I said,
"It's lunch hour. We are going to go lunch, Tom Lynch and I."
We left him with Vernon Criss, the FBI agent, and I said, "We'll
meet again at two o'clock."

Now, I don't know what Vernon Criss told Negri, and I never
inquired. But after two o'clock when we came back, Negri said he
would go, he would testify. Negri was scared stiff, naturally.
These mobsters that you are talking about, not only Nelson but the
other people that he was going to implicate, would want to seek their
revenge in some fashion. But he agreed to testify and he did. As I
say, we put agent Newman on first and, as Tom Lynch said, "We put
Negri on and we go for broke. If he fails it, that's the end of
our case."

Well, he didn't fail us. In fact, after he testified — first
Newman was on — and after he testified for about fifteen minutes, I
saw him .[Negri] down in the marshal's cage. Negri said to me, that
after he had been testifying for about fifteen minutes, "I could see
the pained expression on Johnny Taaffe's face." (He was chief
counsel for "Tobe" Williams and the other defendants.) He also
said with gestures of his fingers that he could tell that the
muscles of Taaffe's anus were twitching. [laughter] That was his
way of expressing the effect of his testimony.

As I say, the trial took place, I think it was in March of '34
or '35.

Sharp: In '35.

Zirpoli: In '35 and we had good lawyers; it was a great show. There was
Judge Walter C, Lindley sitting there. He had thirty-five years
experience as a presiding district judge. He had previously tried
the Al Capone case; he was known throughout the country. The pro
secutors were myself: Robert IB.] McMillan, who was a very able
trial lawyer (he was a senior lawyer, he was well along in years,
but a very able trial lawyer with a lot of prior experience); Tom
Lynch, who later became {state] attorney general*; Valentine C.
Hammack, who became one of the prosecutors of the Japanese war
criminal trials, the iHideki] Tojo trial.** We had assistant U.S.
attorney Miles Pike, who came down from Reno. He later became the
chief justice of the supreme court of Nevada. This was the
prosecution crew.

Against us we had some very fine lawyers and I have listed them
all. You may have a list of them there, I don't know.

Sharp: I do, yes, among them John Taaffe.

Can I just stop you right there because I have a lot of
questions about the trial? Let me just ask you about the lawyers
for William Schivo, [Ralph] Rizzo, and the others. They had really
big name lawyers to defend them, and I wondered how was it that they
got these lawyers to begin with?

Zirpoli: They retained them. Of course, there was some feeling among some of
the lawyers, Johnny Taaffe in particular, that the government was
going to indict these people for harboring and concealing Nelson,
but they weren't too sure. They made up a list once at a race track
and one of these — I don't remember whether it was Schivo or Rizzo —
talked, so we let him go. Of course, Negri pleaded guilty. He got
a six-month sentence.

But "Tobe" Williams could well afford the best and Graham and
Me Kay had used Johnny Taaffe as their lawyer in the mail fraud case
in New York and they paid him well. In fact, they paid him $25,000
for one of the cases. However, they won most of it back while playing
cards on the train on the way out to New York for the mail fraud
trial .

*Readers are directed to an oral history conducted with Thomas C.
Lynch, A Career in Politics and the Attorney General's Office,
Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley, 1982.

**Tojo was the prime minister of Japan during World War II.
tried as a war criminal and executed.

He was

Zirpoli: Anyway, they were able to hire them. You had [Nathan C.] Coghlan,
dean of the criminal bar, the oldest member of the bar; Johnny
Taaffe, undoubtedly the best trial lawyer since Earl Rogers; Harry
McKenzie. There were two McKenzie brothers, they were both able.
McKenzie was a fellow you had to worry about because he could intro
duce a lot of levity into a trial and we wanted this to be a very
serious business.

We would plan every night. We would meet in the grand jury room
and plan our strategy for the next day. We did a lot of things that
maybe you wouldn't do today. They thought we were going to bring a
witness to testify about one of the defendants whom they claimed
had been beaten up by the FBI. We had no intention of calling the
witness, yet we marked a lot of exhibits which related to that
witness. This marking of the exhibits for identification caused the
defendants' attorney to prepare for evidence we did not intend to
introduce .

Sharp: You mentioned earlier that Negri and the others were prosecuted under
the Lindbergh —

Zirpoli: The Lindbergh kidnapping gave rise to the introduction of legislation
in Congress which made it possible to prosecute all of these inter
state flight cases. So what we were doing was utilizing the laws
enacted by Congress arising out of the Lindbergh kidnapping.

Sharp: The law was passed in 1934. So by the time you had this case, it was
a relatively new law.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: So you were prosecuting him under essentially brand new legislation.

Zirpoli: Yes, and we did it under the conspiracy statute, however, to bring

everyone in, and the conspiracy statute carried a maximum penalty of
only two years .

Sharp: What I have is a violation of Section 246 of Title 18 and Section 88.

Zirpoli: Eighty-eight would be the conspiracy statute, as I recall it. Now,
the code has been amended, but as I recall it, that was the statute.

Sharp: So what really was the connection between the so-called Lindbergh law
and the trial, the case of U.S. v. Negri et. al.?*

*Judge Zirpoli's files show this case numbered as 25287-L, U.S. v.
Joseph Ray Negri, alias, et. al .

Zirpoli: The Lindbergh law proceeded to make flight in interstate a part of
Congress's jurisdiction, i.e., interstate commerce. Once this was
established we then used the conspiracy statute to bring in all the
named defendants.

Sharp: If you hadn't had those changes by the time this particular trial
had come about, how differently would Negri and the others have
been tried?

Zirpoli: Probably by state authorities.

Sharp: And it would have been possibly a lesser offense?

Zirpoli: I don't know whether it would necessarily be a lesser offense
because the state crime violations carried with them in many
instances more severe penalties than the federal law carries.

Sharp: What were the main problems or main issues for the prosecution in a
case like this one?

Zirpoli: The main problems for the prosecution were to prove that these

co-conspirators actually harbored and concealed "Baby Face" Nelson,
and did something to harbor and conceal him with the knowledge that
he was a person who was wanted and was in flight for the commission
of felonies. So it became important for us to have Negri testify
about the conversations he had with the defendants, what they had
read in the newspapers, True Detective magazine, and what "Baby Face"
himself told him. They, therefore, had knowledge and having knowledge,
if they furnished him money or housing or transportation or did any
thing of that character, they were aiding and abetting.

Now, the defense was, for instance, that "Soap" Moreno was
forced to do it, that "Baby Face" took him for a ride down to the
beach not too far from the Cliff House. They went out on the beach,
and Nelson took his gun out and twirled it on his finger and told
him, "We need some help." These fellows were quite reluctant to
help "Baby Face" at this time. But even though they were reluctant,
the fact remains that they did.

Sharp: I was intrigued to see that there were so many witnesses. I counted
thirty-nine witnesses. Who decided the selection and the order of
the witnesses?

Zirpoli: Basically, I did but with th.e help of [Robert] McMillan and I Thomas]
Lynch. Miles Pike of Reno didn't play a significant role there. He
came into the case because we had as one of the defendants, the
fellow from Reno, [Frank] Cochran, and we were unsuccessful in getting
the removal of Cochran's wife {Anna Cochran], and also because of
other implications as they related to Graham and Me Kay and possibly
the disappearance of Frisch.

Zirpoli: But we had so many witnesses because you had to put everything

together. It isn't enough just to have Negri testify. If Negri says
they were at a particular hotel, we wanted a register of that hotel
that shows that they were there. Or, if they stopped at some motel
in Nevada, we wanted the people from Nevada there to corroborate
what transpired. We wanted the flunky that worked in Joe Parente's
place there to testify as to what happened. We were trying to cor
roborate Negri all of the way down the line, so wherever he said he
was, we had someone who testified that that's where he was. Then
we needed the nurses and the doctors over in the hospital.

Sharp: I had down that H.H. McPike was the U.S. attorney.
Zirpoli: That's right, Henry McPike.

Sharp: — And that he questioned Negri before the San Francisco grand jury
in January of "35.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: I wondered if he then had an additional role once the trial actually
began?

Zirpoli: McPike? No, McPike did not go into court to try cases. He ran the

office of the United States attorney. This was an important case, so
he became very much interested in it. When we arrested these people,
we would bring them up to his office to question them. I remember
"Soap" Moreno was brought to the office of McPike. I was there and
I was doing the questioning in the presence of McPike.

Now, "Soap" Moreno had gone to the same grammar school I had
gone to, so I was trying to say, "Look, Soap, for your own good, why
don't you talk and tell us?" And every time I asked him anything,
his response was, "I have nothing to say." No matter what question
I asked him, he said, "I have nothing to say." So we didn't get
anything out of Moreno. I was hopeful that he would become a witness,

None of these people talked except for Rizzo and Schivo.

They all had good lawyers, as I say — somebody paid them all — .
Then you look over the list of their attorneys. Of course, now,
Jake Ehrlich represented a man from Chicago, [Clarence] Leider, but
he pleaded him guilty. There were several of them that pleaded
guilty, so by the time we went to trial, the number that actually
went to trial was not that great.

Sharp: I have a part of the list here. Joseph Sweeney.

Zirpoli: A very fine trial lawyer; Frank Hennessy who later became U.S,
attorney; Jake Ehrlich, Nate Coglan, and Fred McDonald, who
represented Grace Perkins, who was acquitted. I don't think he
asked a question during the whole trial. He just sat back and as
long as she wasn't mentioned he wasn't going to do anything, which
was very smart. When the time came to argue to the jury, he said,
"I don't remember hearing my client's name mentioned."

Tom Riordan, former assistant U.S. attorney; Sol Abrams, a
former assistant U.S. attorney; and iGeorge A.] Whitely of Reno, who
represented Cochran —

Sharp: I have Thomas Riordan, Sol Abrams, and Richard Fuidge?

Zirpoli: Fuidge represented Mrs. Nelson [Helen Gillis] later. That was a very
important situation there. She had served time in the Milan
[Michigan] prison and there was a lot of sentiment that was going
up in her favor, that after all, she was forced to do this, and she
had her boy. It became a question of what should we do, so we agreed
to give her probation because we found that the basic purpose of the
prosecution had been served, and she had served time and we didn't
see that we were going to get anything by prosecuting her further.

Since she was prepared to plead guilty on the probation, that's
what we did. Otherwise, we would have had to go to trial and we
didn't think the case justified going through this very delicate
subject of correspondence between our office and the office of the
attorney general in Washington, B.C., and there may be some letters
in the file in relation to that.

Sharp: I think you need to name her for the purpose of the tape.
Zirpoli: Helen Gillis, ["Baby Face"] Nelson's wife.

Sharp: I don't remember seeing any exchange of the letters, but I did
wonder about the handling of her because she was a woman, how
differently she was handled because she was a woman.

Zirpoli: We handled her differently because she was the wife and we felt

there was a certain amount of coercion as far as she was concerned,
and they had her child. She had served time. This was a delicate
subject for us. It was something we discussed. We wrote to the
attorney general to get his okay which we got. As I say, Fuidge
was going to go to trial. Fuidge was doing everything he could to
build up sympathy for her in the press and elsewhere and the press
was responding.

Sharp: I had down that she was tried separately and that she pleaded guilty.

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp :
Zirpoli:
Sharp:
Zirpoli:
Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Yes, tried separately. In other words, we didn't try to prosecute
her in the main case. She was in Milan Iprison] and after it was
over, we brought her case up. She was brought out here on a writ

and she pleaded guilty,
number of months later;

This- was several months later, quite a
I guess at least six months later.

I had down a note then that you had written a letter under McPike's
signature to Homer Cummings, the U.S. attorney general, in May of
'35, giving details of the Negri trial, how it turned out and every
thing. Also, you had asked authorization to enter a nolle prosequi
as to all of the defendants' names in the indictment, which meant
that you weren't going to prosecute any further. I am not sure if
I understand why you sent the letter and why all of this had to be
done?

I don't remember. When was this?

In May you sent a letter [5 May 1935].

Oh, yes, we dismissed some of the people in the case.
I have an indication who we dismissed at the trial.

Let's see if

I might have part of that — Arthur Pratt, Ralph Rizzo, and William
Schivo .

Yes, definitely two of them became witnesses, Rizzo and Schivo.

Grace Perkins was acquitted.

Yes, she was represented by Fred McDonald.

Louis Tambini was acquitted, Eugene Mazet was acquitted.

That's right.

But the date of the conviction for the people who were convicted I
have as April 5, 1935.

The case was dismissed before trial as to William Schivo and Ralph
Frank Rizzo. They furnished evidence which corroborated the govern
ment's case. Anna Cochran successfully resisted removal from Nevada,
and the case against her was later dismissed. The case against Chase
was dismissed because he had already pleaded guilty to the murder
charge and was on his way to Alcatraz when this trial started.

Sharp: But with Chase and Anna Cochran, they were tried in 1938?

Zirpoli: They were never tried. They were dismissed at a later date, probably
1938. Anna Cochran, the judge in Nevada refused to remove her. So
she never went to trial and we later dismissed her case. Chase we
dismissed because he was serving a life sentence,

Clarence Leider, of course, pleaded guilty and Arthur Pratt
pleaded guilty.

There were two indictments returned. One was a corrective
indictment, so the one that didn't go to trial, we dismissed that in
its entirety. But I had Helen Gillis pleading guilty in December of
'35, and Negri pleaded guilty.

Sharp: I'll have to look at that file again because I thought that I had

understood that in 1938 John Paul Chase and Anna Cochran were tried
for a violation of the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, for
obstruction of justice and harboring a criminal, and for the murder
of [FBI Agents] S.P. Cowley and H.E. Hollis.

Zirpoli: No, Chase had already been tried and convicted for the murder. He

was tried and convicted actually for the murder of only one of them.
I have said two in more than one place, but they just tried him for
the murder of one of the two agents. As I say, we may have carried
her on the books and it was not dismissed until some time later, just
as we may have carried Chase on the books.

Sharp: I wondered some about the role of Judge St. Sure.

Zirpoli: Judge St. Sure participated in all of the preliminary proceedings.

The time to deposit bail came up and we had the bail hearings. Judge
St. Sure presided over the bail hearings and motions. I remember at
one of the bail hearings for "Tobe" Williams, Johnny Taaffe made a
motion for the reduction of the bail and McPike was with me at the
time. I asked Judge St. Sure for the right to interrogate "Tobe"
Williams as to his assets and what would be a proper bail, consis
tent with his prior history. Johnny Taaffe refused to permit the
interrogation of his client, and said that he would deposit the bail.
He wasn't going to ask for a reduction if his man had to be inter
viewed. Of course, we wanted to interview him because we knew that
he had a prior record of blowing the safe in Montana back in 1888
when he lost his leg (that's why he had the wooden leg). This was
something that we wanted, and as long as we were there, let's make
a record.

You have to remember, too, that when you get back to 1933, '34,
and '35, the nature of the news was completely different from what it
is today. Today the papers are full of crime, it's true, but a case
like the "Baby Face" Nelson case or the Chinese slave case, this was
big headline news. You weren't worrying about Iran or Israel or

Zirpoli: nuclear energy or anything of that character. These were the big
news items; any little thing that happened in court was a big news
item.

In those days, I filed petitions to cancel a certificate of
citizenship of three persons. There wouldn't be a single newspaper
story about the three, rather there would be separate stories
about each one! The nature of the news was so different in those
days.

Sharp: That was one of the things that I wanted to ask you about because

you had mentioned that especially this case got just a lot of media
attention. How did you have contact with the reporters? Was it a
matter of them coming to see you?

Zirpoli: They'd come to see you every day! If I told something to a reporter
of the afternoon paper, the reporter for the morning paper (a woman)
would come in to see me the next morning and she would be as sore
as hell, and said, "I'm not going to print your name in the paper
anymore, I'm not going to do that because you gave him a scoop."
Well, I wasn't trying to give anybody a scoop and people were fight
ing for scoops then, too. They wanted to break the news first.

Sharp: What did you think of the reporting of the "Baby Face" Nelson trial?

Zirpoli: Oh, it was fairly accurate, certainly as accurate as what you get
today, maybe better. You had reporters assigned full time to our
court. There was a reporter from the Examiner , for the Chronicle.
the Call-Bulletin, and the Daily News — four papers.

Of course, I have to admit that being a young lawyer, I wanted
to make my way in my profession. I wanted my name to become known
and I was pleased to be quoted in the press. I don't give a damn
today. I prefer not to be quoted at all. They can forget me
altogether and I'd be happy, but that was a different year, a dif
ferent period in my life, and I was looking forward to that.

So I was happy to talk to reporters, and there weren't the same
strict rules about talking about cases that you have now.

Sharp: You could say pretty much whatever you thought?
Zirpoli: That's right.

Sharp: Was McPike a stickler about talking to reporters or suggesting how
you handle reporters?

Zirpoli: No, no, the only time I ever caught hell was from the Attorney General
of the United States when an article appeared in True Detective maga
zine, "G-Men Strike." He said that a U.S. attorney should not lend
his name to an article of that nature.

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

I was going to ask you about that,
that?

How did you come about writing

There was a local writer. I can't even think of his name, a very
well-known local writer who later wrote quite a number of books and
he was interested and wanted to write this story. He said, "Al, I
would like to write the story as told by you."

So we wrote the story as told by me and we talked about things
like these mobsters meeting in the back of a red brick house to
purchase bullet-proof vests, that Perkins was the salesman, and the
bullets could splatter against the red brick wall of the school-
house! [laughter] So it made an interesting story.

Did he come and sit in the courtroom and listen to get the flavor of
it?

I don't remember how much attention he paid, but he was following the
case and then he wanted to write the story. He also wrote the story
on the white slave traffic, the Chinese case. He made a big story
out of that. Although I prosecuted the case it was "as told by
Valentine C. Hammack." I said, "Go ahead, you tell the story."
That's the way it was then.

Did you wait until the trial was all over to start working with this —
Oh, yes. Jennings was his name, the writer.

Habeas Corpus Questions and Alcatraz Island Prison

Sharp: I would like to go on a little more, if you have time, and ask you

about the habeas corpus cases and Alcatraz. Some of the questions I
have are from the paper that you gave, the remarks that you made on
the sixth.* Some are from the book written by Warden [James] Johnston
about his experiences in Alcatraz.** There was a terrific number of
habeas corpus petitions filed.

*See footnote on p. 27.

**See Alcatraz Island Prison and the Men Who Lived There, by Warden
James A. Johnston, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949.

Zirpoli: Yes, Warden Johnston carries a number in excess of fifteen

hundred, but I said approximately sixteen hundred because there were
other cases since the writing of that book, a number of cases.

Sharp: But at least in Johnston's period a very small number of hearings
were granted, something like fifty or fifty-two.

Zirpoli: When you grant fifty hearings, those were a lot of hearings. You
have to remember that some of those prisoners filed as many as
fifty petitions.

Sharp: I was amazed to read what you said and what Johnston himself said,
that he thought it was therapeutic for —

Zirpoli: Johnston, that was his theory. As far as Johnston was concerned, he
didn't want them to spend their time figuring out ways to escape, so
he encouraged it.

Sharp: It strikes me that that could have been a real disaster in terms of
the district court.

Zirpoli: Well, it was. It created quite a problem. That's what forced me
to innovate as to the method by which to handle these cases, but
those fellows [prisoners] wrote pretty good petitions, far better
than what you get out of the prisons today in the final analysis.

Of course, we had one of those fellows, Verhuel, who was a writ
writer. He helped quite a bit, but Verhuel, I don't think he was
ever successful. I don't recall any in which he himself was success
ful and I talked to him about it at one time. He did tell me that he
brought about the release of a prisoner once. It was when he wasn't
in jail and he was on the outside. He had some cards printed
"attorney-at-law" and then showed up in prison with these cards.
In the meantime, the man he was to see had requested that he talk
to his attorney and he named Verhuel or whatever name he was carry
ing as his attorney. The attorney showed up with his card at the
appointed time having been granted an appointment to talk to the
client. He went into the prison and then took a gun out of his
briefcase and when the guard came in with the prisoner, he marched
everybody out of jail. But they didn't get very far. [laughter]

Sharp: Let's talk just a bit about the procedure of filing a writ in those
days. How did you begin the process of filing a writ?

Zirpoli: The prisoner would prepare a petition for writ of habeas corpus and
he would file it with the clerk. If he was indigent, he would
execute a pauper's oath with it. The clerk would then file it and
the court would direct the issuance of an order to show cause.
Unless it was totally frivolous on its face, he ordered a show cause.

Zirpoli: The order to show cause would be issued and would be served on the
United States attorney.

The United States attorney would then have to respond to the
order to show cause by moving for a dismissal or filing a return
in which he would indicate the reasons for the detention, or set
forth that there was no violation of the right of assistance of
counsel, or whatever the claim happened to be. The court would
then review them.

For those that had merit, the judge would issue the writ and
direct the production of the body of the prisoner in court. That
meant we had to bring these fellows in court and we didn't relish
the idea of bringing these guys over here [to San Francisco] under
guard as often as it would have been necessary. So when we had
forty of these cases pending — approximately forty, I don't remem
ber the exact number — we then evolved the idea of doing what they
did in the old deportation Chinese immigration cases.

I talked to Jack Shirtzer who was the clerk for Judge St. Sure,
who had been around for nearly fifty years. He told me what they
used to do at the turn of the century.

So I worked up a program whereby we would name the United
States commissioner as a master to hear the case of the prisoner
at the prison. He would hear the testimony at the prison and
would report to the judge for disposition. That made it fine. We
didn't have to bring the prisoners over. We only had one person
to go over, the commissioner.

So I sent the plan to the [U.S.] attorney general [Homer S.
Cummings ] . He sent me back a wire affirming it. After we were
reversed by the [U.S.] Supreme Court, I got an invitation to go to
Washington [D.C.] though I was only an assistant, to attend a
conference of United States attorneys. I couldn't understand why
they wanted me there. But I brought along all of this stuff on
habeas corpus. When I got to the Department of Justice building
they said, "You are wanted in the solicitor general's office. I
went up to Solicitor General Charles Fahy, I came through the door,
and Fahy said, "Where in hell did you get that habeas corpus idea?"
I reached in my pocket and pulled out my telegram and showed it to
Mr. Fahy and that ended our meeting! [laughter]

Sharp: Were the 2255 petitions handled the same way?

Zirpoli: The 2255 were handled the same way up until the amendment of the
code. Then you had to file your 2255 in the court in which you
were convicted and that's why [Robert "Birdman"] Stroud had filed

Zirpoli: a habeas corpus and then he filed a 2255. I think the last one he
filed was back in 1960. He was still making an argument of double
jeopardy. He had a possible basis for his argument because he was
tried once and then twice. The second time the solicitor general
went in and confessed error. So he said, "You can't try me a third
time." But they did and the [U.S.] Supreme Court sustained it.

Sharp: You talk about this innovation of using the U.S. commissioner as a
master. I wonder if that was the extent of the changes in the
Northern District Court in this early period of this huge increase
in the number of habeas corpus and 2255 petitions?

Zirpoli: Most of them you could handle easily enough because a great many
of them — most of them — did not have merit. Many were repeat
petitions that had already been passed on. Finally, some courts
got to the point where if somebody filed as many as those fellows
filed at Alcatraz, they would issue a direction to the clerk of the
court not to permit further filing. Also, we got to the point of
eventually using prepared forms for these fellows so that they
would have to comply. The form was one in which you had to list
all of your possible grounds and exhaust them all, so you couldn't
try one one time and another another time.

Sharp: I wondered if that created additional bureaucracy, additional forms.

Zirpoli: No, the law clerks handled it. When the number got great because
of the state filings, and we reached over six hundred a year, and
we had more than any other district in the country, then we had
permission for the creation of a special law clerk known as a writ
clerk.

This writ clerk has all of the cases presented to him. They
all come to him and he screens them and prepares a sheet as to what
he thinks is an adequate disposition. That then goes to the law
clerk of the judge, the law clerk reviews it, and if he agrees, you
can prepare an order.

In most cases you can dismiss because it's frivolous, or there
is no basis, or no constitutional question. They may raise a lot of
questions that are not constitutional in nature and so you can
dismiss those without any problem.

One of the fellows tried to escape when he got here, too!
[laughs]

Sharp: You mentioned the four cases.

Zirpoli: There should really only be three because I would exclude Price.

Sharp: Okay, but the Waley [v. Johnston. 311 U.S. 649 (1940)], the Walker
[v. Johnston, 312 U.S. 275 (1940)], and the Holiday v. Johnston
[313 U.S. 342 (1940)] —

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: I need you to tell me about those and why they were notable.

Zirpoli: They raised the question of assistance of counsel and the district
court didn't give them a hearing on it. The court of appeals
sustained the district court and the Supreme Court reversed it.
Holiday, of course, was the one that had to do with this new
procedure that we had innovated whereby the prisoners were brought
before the U.S. Commissioner for hearing. The [U.S.] Supreme Court
said no, "You've got to bring the body of the party before the
court that issued the writ, you can't do it otherwise."

That became a somewhat important principle and that is
reflected even to this day in the ruling of the [U.S.] Supreme
Court declaring unconstitutional the statute which gives the bank
ruptcy judge the powers of an Article III judge when he is not
an Article III judge; therefore, he cannot make a definitive ruling
nor actually try a case. Under the bankruptcy law as amended, we
were giving all of these powers to the bankruptcy judge and the
Supreme Court said no, you can't do it, the commissioner was not a
judge.

Sharp: I thought I had seen that connection, but I am glad that you made
it really clear.

The last question is sort of a hindsight one, but I wondered
generally what your perspective was on the expansion of the use of
habeas corpus by prisoners, especially now having been a federal
judge and having been on the receiving end of this multitude of
cases .

Zirpoli: The habeas corpus is abused, no question about that, but there isn't
anything you can do about it. This is something that is provided
for in the constitution and if the constitution has any meaning,
that's why it has to be preserved. We have had committees of the
Judicial Conference of the United States working on it, to find
procedures which will minimize the work and the responsibility of
the judge.

There is a committee headed by Judge [Ruggero J.] Aldisert of
the Third Circuit which has prepared some specific rules for habeas
corpus and 2255 proceedings, and also for prisoner rights proceedings
so that we ended up by preparing a special form. The prisoner has
to go through the form and he sets forth that he has exhausted all
of his state remedies, and sets forth all grounds listed on the

Zirpoli: form that can possibly apply. He also has to establish that he has
exhausted his state remedies, otherwise, the court will not enter
tain jurisdiction.

So you are able to throw so many of them out for lack of
exhaustion of state jurisdiction and that takes care of them
immediately. Or, somebody will make a claim that obviously is
frivolous and you throw it out. Some people have written time and
time again like a fellow named Harper now who must have filed ten
or fifteen state prisoner petitions. Sometimes you give him leave
to amend, and if he can't make a meaningful amendment, then you
deny it outright.

Further Notes on Judge Louderback: The Herbert Fleishhacker
Embezzlement Trial

Sharp: I thought we would start just with a few notes on Fleishhacker.
You had told me there was a trial for embezzlement and acquittal
in 1938. That was Herbert?

Zirpoli: That was Herbert Fleishhacker, yes. He was president and chairman
of the board. The bank was in great difficulty. That was the
Anglo Bank.

Sharp: The Anglo-California National Bank.

Zirpoli: It was in great difficulty and they had to get some help from the
government .

Sharp: That was the $22 million that the Reconstruction Finance Corpora
tion —

Zirpoli: Yes. In addition, they got some assistance, as I recall it, from
Standard Oil. They named a new president, whose name I don't
recall at the moment. When the investigation turned to Herbert
Fleishhacker, it revolved around a report that I had received from
the FBI which indicated malfeasance on the part of Herbert
Fleishhacker in a number of situations. The statute of limitations
had run on most of them.

However, there was one instance wherein the statute of limita
tion had not run and that related to some stock that he owned in a
shipping company that owned some property in China, and he had
pledged this stock with the bank. He proceeded to sell the stock,
which had been pledged to the bank, and received checks. I think

Zirpoli: there were eleven checks of, I think, $5000 each — I am not positive
of the figure — which he received, endorsed, and cashed. So we
charged him in an indictment with separate counts for each check.
He was represented by Theodore Roche and another lawyer who became
a judge in San Mateo County. I can't think of his name at this
very moment, a very fine lawyer.

Because of the importance of the case, Frank [J.] Hennessy of
the United States attorney's office decided to sit in the trial
with me so that I wouldn't have to shoulder the full responsibility,
although I tried the case and this was my assignment, bank embez
zlement.

Fleishhacker was a great benefactor of the city and county of
San Francisco. He gave them all the land where they have the zoo,
Fleishhacker Zoo and the Fleishhacker Pool, although he also owned
adjoining lands which acquired greater value as a result of that.
So there was the problem of prosecuting a well-known figure in the
community and a community benefactor. The jury acquitted him. We
tried to be fair. There were things that we could have brought
into the trial which would have been prejudicial, but they wouldn't
have been fair, so we didn't.

I remember when the jury went out in the afternoon, they
deliberated and then they went to dinner. Theodore Roche was
terribly worried that if there was conviction what would happen to
Mr. Fleishhacker. If he wasn't eighty, he was pretty close to
eighty in years; he was in his late seventies at least. I tried to
explain to Fleishhacker 's attorney the procedure, and that for
purposes of appeal, he could remain free on his bail.

The jury went out to dinner at six o'clock. The judge didn't
go out to dinner until at least seven-thirty and he went to the
Bohemian Club. It was Judge Louderback. The jury came back with a
note around eight o'clock saying, "May we convict him on some
counts and acquit him on others?" But, the judge did not come back
from dinner until nine o'clock. By that time the jury had decided
to acquit him on all counts. When they came in with the verdict,
it was a verdict of not guilty. At the time, I was disappointed
because this was a big case and I would have liked to have won the
case. But with the passage of time, all factors considered, I now
don't regret the fact that I lost.

Sharp: What was that bit of evidence that you could have brought in, but
you didn't?

Zirpoli: He used a check, for instance, on one occasion for $700 or $800 (I
think it was $800) that he had made payable to a lawyer. He then
endorsed it and had his secretary go down and cash it. He bought

Zirpoli: several copies of the book on the first hundred days of the Franklin
Delano Roosevelt administration.

Sharp: So introducing this would have strengthened —

Zirpoli: It was an indication that he was disposed to do this, but I thought
that that would be unfair, so we didn't do it.

Sharp: Did this particular case give you any more insight into Judge
Louderback?

Zirpoli: Oh, he tried it well. I have no quarrel with the way the judge

handled the case. The only quarrel I had was had he been back from
dinner on time, it might have been a different story. No, by this
time the impeachment proceedings were long past and I have had no
quarrel with his conduct as a trial judge except that he was a strict
disciplinarian. You had to be careful about approaching the wit
ness box and how you handled exhibits and things of that character.

The Northern District During World War II

The Alien Enemy Control Board

Sharp: I would like to move into talking about the Alien Enemy Control
Board.* As sort of an introductory question, I wondered if you
had been involved in any work in the U.S. attorney's office with
respect to the aliens before the Alien Enemy Control Board.

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, in a small sense even before Pearl Harbor. I was involved
in that I knew and was aware of the fact that the FBI was pre
paring lists of possible enemy aliens in the event we were to find

*Thus far, not too much is known about the work of the Alien Enemy
Control Board. Interested readers may see Personal Justice Denied,
the report of The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment
of Civilians (Washington, D.C., 1982), pp. 285, 309 especially;
and, John Christgau's article, "Collins v. the World: Wayne
Collins, Sr., and the Tadayasu Abo Case," in The Historical Reporter,
vol. 3, no. 1, Summer 1983, pp. 2-13.

Zirpoli: ourselves in a war. So they had already prepared lists of members
of the German Bund, the Italian-American veterans of World War I,
and certain Japanese societies. In particular the one I recall, as
I used to call it, was Hokobei, although I don't see that name in
any of the court opinions (not that there would be any particular
reason to have their names in there) . But these were societies
which were truly Japanese in nature with clear allegiance to the
emperor.

So these lists were prepared by the FBI and we picked them up
the day of and the day following Pearl Harbor.

Sharp: Did that set into motion quite a few activities within the U.S.
attorney's office?

Zirpoli: It set in motion the activities in the sense that these arrests had
to be on a so-called presidential warrant which I was authorized to
issue and to seek approval of the president. What I would do was
prepare a list of the people who were apprehended and indicate the
reason therefor. So the list would be — the following were members
of the German Bund, the following aliens, and they were picked up;
or the following Italians were veterans of World War I, they were
picked up because having once fought for Italy, they might be dis
posed to do something again; and these following were members of
the Hokobei Society.

I don't recall the exact number that we picked up. I think
within the first two days, we must have picked up a thousand to
fifteen hundred people and they took them all down to Sharp Park.

Sharp: They had made some arrangements for them to be kept at Sharp Park?
Zirpoli: It was the immigration center and they had the facilities.

Sharp: I wasn't at all clear, and I told you this in my letter, about the
dates that the board was operating. I wasn't really sure when it
started and when it finished its work. Do you recall?

Zirpoli: I can't give you the exact date, but the board was created for the
purpose of hearing cases against enemy aliens, so to speak. For
instance, all of those who were picked up were given hearings before
the board.

Sharp: So some time after Pearl Harbor the board would have gotten going?

Zirpoli: That's right and we had on the board [Judge Edwin J.] Owens of
Santa Clara. I have forgotten the name of the professor from
Stanford, but you have it.

Sharp:

That's [Thomas S.] Barclay.

Zirpoli: Barclay of Stanford; he's still alive. Then we had a local
contractor.

Sharp: That was the citizen member?

Zirpoli: Yes, but it was the name you — you have the name Harrison that I
don't recall.

Sharp: You don't? I had an interesting note about him. That is Leland
Harrison and he was a San Francisco attorney who was apparently
from the Phleger firm —

Zirpoli: Yes, Maurice Harrison.
Sharp: I -have Leland. I wonder why.

Zirpoli: We also had a man from the Lillich firm, Ira Lillich, but Ira

Lillich resigned shortly after he was appointed. I don't think
that he had any sympathy with the program.

Sharp: Do you mean he opposed the program?

Zirpoli: He opposed the program and its method of operation — with some
possible justification.

Sharp: But you don't remember this Mr. Harrison at all?

Zirpoli: There is Gregory and Maurice Harrison, the only two I know.

Sharp: All right. Back to the dates, did the board then end its operations
after the internment, the general internment began?

Zirpoli: No, some of it continued because I remember we even went down to
New Mexico to conduct the hearings for the Japanese, some two
hundred hearings in New Mexico near Santa Fe.

Sharp: So it would have gone on probably through May or even into the
summer?

Zirpoli: Approximately, yes.

Sharp: Could you just set out the main issues that the board had to deal
with then?

Zirpoli: The purpose of the board was, of course, to examine the individual
involved and ascertain his loyalty and whether the individual was
a security risk. Now, if an Italian was known to have a Fascist
uniform or a Ballila uniform (which was for the young Fascist
group), then we would feel that he had some sympathy. For instance,

Zirpoli: if one of them was arrested, and they found the uniform in his home,
he would have a pretty tough time convincing the board that he would
not constitute a national security risk. If we had someone else who
made Fascist speeches and was known at rallies to raise his hand in
salute to the II Duce, we had a pretty good idea that he would be
of questionable loyalty.

These questions also arose later with citizens because certain
American citizens of Italian origin were also excluded from the
area. They were not interned, that's true, but they were excluded.
Your background and your history determined whether you should or
should not be excluded.

There was a reference in one of the briefs of Mr. Purcell to a
prominent San Franciscan who was excluded, and that was Sylvester
Andriano, who had been a member of the [San Francisco] Board of
Supervisors, president of the Police Commission. He was a very
active church man, but he happened, unfortunately, to also be the
attorney for the consul general of Italy, which was a good relation
ship from the point of view of an attorney because it brought him a
tremendous amount of business, particularly probate business (people
who died here and had relatives or heirs abroad) . He was also
president of the Italian school. He was also president of the
Italian-American Chamber of Commerce. The sad part about that is
that the reason he was elected president of the Italian-American
Chamber of Commerce is because we didn't trust the candidate who
was opposing him whom we felt was a Fascist. Now, as I say,
Adriano did not try to test the constitutionality of the order.

Sharp: He left, yes.

How long would the hearings take for, say, one person?

Zirpoli: Oh, I would say, depending upon the parties involved, normally they
wouldn't take more than say twenty minutes to half an hour. What
would happen is, as the U.S. attorney, I would present the case to
the board, which consisted of having the FBI read and give us all
of the evidence it had (much of which was undoubtedly hearsay), but
we weren't going by the usual rules of evidence that apply in a
court of law.

Based upon the report of the FBI and our interrogation of the
alien involved, we would make — not I, but board — would make a deter
mination.

The only control over the agent that I suppose existed was
exercised by me. If he got too far afield or if the agent offered
an opinion, I would call him on it and tell him he had no business
offering an opinion, that all he was there to do was to give us the

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

facts, and that the decision as to whether the person was loyal or
disloyal was up to the board, not to the agent.

I remember I got into a little squabble with one agent who was
trying to offer an opinion.

There was some mention that some of the agents were a little over-
zealous .

That's right, and when that happened, I would tell the agent (we'd
have a court reporter), I'd say, "Let's put your comment on the

"If you feel this way about it, let's put it on the
and they would back off. So, as I say, these were problems

record,
record,
we had.

Now, for instance, we had one fellow that worked for the Bank
of America who was a definite Fascist. He used to wear the Fascist
emblem and everything else. Of course, he clearly was a security
risk, although he was well along in years, because he was such a
rabid Fascist. There wasn't any doubt as to where his sympathies
lay. So we were confirmed in our opinion as to him because even
after he was released from Missoula [Montana], he still indicated
his allegiance to II Duce.

Sharp: A real stalwart sort of figure.

I had also seen a note that the Office of Naval Intelligence
also —

Zirpoli: All of the intelligence offices reported to me; that is, the army
intelligence, the navy intelligence, and their reports, I found,
were exaggerated for the most part.

Sharp: More so than some of the FBI?

Zirpoli: Oh, definitely. The FBI reports were far more objective than the
navy reports. The navy would learn about a name and if it hap
pened to be the name of a Japanese admiral, they would conclude
that there was a blood relationship between him [and the admiral].
Some of those Japanese names are like Smith. Just because Smith
was an admiral of the American navy, for instance, didn't mean that
another Smith was his nephew or his son, and I found reports of
that character.

Other problems which we had, of course, were problems which
arose pursuant to the requirement that all enemy aliens turn in
their fire arms, signaling devices, and explosives of any kind or
character. So we had cases where some farmer was picked up who
happened to be a German alien and he had dynamite that he used to

Zirpoli: blow up tree stumps on his ranch. We would release these fellows.

We would give them a hearing and we would release them. This caused
the displeasure of General [John] DeWitt, who then reported to the
secretary of defense, who even went so far as to report it to
[President] Roosevelt because I got back an FBI report asking for
an explanation.

When they got overzealous and a fellow had an ordinary search
light — everybody has — it would be considered a signaling device.

The arms were all turned into the marshal. He collected
hundreds and thousands of arms from Japanese, Germans, and Italians.
One of these was a Japanese gun store that caused tremendous scare
headlines because they reported the number of guns seized and the
amount of ammunition seized. The next day they seized another gun
and another twenty rounds of ammunition and there would be the same
headline, just having the figure augmented by another gun or another
twenty rounds of ammunition.

This was the type of hysteria that prevailed. Of course, there
was tremendous fear for the personal safety of the Japanese them
selves. The way people felt, you would never know what their
reactions might be.

Sharp: Did you and some of the other assistant U.S. attorneys who were
working on these cases on the board, see yourselves as sort of a
moderating influence, I mean trying to sort out —

Zirpoli: Oh, in a small way that's true. A moderating influence in the sense
that I guess I had a better recognition of certain of the practical
problems involved.

I may have told you already about my discussions with DeWitt,
and members of his staff more than DeWitt, as it related to the
operation of the F [street]car in San Francisco. This was the car
that had its origin in the Marina and it would take you downtown.
It passed along Beach Street and General DeWitt wanted the south
side of Beach Street as the point of exclusion. I said, "It should
be the north side. These people have no other practical means of
getting downtown. They take that streetcar every morning."

Well, I finally won out. The moderation was that merely
because a fellow happened to have a gun or merely because he hap
pened to have some dynamite, it doesn't necessarily mean that he
should be interned even though he was an enemy alien. So to that
degree there was moderation.

As U.S. attorney, you could release some of these people without
the necessity of a formal hearing, too. In other words, I would
refuse to prosecute.

Sharp: Just because there wasn't enough evidence?

Zirpoli: — Dynamite, they would blow up tree stumps, which the FBI report

would correctly reflect. I wasn't going to intern him and require
him to go through a hearing. We had enough hearings as it was.

Sharp: Later on, by mid-December or so, supposedly General DeWitt became
very, very dissatisfied with the Department of Justice in general,
that you just weren't doing your job, that you weren't prosecuting
enough aliens and you weren't interning as many as you should.

Zirpoli: I don't know how dissatisfied he was.

I know he was dissatisfied, for instance, with relation to
curfew and hours of "black out" (no lights visible from the outside)
because the Marin Shipyard was operating twenty-four hours around
the clock and we weren't going to prosecute Marin Ship. He
insisted on it and so we did file a complaint with the commissioner.
Then Washington sent word to General DeWitt directly, not through
our office, and General DeWitt then asked us to dismiss the case.
I said I would do it when I got a request therefor under his
signature. Since he had gone that far, I wanted it in writing from
him and I got it and we dismissed .

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli;

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

We mentioned just a few minutes ago Thomas Barclay and Ed Owens.
They were on the board and I wondered how you might have interacted
with them other than presenting the case.

My interaction with them was the presentation of the case. Beyond
that it became social. For instance, when we were down in Santa Fe
in New Mexico and we all had dinner together, breakfast together,
lunch together, things of that character. We became very friendly.
They were very fine gentlemen, both of them. He is a very fine
professor, Barclay, at Stanford. Owens was at [the University of]
Santa Clara and then he was dean of their law school and became a
superior court judge. These were all highly respected men — Ira
Lillich was a leader in the bar here. Maurice Harrison, he was a
leader in the bar and he was also a leader in the Democratic party.

How might these men have been appointed to the board?
that have come about? Do you have any idea?

How would

I don't recall. I think they were appointed by the president.
Someone would designate them, but I don't recall.

And Thomas C. Clark?

Tom Clark happened to be in California as head of the antitrust
division on December the seventh or eighth. In fact, we were engaged
in a jury trial. I was with Tom Clark because he had had no trial

Zirpoli: jury experience. I had been asked to enter into the case and I did.
We were to argue the case on Monday morning. Pearl Harbor was
Sunday and we argued it Monday morning and raised the flag better
than the defendants did. We had greater opportunity to do it and we
got convictions.

So Tom Clark received instructions to serve as the liaison man
with the Department of Justice and the military for purposes of
national security.

I recall when they ordered the Germans and the Italians to move
out of the area to the south of Beach Street that I presented to him
the situation of a man whose son had been killed in Pearl Harbor and
we were telling him, "You move out." So I called Tom Clark in and I
said, "I want you to listen to this story." There wasn't anything
you could do really.

But then because there wasn't a clear understanding between the
military and the Department of Justice, they sent Ed [Edward J.]
Ennis out here from Washington. Ed Ennis came out and entered into
a formal agreement of some kind, a written agreement. I have never
seen it since. I saw it at the time. It was between the Department
of Justice and the military as to what the rights of the military
would be in this connection.

Sharp: Mr. Ennis —

Zirpoli: He became general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union,

he's still living. I guess he was general counsel for the American
Civil Liberties for the last fifteen or twenty years.

Sharp: We had done an oral history with Mr. Ennis, and with Tom Clark as
well, as part of the Earl Warren project.* Mr. Ennis comes out in
the oral history as very much in opposition to the military and to
General DeWitt and very supportive of the Department of Justice
trying to be this moderating influence.

Zirpoli: There is some truth in that, but in the final analysis, the Depart
ment of Justice finally gave in.

Sharp: Right, I want to ask you about that, but a little bit later on,
because I think your views would be an important part of that.

*See Ennis 's and Clark's interviews in Japanese-American Relocation
Reviewed, Vol. I: Decision and Exodus, Regional Oral History Office,
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1976.

Sharp: I wondered about the U.S. attorney's office and whether or not any
members took part in the Tolan committee hearings [held in San
Francisco in February and March 1942].*

Zirpoli: No, and I remember very little about it. I do know that they were
here and I knew [John H. ] Tolan very well and beyond that my memory
doesn't help me.

Sharp: Do you remember if there was any specific or general effect of the
committee hearings on the Alien Enemy Control Board's work?

Zirpoli: I don't think it had any general effect on the work of the board,
but it did have an effect on the evacuation program because there
was so dang much testimony about the hostility to the Japanese.

Sharp: So it really speeded it up, it seems.

Zirpoli: That's right, the testimony as to the hostility of the Japanese and
also the unwillingness of the people in the inner states to accept
unrestricted movement of the Japanese. So there had to be, in the
final analysis, war relocation centers because that's the only
thing that was ultimately acceptable to the governors of the various
states. There was strong resentment to having the Japanese come
into those states.

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli;
Sharp:

When the board was interning those aliens that were not convicted
but at least committed to these internment camps, was there quite a
bit of resistance even at that point in the surrounding communities
to having the camps located there like the one in Missoula, there
was in Texas —

I don't know of any specific resistance to the camp as long as it
was under the control of the military. Missoula was under the con
trol of the military and so I don't know of any. I don't recall any,

I have down four that were specifically Alien Enemy Control Board
camps. I'm not sure if this was right or not, but two for the
Japanese, one in Texas and one in New Mexico, which were the ones
you mentioned, and then two for Italians, one in Minnesota and one
in Montana. Were there more?

Oh, I am sure there were more even on the East Coast.
I can't tell you where they were located.

I'm sure, but

In your own tape that you made about a month ago, you talked about
your work with the board. You mentioned Sharp Park, as well as
these camps .

*The full title for this congressional committee was the Select Com
mittee Investigating National Defense Migration.

Zirpoli: Sharp Park was just a place for them pending the hearing. Once the
hearing was conducted, if they were ordered interned, they were sent
on to Missoula, the Italians, for instance.

Sharp: You did then go to some of the camps, some of these particular
centers?

Zirpoli: I have never been to Tule Lake.

Sharp: But you mentioned that you went to New Mexico to do some of the
hearings there.

Zirpoli: Yes, there we were conducting hearings and the only hearings that I
participated in were held in San Francisco and in New Mexico.

Sharp: But you never saw any of the camps, either the board ones or the
general internment camps?

Zirpoli: No.

Sharp: Did the aliens have defense counsel? Did they have lawyers who
- represented them in front of the board's hearings?

Zirpoli: Some of them did. In the hearings before the board itself, not

really. I don't remember any lawyer appearing at any of them. The
only time the lawyers appeared would be if somebody was picked up on
a complaint like that man with the dynamite or an Italian having a
gun or something of that character. Then a lawyer would appear,
because normally a complaint would be filed with the U.S. commissioner
and then we would order it dismissed.

Sharp: I had seen some mention that the Justice Department forbade Hoover

and the FBI from publishing the names of the people that were arrested
for these hearings in order, I presume, to save the families from
some sort of embarrassment of the publicity of being arrested. Do
you remember having to deal with that at all?

Zirpoli: No. I do know that all of the reports were confidential and there
were reasons for that. You might be a German alien or an Italian
alien, and if your nephew didn't like you or your sister-in-law
didn't like you or somebody like that, they might be the ones who
would be giving information detrimental to you because the FBI
interrogated a lot of people. If they wanted to know about you, they
would go and talk to your friends and even members of your family and
find out what you know about their activities.

For instance, we had an Italian lady who used to always be at
the Italian consulate and also go to all of the social events at the
German consulate. She was a citizen who was ordered to leave the
area. One of her relatives didn't like her and had a lot of bad
things to say about her.

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli;
Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp :

Zirpoli;
Sharp :

Of course, after the war and many years after it, a number of these
Italians, at least by way of illustration, who were ordered out of
the area or interned, were always anxious to talk to me to see if I
could tell them who was responsible for what happened to them. Of
course, I never did make any disclosures of that character. Of
course, the informants all bore numbers. They never had a name.
I could get the name from the FBI, but it would be, say, according
to 234 or according to 243, X did this or that.

The informants were not brought into court then, so there was no
confrontation.

Oh , no , never .
all.

That would just appear in the FBI report and that's

The person, the alien, would then be confronted with this list of
activities that people told the FBI, or whomever, about?

Yes, they would be confronted, that's right, with whatever — the
agent would make his report and the alien would be there and would
hear it. Then it would become his turn to answer. Now, we had one
[case] where a naval intelligence report said that the father of
this Japanese was an admiral in the Japanese navy and when he heard
that, he started to laugh. I mean it was so ridiculous!

There has been some comment, and you have raised it, too, that there
were few restrictions on what was admissible evidence into these
hearings. Did that bother you at all that it was somewhat loose?

If you had to give every one of these people a full trial, the
equivalent of a full trial, you would never finish — they'd be there
and you would be there for months. We gave them an opportunity to
answer, there was no question about that. Whatever went into the
record, they heard it all and they could give their response to it.

In his oral history, Tom Clark mentioned that the Germans and
Italians were handled sort of on a one-by-one basis.

Yes.

He mentioned that originally he thought that possibly the Japanese
could have been handled the same way.

Yes.

Was there much feeling within the department that that was possible,
too?

Zirpoli: I think there was feeling that it was possible. They had an example
in England to follow if they wanted to follow it and they didn't.
But the number was so great, particularly when it came to the
Japanese. The emergency was so great and the number was so great
that they couldn't do it.

Sharp: So you think that the numbers, the sheer fact of the numbers, is one
of the important considerations?

Zirpoli: Yes, and then a substantial number of the Germans and Italians were
asked to leave the area by the general, particularly those few who
were citizens that they were concerned about, and they would do it
voluntarily. So there was never any need for any hearing. They
left. Some of them went to Chicago. As I say, one of them, a
lawyer, went to Chicago and went to work for the Internal Revenue
Service in Chicago.

Sharp: I had a note to ask you about General DeWitt's dissatisfaction.

Zirpoli: I only met him twice.

Sharp: He doesn't seem like a very amicable person.

Zirpoli: Bendetsen was the person you dealt with, Colonel [Karl] Bendetsen.

Sharp: He was actually in charge of the evacuation from what I had read.*

Zirpoli: Yes, he was a lawyer and he was in charge. That's right.

Sharp: Now, with DeWitt's dissatisfaction, which most of the historical
sources make quite a big deal of, it is said that he pushed and
pushed and pushed. I wondered if that filtered down to your own
work in the prosecution of the aliens, your work with the board, if
you were hearing — ?

Zirpoli: Oh, I know. I knew that I was under some kind of pressure from him.
I could feel that. I mean the very fact that he reported to —

Sharp: All the way up —

Zirpoli: All the way up on this dynamite incident was some indication to me,

but that really didn't worry me. The only other thing I was worrying
about, DeWitt might not have liked me because I was Italian and that
was something that I had to give some thought to, especially when
we were arguing about that boundary line [on Beach Street].

*Bendetsen was director of the Wartime Civil Control Administration.

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Because that looked pretty suspicious?
that you looked fairly suspicious?

I mean he might have thought

Sharp :
Zirpoli;

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

No, he might have thought that I had some sympathy for these
Italians. He had no sympathy for the enemy aliens at all, and for
the Japanese he had none whatsoever and, as a matter of fact, used
the expression that "a Jap was a Jap" and things of that character,
even when he testified before the —

Is that right? Before the Tolan committee?
I think so.

Judge [William] Denman made some reference to it in his
dissenting opinion.*

Was there pressure on your office from any of the California state
officials like the attorney general?

None. The attorney general filed a brief. [Earl] Warren was the
[California] attorney general succeeded by — I can't think of the
name of his successor — Kenney.

Robert Kenney?

Yes, he was succeeded by Robert [W. ] Kenney and they filed an [amicus]
brief, but their concern was primarily fear of rioting and retaliatory
measures on the part of the populace.

Did you hear from the public at all? Did people picket the U.S.
attorney's office or write letters or make nasty phone calls?

No.

Were they even aware that this was going on?

Oh, sure, they were aware it was going on. The curfew made headline
news; the necessity for travel permits and all of these things were
carried in the press. Of course, the Japanese complied very well.
They were adequately regimented in their reactions.

What about Mayor [Angelo] Rossi? I had seen a note that he had
intervened on behalf of some members of the Italian community whom
I think had been arrested.

*This is a reference to Judge Denman 's dissent in the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals case, Toyosaburo Korematsu v. United States, 140
F. 2d 289 (1943).

Zirpoli: The only one that I can think of that he might have intervened in
behalf of would be Sylvester Andriano.

Sharp: Yes, because he had been mayor quite a while, like twelve or thirteen
years .

Zirpoli: Yes, he had been mayor. That's right, because he was elected around
'30- '31.

Sharp: In '31, I think.

Zirpoli: I was in his campaign, so I remember. I was supposed to make the

opening campaign speech in the Lafayette Club and the mayor sent for
me at my home. He sent his car to pick me up and my mother was
greatly impressed to see that the mayor's car was picking me up. I
was only twenty-five years or twenty-six years of age. I got to the
club to make the speech, but the dinner that the mayor attended was
over and he managed to get to the club before it was time to make
my speech so I never made it! [laughter]

Sharp: Oh, that's too bad!

There was also mention of a group of Italians who had called on
the attorney general, on Mr. Warren, to plead some sort of recon
sideration of hardship in several of the alien control board cases.

Zirpoli: Who did they meet?

Sharp: They called on Attorney General Earl Warren.

Zirpoli: I am not familiar with it.

Sharp: Okay, I just didn't know if you had any memories or if you recalled
it at all. I had originally thought that the internment began in
May, but actually it began in March of '42, the more general intern
ment.* The contact with the process of internment for your office,
for the U.S. attorney's office, what was that?

Zirpoli: None, unless somebody violated the order. Otherwise, we had none.
In other words, the army just took care of the whole thing.

Sharp: Now, I think it's in '43, a year later then, that the War Relocation
Authority went into civilian control and that was headed by Dillon
Myer, who passed away recently.

*0n 22 March 1942 the first group of Japanese and Japanese Americans
moved from Los Angeles to the Manzanar Assembly Center.

Zirpoli: Eisenhower started it, Milton Eisenhower, and then Myer.
Sharp: I think Eisenhower was just very, very briefly.

Zirpoli: That's right. He was given another assignment by the president. It
had to do with war information.

Sharp: Was there any change for the involvement of the U.S. attorney's
office once it became a civilian setup?

Zirpoli: As far as, for instance, what happened in those relocation centers
under the War Relocation Authority we had none. The only incident
I had was Mitsuye Endo.*

Sharp: I had seen a remark that said that as the evacuation, the general
evacuation and the internment of the West Coast Japanese, was
implemented, that the restrictions on the Germans and the Italians
were somewhat relaxed at that point .

Zirpoli: The only restrictions on the Germans and the Italians were south of
Beach Street, travel, curfew, but those are the same restrictions
that applied to almost anyone. Curfew, let's take lights out, that
applied to everyone regardless of your background. Travel and being
out after 6 p.m. applied to Italians and Germans unless you had a
permit, but it was a very simple thing to get a permit.

We issued some of them in lots of ten or twenty at a time. For
instance, when the scavengers wanted a permit, I didn't listen to
each and every scavenger. So whoever represented the scavengers,
generally a lawyer, would come in and ask for a permit for the
scavenger and give you the list of names and you would proceed to
grant the permits. The crowd of people would come in and it would
only be a matter of a few minutes and you would give them a travel
permit.

Sharp: But this was more of a feeling that once the internment of the

Japanese started in March, the wholesale internment, that that sort
of took the pressure off and that restrictions against and hard
feelings even against the Germans and the Italians somehow dissipated,

*Zirpoli refers here to his writing of the "Brief in opposition to
petition for writ of habeas corpus" for the case In the Matter of
the Application of Mitsuye Endo for a writ of habeas corpus, No .
23688-S, in the Northern District Court, 26 August 1942. Zirpoli's
role is discussed later in this interview.

Zirpoli: It dissipated because, first of all, you couldn't tell who was a

German or an Italian or a Frenchman or an Englishman from personal
appearance. They became part of what we would call the American
scene in every real sense because they intermarried and we had all
of these problems. The Japanese always remained unto themselves
and to a degree maybe even today they do more than any other racial
group. We weren't worrying about a German invasion on the West
Coast or an Italian invasion on the West Coast.

On hindsight, their feelings were wholly exaggerated but, as
I said before, the War Department went so far as to conclude that
if there was a Japanese invasion, we wouldn't stop them short of the
Rockies. When they made that kind of a report, it's an indication
of their feeling.

Sharp: It sounds pretty incredible now to look back on it.

Zirpoli: Yes, and that's one thing you have to bear in mind when you consider
these cases. When you consider Yasui, Hirabayashi, Korematsu, and
Mitsuye Endo,* the time period involved changed. Yasui, Korematsu,
and Hirabayashi are reflections of the conditions in December [1941],
January, and February [1942]. Mitsuye Endo's case had to be tested
by the conditions that existed three years later approximately.

Sharp: Was there any role for the Northern District Court in the process
of the internment?

Zirpoli: The district court?
Sharp: Yes, as a federal court.

Zirpoli: The only way the district court for the Northern District of

California got involved was, for instance, in the case of Korematsu
and Mitsuye Endo. Those are the only two. There was one in Portland
and one in Seattle and that's all. There was one other seaman's case
that had some significance. There the problem involved was his right
to sue and collect for damages for injuries received on board a ship.
The defense was that he had no right to prosecute his claim as an
enemy alien. (This was a Japanese alien.) The court said, "No, no,
he has the right to access to the court and, therefore, his case may
proceed."

* Yasui v. United States, 320 U.S. 115 (1943); Hirabayashi v. United
States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943); Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214
(1944); Ex parte Endo, 323 U.S. 283 (1944). Both Korematsu and Endo
originated in the Northern District Court; Korematsu as U.S. v. Fred
Toyosaburo Korematsu, 27635-W, July 8, 1942; see footnote p. 72 for
Endo.

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli!

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

When would this have come about?

Oh, this would be — there is a mention to it in one of the briefs
some time around — I don't know, some time around '42 or '43 when the
case was pending. This was for injuries he had received as a seaman.

Okay, I remember that.

Let me see, I may have something on a date, I'll give it to you.
This was also an important case. I just happened to run across it
by accident, Ex parte Quirin.* It had to do with the landing of
the saboteurs on the East Coast and I relied in small measure on
this [U.S.] Supreme Court rule which permitted the creation of the
commission, a special commission, to try them. This was argued in
the Supreme Court in October of 1942. He filed his suit in April of
'41 and after Pearl Harbor, they tried to abate the proceedings.
They wanted abatement of the suit during the war and the Supreme
Court, of course, said, "No, he has the right to access to the court
like anyone else, citizen and alien alike, as long as the courts are
open certainly for purposes of civil litigation."

I had more of a personal question for you and that was I was won
dering about your father.

My father was a former secretary of the Italian consulate, which he
left in 1939 because he saw the war coming. So he saw the war
coining and he resigned for that very reason. He didn't want to be
associated with the consulate in the event of a war. My father died
in '42. Of course, he worried about me, as he would.

My father had a cousin in Italy who was a great photographer.
He was photographer of the House of Savoy and later actually official
photographer for the government of Italy. He would send my father
a copy of all of the photographs that he would take of Mussolini and
Hitler and Goering and all of these people, and my mother had a
tremendous collection of great historic value. But with Pearl Har
bor she burned them all, put them all in the coal burner of the
stove that we had, and burned all of these valuable photographs.

Was she fearful that there would be some reprisal against — ?

Yes, she was. Of course, my father tried in whatever way he could
to be of assistance, too, based on his knowledge of who would or
would not be a possible danger to the community.

*The U.S. Supreme Court decided this case on July 31, 1942, and
wrote a formal opinion later.

Sharp: Did you talk to him about some of the cases that —
Zirpoli: Not particularly. No, not particularly.

Sharp: He was fairly close to the action in the sense of being in the

consulate. At least in the recent past he had been in the consulate.

Zirpoli: Of course, my father didn't live very long after the war. [pause]

U. S. v. Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu

Sharp: The rest of my questions are about the cases, Korematsu first and
then some about Endo after that. For Korematsu, in the brief for
the petitioner in opposition to the demurrer written by Wayne [M. ]
Collins (who was the ACLU* attorney), I wondered what you thought
was most noteworthy about that particular brief? He attacked the
government's position from several angles from what I could see. He
talked about the prosecution having to prove this martial law theory.

Zirpoli: Yes, they went on the theory that under martial law you couldn't do

this. My theory was that we're not talking about martial law at all.
This is not a question of martial law, this is a question of exer
cising the power of the president with the approval of Congress.

In other words, I went on the theory that these were war powers.
Therefore, whatever measures were necessary in the national interest
could be taken and that the theater of military operation was not
that which existed forty or fifty or a hundred years before.

So, I had to argue on the question of qualified martial law and
war power in a sense because the court asked about it. That was one
of the questions they interrogated of me when we had an oral presen
tation.

When the time came to write the brief, I commented. I said, "We
don't have to even consider it. But if we have to consider it," then
I went on to say, "you have to conclude that in today's version of
warfare, the military zone is not that which was a military zone in
Milligan's time in 1867 .** Therefore, there would be need for what
one might call a form of qualified martial law."

I wasn't making this as a strong argument. I would have pre
ferred not to have to argue it at all. But this was one of the big
arguments that they made on behalf of Korematsu and Mitsuye Endo and

*American Civil Liberties Union.
**This is a reference to Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2 (1867).

Zirpoli: since they made this argument and the court questioned me about it,
I tried to meet it and I tried to meet it in the brief.

But our primary argument was that that this was an exercise of
the war power on the part of the president and of the Congress.

Sharp: An important issue in the defendant's brief, for me, was about the
war powers — what Collins said was the war powers of the federal
government are subject to provisions and limitations of the Consti
tution, which is not superseded by war. I mean what he was saying
was that it is not unlimited.

Zirpoli: I know, but I argued that when the very life of the nation is at
stake, some of these constitutional rights have to give way. You
have your constitutional right of free speech, but it is not absolute
and you can't, to use the old expression, "Holler or shout 'fire1 in
the theater and cause a stampede." I mean you can be prosecuted.

So my argument was that we had to weigh and balance these
constitutional rights one against the other and see what predominates
in time of war, and is the power of the government to defend itself
paramount if the very life of the government or the nation depends
on it.

The other argument is, what is the good of saving the nation if
you have to destroy constitutional rights in so doing?

So these were countervailing arguments, but nevertheless that
was the argument.

Sharp: Collins then clearly came right out and said that Public Law 503
(which was the congressional law), Executive Order 9066, and then
the Japanese Exclusion Order 34 (that was DeWitt's order) were
unconstitutional for all of these reasons, primarily because of the
rights of the private person that were squashed.

Zirpoli: Yes, but the rights of private persons, many of the rights of private
persons, have to give way and they are surrendered in time of war.
It depends upon how you interpret your war, but if the war is of
such a nature and the threat is such, you can restrict the activities
of citizens whether they are Japanese or German or Italian or French
or English. I am talking of restricting the rights of American citi
zens. All American citizens had to put their lights out regardless
of their ethnic background.

Sharp: What are your observations of Wayne Collins and Mr. [Clarence E.]
Rust?

Zirpoli: Jim [James C.] Purcell and Wayne Collins and [Ernest] Besig, they

were all good lawyers , they were great civil liberty lawyers . Wayne
Collins, I had great admiration for him. They wrote good briefs,
they made good arguments, and ultimately they succeeded with Mitsuye
Endo. But, of course, Mitsuye Endo was not Hirabayashi or Korematsu.
Mitsyue Endo was in 1943 or '44. I have forgotten the year when the
[U.S.] Supreme Court ruled [1944]. When the Supreme Court ruled, it
ruled based on conditions existing then, not on conditions existing
at the time of Pearl Harbor or immediately thereafter. I think the
Supreme Court made it pretty clear that you had to draw these
distinctions .

Sharp: Besig1 s role was particularly interesting. I noticed that he put up
his own treasury bond for bail for Fred Korematsu.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: That sort of personal involvement surprised me. I didn't expect that
he would sort of go out on a limb like that.

Zirpoli: He was head of the American Civil Liberties Union in this area [San
Francisco] and Collins did a lot of work for them and became par
ticularly interested in the Japanese. He developed a tremendous
Japanese following. He was the principal attorney for the return of
the properties of the Japanese that had been seized during the war.
He also was attorney in the defense of Tokyo Rose [Iva Toguri d' Aquino]

Sharp: That's right. I hope we get around to talking of that. That's a
much later case actually, "53 or '55.

Zirpoli: I don't remember. I was in private practice. In fact, I represented
[Major ] Wallace E. Ince, who became a witness in that case.

Sharp: Next time I think I would like to ask you about that.

Was the ACLU as strong an organization in terms of getting these
cases worked out —

Zirpoli: It was fairly strong. By this time, you had Al Wirin in southern
California whose name also appears on some of the briefs. Oh, no,
they were fairly effective. They were doing a pretty good job then.
The big problem, the unfortunate problem, about the American Civil
Liberties Union is that some of the people in the American Civil
Liberties Union were labeled as Communists by people like Senator
[Joseph] McCarthy.

Sharp: It gives you a bad name without any real substantiation.
Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: The amicus briefs entered by Herbert Wenig in Korematsu and in Endo
I thought were really interesting. It was part of Earl Warren's
role as attorney general and then, of course, as governor by this
time, that I hadn't seen. He was pretty much supporting the U.S.
attorney's office and stand.

Zirpoli: They were supporting the office primarily because they said, "If the
military doesn't handle this situation, then we've got to do it and
we don't have the police force to do it or the facilities to do it;
the army can do it, but we can't. Who is going to patrol the so-
called Japanese district if the Japanese are permitted to remain
there? Who is going to prevent bloodshed in that area? Who is
going to prevent rioting when this becomes the responsibility of the
state that we are not equipped to handle?" This was pretty much
their argument.

Sharp: They seem really quite fearful of what was going to happen.

Zirpoli: The Supreme Court didn't go into that in any detail at all to speak
of but that was their basic fear.

Sharp: It's a very impressive brief, some of the language. I don't know
who wrote it, if Warren wrote it —

Zirpoli: Wenig wrote it, Herb Wenig.
Sharp: — Very persuasive.

Zirpoli: Judge [William T.] Sweigert of this court was the chief deputy to
Earl Warren as attorney general and also became his executive
secretary when he became governor. Warren assigned Herb Wenig to
this litigation.

Sharp: In your brief in support of the demurrer, it's the military necessity
argument. It's very similar to the brief that you wrote for Endo .

Zirpoli: No, the brief I wrote for Korematsu was similar to the brief I

wrote in Endo. Oh, yes, because from my point of view the argument
had to be the same. I was trying to justify the original detention,
putting them in the camp, because I was arguing, I was saying, "She
hasn't exhausted her administrative remedies. Until she exhausts
her administrative remedies, she has no right to habeas corpus."

So the only thing left for me to argue was basically the original
order. "If what was done originally was proper, then she can't com
plain now because she has an administrative procedure she can follow
that will enable her to be released. Pending that hearing, this so-
called temporary detention is permissible because it's the very
thing we were trying to support in Korematsu. "

Sharp: I don't know if you remember what you were thinking at the time, but
in the original brief that you wrote for Korematsu, do you remember
having a choice of ways that you could argue what you did?

Zirpoli: Korematsu was a criminal trial and the only problem that I had was
that if I declined prosecution, it would be difficult to enforce
General DeWitt's orders for then they could be disobeyed and there
would be no prosecution. The offense involved would be at the most
a misdemeanor. The probabilities are that the person would get
probation, so we felt that it was better to enforce in this limited
fashion.

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp:

The big problem that arose with relation to Korematsu was, what
do you do after you get a conviction? Do you want an appeal? The
answer is no, we didn't want an appeal. We didn't want a test case.
So the court put him on probation and suspended the entry of judg
ment. I felt that this might be the means by which we could prevent
the case from going up to the Supreme Court because we didn't want
it to. Even though the Supreme Court might rule in our favor, we
didn't want one [a test case].

That was a subject of discussion between myself and [Edward]
Ennis and [John] Burling. I didn't talk to Burling personally, but
it was a subject of discussion between me and the Department of
Justice, let us say, and that was my idea because I had a lot of
experience in criminal law and entering of judgment and suspension
of entry of judgment. I figured this would not be a final order
and hence was not appealable. When the [Ninth Circuit] court of
appeals got the order, they said, "Is it appealable?" "We don't
know . "

So they certified the question to the [U.S.] Supreme Court and,
of course, [Judge William] Denman didn't like that. He said, "Why
don't you talk about what is involved here and let's discuss this
matter." In his first dissent, he wasn't necessarily anxious to
rule against the government . What he wanted was a presentation of
all of the facts to the Supreme Court and not a simple question,
"Is this an appealable order?" Well, the Supreme Court said it was
an appealable order, but by this time the Department of Justice was
convinced it was an appealable order, too.

Yes, so you were stuck.

So although they went up there, they didn't press that at all really
by the time it got to the Supreme Court.

Let me back you up a little bit back down to the district court level
and Judge [A.F.] St. Sure. I wanted to ask you about his role in
the case. We haven't really talked too much about him as a person
or him as a judge and what kind of judge he was. I was hoping you
would remember some of how he was.

Zirpoli: Judge St. Sure was considered, to use the slang, a tough judge,
[laughs] He gave fairly heavy sentences. He was a very able
judge and, of course, there was a plea of guilty in effect as far
as Korematsu was concerned so that all that was left was for the
judge to decide what the punishment shall be. As I said, we per
suaded him to suspend the execution of the judgment and he did. But
his role was very minor in the final analysis. I mean he heard the
case, he heard the constitutional arguments, he ruled against the
arguments, and Korematsu was found guilty and he suspended the
execution of the sentence, put Korematsu on probation.

Sharp: Just the way what Korematsu did, it essentially said that he was

guilty just by going ahead and testing the curfew; just the way he
set it up, he meant for it to be a test case almost in just the way
he did it.

Zirpoli: Not so much, for instance, as maybe Mitsuye Endo. Mitsuye was
deliberate. Korematsu is still alive.

Sharp: Is that right? I didn't know that he was.

Zirpoli: There was an article in the paper recently that Korematsu is going
to file a lawsuit.

Sharp: For reparations?

Zirpoli: He wants a new hearing to present further evidence to set aside the
conviction, I don't know. I saw this in the paper about a week ago,
but he is considering doing that.

Sharp: Is he still in California?
Zirpoli: No, I think he is in Seattle.

Sharp: If 'you move up the ladder then up to the Ninth Circuit, the dissent
that Judge Denman wrote and that you showed me, I found myself
wondering who Judge Denman was really talking to, who his audience
was meant to be in his writing that dissent.*

Zirpoli: I don't know who his audience would be. I suppose his audience was
whoever would be disposed to read a dissenting opinion. I mean he
had his views and they were strong in that regard and he felt that
there was a form of discrimination taking place. He felt that the
court should consider everything, the court should have considered
the constitutional questions. It shouldn't have passed them on to
the Supreme Court, so he proceeded to set forth all of the problems

*Toyosaburo Korematsu v. United States, 140 F. 2d 289 (1943), pp. 291-
300.

Zirpoli: that existed and that had to be tested and determined. He was some
what of a liberal judge, although you never would have expected it
necessarily from his background. It's true that he was a Democrat,
but he was basically an admiralty lawyer before he went on the bench.

Sharp: I didn't entirely understand everything he was saying in the opinion.
He was dissenting from the grounds of the majority opinion, but dis
senting in part. It seemed he was sitting on the fence.

Zirpoli: He was dissenting in part because he was saying the majority opinion —
"I am dissenting because all they want to do is certify it and they
don't want to write an opinion; they don't want to give their
reasons therefor. These are all of the problems that exist. Shouldn't
we explore these problems? If we're going to send it on, send it on
with at least an indication that we have explored it or we ought to
resolve it and let them affirm or reverse, but let's not just pass
this on without taking our full responsibility in the case."

Sharp: Why couldn't they do that? Why couldn't the court really address —

Zirpoli: The court didn't want to. The vote was against him. I think Chief
Judge Curtis D. Wilbur was the presiding judge at the time. Cir
cuit Judge Albert L. Stephens wrote a concurring opinion.

Sharp: Chief Judge Wilbur wrote the opinion.

Zirpoli: Judge Denman didn't concur with the result. He said, "That's no
way to do it," and so he went on for quite a number of pages. I
think he had written a dissent in Hirabayashi on the question of
certification. That's right, he was saying, "You are doing what you
did in Hirabayashi, you're avoiding the issues again."

Sharp: Right, and it made me wonder what kind of person Denman was.
Zirpoli: Denman? [laughs]
Sharp: He has come up before.

Zirpoli: Oh, I had enough experience with Denman before and experience with

him later as far as that goes. I kind of liked him. He took a great
interest in his work. He worked hard. It was obvious that he had
some liberal views, although one would never have suspected it based
on his earlier background and those views were expressed in habeas
corpus proceedings before and after.

Sharp: He seemed somewhat of a maverick.
Zirpoli: Yes, he was.

Sharp: I have a sense of the rest of the members of the court, his colleagues,
sort of going, "Here we go again, Denman is sticking out like a sore
thumb and not letting this thing ride by." Were there repercussions,
ill feeling against Denman?

Zirpoli: I have a feeling that there was some, but I have no way of measuring
it at all. I just have that feeling based on these various
experiences I had with Denman, including the fact that he went into
court to listen to an argument in a case where he was basically
sitting as a district judge in the habeas corpus case. If the judge
will take the trouble to go into the courtroom and sit down in the
front row and listen to what his colleagues have to say about him in
his case, that's some indication.

Sharp: What did he look like?

Zirpoli: Oh, a very handsome man, a big man, white hair, a very handsome man.
You can't imagine one who was more distinguished-looking as a judge
than Denman.

Sharp: Did he do this often, this sort of dissent?

Zirpoli: Oh, often enough, yes. [laughs] That was another problem with him.

Sharp: In textbooks on circuit court judge behavior and collegial decision
making, there are always references to judges who dissent and the
animosity or a more gentle term, ill feeling, that begins to grow
against the one who sticks out and just sort of won't go along with
the—

Zirpoli: That is something that is hard to measure because nobody is going to
come out and say that the situation exists. You just have to draw
your own conclusions based upon what you see and you experience. I
would say that there probably was not the friendliest of feelings
between Chief Judge Wilbur and Denman.

Sharp: From the district court perspective in eventually realizing that this
was going to go up to the circuit court, was there some feeling that
the defendant in this case would have had an ally in Denman? Was it
sort of predictable?

Zirpoli: No, they never gave it a thought. The only time that that thing ever
broke out in the open was in the habeas corpus case rising out of
Alcatraz when Judge Denman directed the issuance of a writ based on
a petition that already had been denied by Judge Dal Lemmon. Then
the district court in bane reversed him and said, "He has no authority
to direct us what to do or what not to do, but in deference to his
position, we find that there is no merit to his order" [in Ex parte
Stidman] .

Sharp: That's all of the questions that I had for Korematsu. I wondered if
you had any extra notes that perhaps you had written there that you
would like to include.

Zirpoli: No, as I said, the only observation we always have to keep in mind
is that the Korematsu decision in the [U.S.] Supreme Court was
decided on the conditions that existed at the time that Korematsu
committed the offense. In Mitsuye Endo, the order of the court's
ruling was based upon the conditions existing at the time the court
ruled, which was three or four years later. I don't know if I have
the date for Mitsuye Endo here or not, but it's 323 [U.S.] 383.
[pause to review papers]

Sharp: I think it was '44, but I'm not sure.

Zirpoli: Yes, there you are, October of '44. So by that time all of the
conditions existing that justified action in Korematsu no longer
existed. If Korematsu had asked for release himself from a prison
camp — if you want to call a prison camp an internment camp — they
would have undoubtedly granted it to Korematsu or Hirabayashi or
Yasui.

In the Matter of the Application of Mitsuye Endo for a Writ of
Habeas Corpus

Sharp: Then the few questions that I have about Endo . * How did you go about
writing the "Brief in opposition to the petition for the writ of
habeas corpus"? That seemed like it would have been pretty straight
forward because of the administrative remedies that she hadn't exhausted,

*As part of his review of this interview, the interviewer-editor
asked Judge Zirpoli to consider several additional questions regarding
the Endo case. The questions and answers follow below.

Sharp: Were you aware of the dismissal of other Japanese American California
state employees, besides Endo?

Zirpoli: No.

Sharp: During the Endo court proceedings, was the issue of firing these
Japanese Americans ever presented or discussed?

Zirpoli: No.

Zirpoli: Yes, but that was the basic argument and that's an argument with
which I was familiar. I had been handling habeas corpus out of
Alcatraz all of these previous years. By this time, I had been
handling them for about six years, so I was looking for a procedural
method to avoid the question entirely. The procedural method was
to say there had been no exhaustion of administrative remedies.
But Purcell made a good argument. He made a very good argument. He
said that the administrative remedy wasn't freely there in the final
analysis. She wanted to go back to Sacramento. You know that they
would have denied her the right to go back to Sacramento. It would
have been a futile act for her to seek her release, but the argument
against that was, "You say it's a futile act, but you can't tell — . "

Sharp: Until you try.

Zirpoli: " — Until you try, and you've got to try." "If they enter an order
which is a proper restriction on her right of movement or whatever
it happens to be, then you at least exhaused your remedies. That is
the proper time to seek a writ."

Now I think the court has since bought that argument more than
it bought any other. Eventually when they argued in the [Ninth
Circuit] court of appeals, that is the same argument that the

Sharp: What were the reasons for not summoning Lieutenant General John
DeWitt to testify on behalf of the army?

Zirpoli: He was not needed. You don't put on new evidence in a habeas corpus
case of the nature here involved.

Sharp: Colonel J. F. Watson, Judge advocate, Western Defense Command,

apparently attended the hearings as an observer. Did he provide any
assistance to you? Ever make any comments on the case?

Zirpoli: Yes, he briefed me on the army procedures involved.
Sharp: Do you recall any of the public feeling about the case?
Zirpoli: No.

Sharp: Did you get a chance to talk about the case with Judge Roche? Any
sense of his private feelings?

Zirpoli: No.

Sharp: Do you recall your reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning
of Judge Roche's ruling?

Zirpoli: I thought the Supreme Court was right.

Zirpoli: attorney general made, although I had nothing to do with that brief
myself. I was of counsel but they wrote that brief.

Sharp: Did you have any input from Mr. Hennessy for this brief?

Zirpoli: No, Mr. Hennessy was the head man and he just wanted to be sure I
worked hard. No, I got some input from the Department of Justice.
I wouldn't want to state that I did not get input there. I got
input from the Department of Justice because our approach and our
strategy was discussed.

Sharp: In a meeting sort of arrangement?
Zirpoli: In meetings and conversations.
Sharp: With whom?

Zirpoli: I had meetings with Ed Ennis , several; primarily with Ed Ennis . I
primarily met Ennis and [had] some discussions back and forth. But
they did not want to argue Milligan or martial law. I agreed in the
final sense with that, but I had said I had to argue it. The judges
raised the question and having raised the question, I had to argue
it, so that I think that if the Department of Justice were to evaluate
my role, they would say that I was very good on the technical aspects,
and maybe not as good as they might have hoped for on some of the
other aspects.

Sharp: You had a rather broad interpretation of the war powers in both

Korematsu and Endo . It's a defense of the war measures that were
taken .

Zirpoli: They interpreted them strictly and I interpreted them broadly. I
said, "In times of war you can't particularize in the same way you
could for other measures because Congress cannot foresee everything
that is likely to occur or to happen, and they have to give broad
powers." That was my argument anyway.

When the Mitsuye Endo decision came down from the [U.S.] Supreme
Court, I thought it was a good decision. I mean I didn't quarrel
with it. I thought that Purcell and Collins did a good job when
they were saying, "You talk about administrative remedies, but in
truth and reality they aren't there."

Sharp: And especially because she was a California state employee and the
Personnel Board in Sacramento probably wouldn't have even considered
rehiring her really.

Zirpoli: General DeWitt would not have let her into Sacramento.
Sharp: Yes, she couldn't have lived there.

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp :
Zirpoli!

She had to have their okay wherever she went. They would release
her but in order to go into whatever area was involved, she needed
the okay of the military command.

Who was Purcell?

Jim Purcell, and he had an associate, [William E.] Ferriter, he was
a general practitioner in this area and participated in some criminal
work. How he got this case, I don't know. He must have known
Mitsuye Endo .

But it is clear he wasn't an ACLU lawyer.

No, he definitely was not.
thought he did a good job.
wasn't expecting from him.

He was a general practitioner, but I
I mean it was a kind of a job that I

In the records there is a letter to Judge [Michael] Roche regarding
the leave regulations which applied to Endo —

An affidavit.

Yes, and it said that it was useless for her to apply because she
couldn't return to work in Sacramento. That was obviously part of
Purcell ' s argument .

That was in response. What happened is the director of the reloca
tion center or the war authority center submitted an affidavit,
which I had requested, indicating that she could apply for leave.
I wanted to support the failure to exhaust administrative remedies
and that this notice was given in the usual manner, including the
paper in the camp, and she knew about it, and at no time did she
ever ask for leave, for indefinite leave. So I filed that to show
there was no exhaustion and Purcell answered by saying, "This doesn't
mean anything in effect," and filed a counter statement.

Was it Judge Roche or Judge St. Sure then who

I wasn't really sure,
wrote the opinion?

In which case?
In Endo .

In Endo it was Judge Roche and it was very short. It wasn't an
opinion. It was just an order, as the transcript shows. Let's take
a look at it here. [pause to review transcript] He merely said
she's [reading] "not entitled to the writ and it further appearing
that she has not exhausted her administrative remedies under the
provisions of the executive order, it is ordered that the writ of

Zirpoli: habeas corpus be ... denied," signed by Judge Roche. By the time
of July 2, 1943, and by the time the Supreme Court heard it in
November or October of '44, a full year had gone by.

Sharp: What do you think was the impact of Hirabayashi, Korematsu, and Endo?

Zirpoli: Well, Hirabayashi and Yasui and Korematsu merely sustained the curfew
or the order directing you to present yourself in an assembly center,
and they were predicated upon conditions that existed at the time.
By the time you got to Mitsuye Endo, there was enough language in
the Supreme Court saying that if this was something that they were
putting into effect now, let's say in '43 or '44 in Korematsu, we
might rule differently. Having said that, they then turned to Mitsuye
Endo and said, "We look at the problem as it exists today and we have
to decide it as of today and, therefore, as of today we are satisfied
that there was an unconstitutional deprivation of the rights of
Mitsuye Endo." So the specific language made a substantial difference.
Purcell was very clever in that regard because he referred to
conditions "now." [pause to review transcript] I am trying to find
it. Maybe it was in his reply brief, but there was an emphasis on
the conditions existing "now." [pause] I am sure he did. Hirabayashi
reflected violation of a "curfew" order and had no binding effect in
the Endo case. The Hirabayashi case specifically reserved the question
of whether failure to report for transfer to a relocation center was
a crime. The court restricted detention to temporary detention so
that the Supreme Court was trying to avoid deciding the question of
whether such a restriction applied after Pearl Harbor (1942) would
be valid today (1944) .

Purcell hung onto that argument. Even in '43 (the date of the
Hirabayashi decision), he said, "The validity of even a curfew
restriction might be another matter today. What is the status of
detention now" — and he emphasized the word now — "of a loyal citizen
beyond the exclusionary." So that was his position.

Sharp: In these sorts of cases, the string of cases dealing with the Japanese
internment and the military necessity, it strikes me that you get
sort of a time warp situation that the military necessity may or may
not exist, but there was an agreement that it did exist at a certain
point but then lapsed. The military necessity evaporated.

Zirpoli: It evaporated gradually. It existed for quite a while because we
were losing that war. After all, while this was going on, Pearl
Harbor — they took Hong Kong, they took Singapore, they invaded
Borneo, they took the Philippines eventually, they defeated us at
Wake Island. I have forgotten the name of the bay. They had defeated
our fleet in another battle. There had been some so-called shelling
of Santa Barbara and some balloons allegedly landing on the Oregon
coast. All of these things were transpiring and for the first six

Zirpoli: or eight months of the war, we were losing, we weren't winning in
the Pacific.

Sharp: Now, for me, it is genuinely difficult to see that and to understand
the pressures and the reality of the feeling —

Zirpoli: Yes, that is the great difficulty, if you didn't live through the

scary period and the scary headlines and all of the things that you
were getting, big headlines of, "San Francisco Bay is being Mined."
"Mining San Francisco Bay." That means you were afraid that sub
marines were going to come in, or they were going to bomb the
bridge, and somebody would talk and they would give you a headline
about the shelling of Santa Barbara —

Sharp: Goleta Bay —

Zirpoli: — Or balloons were landing on the Oregon coast [chuckles] and then

we were losing these battles. Boy, we weren't playing up our losses
as greatly in a sense as we should, our losses in the Pacific. When
you consider all of the area that the Japanese took over in the
Pacific, they had taken over Hong Kong and invaded China and taken
over Singapore and into Borneo, you've got a pretty good idea of how
far their operations had gone.

Sharp: Oh, yes, it was a very extensive area.

Zirpoli: And also the problems of fifth column activity which were evident in
Europe.

Sharp: Are there other comments that you would like to make?
Zirpoli: No, I think that we have pretty well exhausted it.

IV THE INTERIM YEARS, 1944-1961 ##

Tokyo Rose and Other Prisoner of War Cases

Sharp: This interview today is really about what seems like sort of an
interim period in your life to me. It is a mixture of political
activities, private practice and work on the [San Francisco] Board
of Supervisors. I thought we might start by talking about your
representation of Major [Wallace E.] Ince . I just wanted to be sure
that your representation of him was as part of the actual Tokyo Rose
trial. Is that right?

Zirpoli: Not necessarily as part of the actual Tokyo Rose trial. Major Ince
was then under investigation on the subject of possible indictment
by the United States attorney for the offense of treason because
Major Ince became a broadcaster for the Japanese in English, and
presumably would be broadcasting with American troops as his target,
just as Tokyo Rose was.

Major Ince had been captured and taken prisoner and he was held
in the prison camp. I have forgotten the name of the camp now.
There were quite a number or Americans who were there. In fact,
during the Tokyo Rose trial, many of them were called as witnesses.
I remember that we all had a reunion at a restaurant in San Francisco
in Chinatown in which they relived some of their days in the
Japanese prison camps.

Major Ince was taken out and he was obviously under a threat of
death if he didn't comply. So he would broadcast and he would talk
about subjects of current interest, but he was also a very intelli
gent man and he knew that if could convey some messages in the
course of his broadcast that might be helpful, he realized it would
pay him to do so. So he showed an interest in sport events, parti
cularly tennis, and that gave him an opportunity to comment about
the weather — "this is a beautiful day for tennis" — which he had hoped
would be a signal to the American forces that this is the time to
come over for some bombing.

Zirpoli: In all events, he was never indicted, of course, and they did call
him as a witness in the Tokyo Rose case, just as they did all of
the other prisoners — not all of them, but those other prisoners
whom they brought to the West Coast to testify. Now, Wayne Collins
was the defense attorney for Tokyo Rose. I am trying to think of
the name of the attorney who prosecuted. He was a special prosecutor
out of the Department of Justice who came down to prosecute on
behalf of the government.

Sharp: Tom DeWolfe and James Knapp .

Zirpoli: Yes, that's right.

Sharp: Your representation of him — what did it consist of then?

Zirpoli: I merely accompanied him to the courtroom and sat by while he

testified and was there to protect his interest to whatever degree
was necessary.

Sharp: How would it come about that you were representing him instead of
somebody else?

Zirpoli: Because he came to see me to retain him.
Sharp: Did he know about you from somebody else?

Zirpoli: Oh, I don't recall the circumstances that caused him to come to my
office. He came to my office and asked me to represent him and
told me he was under investigation and he felt he should have the
benefit of a lawyer.

Sharp: What were the main issues involved in representing him?

Zirpoli: The main issue involved in representing him was to indicate that he
was under coercion and threat of death primarily, and that in his
broadcast he was attempting to be beneficial to whatever degree
possible by the nature of his broadcast if they had charged him.
They never did charge him.

Sharp: I read about him and the trial in the book Tokyo Rose.* Apparently

he testified that Iva Toguri d' Aquino, who was considered to be Tokyo
Rose, had assisted him with food and medicine. I wondered if you
could talk more about what his role was as a defense witness.

*Masayo Duus , Tokyo Rose, Orphan of the Pacific (New York:
and Row, 1979).

Harper

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp:

Zirpoli:

Sharp:

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp:

Zirpoli:

I can't tell you more than his description of the circumstances
existing at the time. Of course, there was more than one Tokyo
Rose in a sense. She [Iva Toguri d' Aquino] got the name and she
was indicted but there were others. She had the necessary back
ground and they could qualify her as a radio commentator.

The feeling of the author of this particular book was that Iva
had been pretty much used as a scapegoat because there were other
people, other women, who certainly could have been Tokyo Rose,
but there was no one particular Tokyo Rose and that she was sort
of getting it all. Did you think so at the time?

I thought pretty much so, yes, at the time, I really did. I mean
I said, "They pick this girl out and why?"

Do you know who represented Norman Reyes? Do you remember him at
all?

No.

He was another one of the defense witnesses. He had been imprisoned
with Major Ince and he seemed to get — at least from the book — a
really tough going over by Tom DeWolfe and James Knapp. His story
was pretty much discredited by some of the FBI investigation. I
wondered if you remembered very much about that, because it seemed
fairly striking.

No, what was his name again?
Norman Reyes [spells name] .

No, the name sounds familiar,
when we all met for dinner.

He may be one of those that was there

Do you remember very much about Judge [Michael] Roche at all?
Judge Roche?

Yes, he was chief judge of the Northern District Court then and was
the judge who tried this case.

Judge Roche was a very passive judge on the bench very frankly and
he was, the type that would permit the evidence from both sides, so
to speak, without, let us say, any scholarly distinction as to types
of evidence. He was not a legal scholar, but he was a man of pretty
good judgment and common sense. But that's the kind of a trial where
both sides kind of open up.

Sharp:

I wonder if you recall very much about his instructions to the jury.

Zirpoli:
Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:
Sharp :
Zirpoli:
Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp:

No.

There was some feeling that he really undercut the defense by his
instructions to the jury, laying out pretty strict instructions so
that they could seem to only come to one conclusion, that she was
a U.S. citizen at the time of her offense and that she did indeed
commit treason.

No, I don't recall the instructions, but a trial of that character,
it could very well be that the activity of others becomes immaterial
and all you are interested in is the activity of just this young
lady.

Does anything stand out as sort of a major impression of the whole
trial and all that went on?

Nothing other than that I rode down to my office once with her in
the marshal's van when they were taking her back to jail. [laughs]

Did you talk to her?

Oh, yes, but I don't remember what the conversation was. We were
both in the van, the marshal's van. The marshal's van was just
leaving when I was leaving the courthouse myself and they offered
me a ride, so I went along with them. They took her down to the old
Hall of Justice on Kearny Street and my office was on Montgomery
one block away.

Was there anything particularly distinctive about her?

No.

Did she seem villainous or — ?

Did she?

Yes.

Oh, no, she didn't create any such impression at all.
was affable and made no complaints .

I mean she

It is interesting to have you see the U.S. attorney's office from
the other side. I think I recall that Frank Hennessy made one of the
major summations, I guess, at the end of the trial. I wonder what
particular impressions you had from seeing Mr. Hennessy and seeing
the U.S. attorney's office operate from the other side since you were
now in private practice.

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli;

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

No, other than your normal observations that anyone would make. I
mean the prosecutor has one objective and that is to present the
evidence that would indicate guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. By
reason of your trial experience, you have a pretty good idea what
the defendant's counsel's role is and when you leave that office,
you just take on the role of defense counsel.

The benefit of being a prosecutor is that you learn your rules
of evidence and you learn your criminal law and you are better able
to ultimately apply it even as defense counsel.

There were some forty-five or so defense witnesses, half of whom I
think had just affidavits that they sent in, but a pretty large
number of defense witnesses. I wondered if there was a certain
amount of meeting with the other lawyers ahead of time to plan the
strategy of her defense.

Not particularly that I recall. Of course, there were some deposi
tions taken in Japan.

Oh, is that right?

Yes , and Wayne Collins traveled to Japan to participate in those
depositions. You have to get approval of the court, which was provided
for, and his expenses were paid to go to Japan for that purpose.

Are there other things that strike you about this trial that seem
worth commenting on?

No, there weren't any, but I mean there is no question that she
broadcast. The only questions that arose were the conditions and
the circumstances under which she broadcast. They were trying to
establish that she was forced to do so under threat. That is
basically as I remember it.

There was another interesting case that you just gave a few notes on.
That was this prisoner of war case, the Italian rancher.

That is not particularly significant. It is interesting. What
happened was that toward the end of the war there were Italian
prisoners at Vallejo and they were given the weekend off. They would
come to San Francisco, some of them, to visit relatives or friends of
people in the Italian community. Then they would return to the camp.
This man went down to Half Moon Bay to visit a farm there and he
remained. He never went back to the camp and the owner of the ranch
was then indicted for harboring a prisoner of war, and we were going
to trial .

Zirpoli: The judge in the case was Judge J.F.T. O'Connor of southern

California, Los Angeles, who was a former controller general of the
United States and a Roosevelt appointee. I had met him in 1932 and
I was very close to him through the years. He became a candidate
for governor and A. P. Giannini asked me to help him because A. P.
was on friendly terms with several of the candidates at the time.
So, I was also close to him in that respect.

When the case was called and I appeared with my client, he
[O'Connor] didn't even show any sign of recognition [laughs], which
is understandable.

I was ready to go to trial on Monday, but Sunday my client told
me that he knew that my defense was that he didn't know that his
guest was a prisoner of war. He then told me that he, had read about
it in the Italian papers. So I couldn't let him commit perjury. We
went in and I said, "We are just going to have to plead guilty,
that's all."

So he entered a plea of guilty and then the judge referred it to

the probation officer. The probation report came in two or three

weeks later, I don't recall when. I submitted a written statement

to the probation officer as well which was to be read by the judge,

of course, and when we appeared and he indicated that he had read

the probation officer report, I said I had read it, too, and I
thought it was true and correct in all respects.

He [O'Connor] then commented from the bench, "This man does not
need probation. Except for this offense, he has lived an exemplary
life, a hard-working farmer that hasn't been to the city in the past
twenty years. Therefore, there is no need for probationary super
vision. A $250 fine."

That ended the case, which I thought was a very just and com
passionate ending. It was a real understanding of the judge. It
would have been ridiculous to send him to jail. It wouldn't have
served any useful purpose.

Sharp: Were there other sorts of cases like this involving the various
prisoners of war?

Zirpoli: There was one German who was prosecuted by the assistant U.S.

attorney, William Licking. I don't remember too much about that
trial. William Licking was the assistant U.S. attorney that
prosecuted. I remember the fellow got a ten-year sentence. He had
engaged in some type of sabotage or act of sabotage.

Comments on Political Activities; Changes in North Beach

Sharp: I want to ask you about the indigent defendant program that was
established in 1951, but are there other sorts of highlights of
your private practice that you would like to put in here and talk
about?

Zirpoli: Do you want me to talk on the indigent defendant program first?
Sharp: No, let's see if we can get in some other highlights first.

Zirpoli: During the period, you have to remember, from '32 until I went on

the bench, I was politically active, going back to my participation
with A. P. Giannini in the '32 campaign, as state president of the
Young Democrats in 1935 and 1935, and Roosevelt delegate to the
Democratic national convention in '36, and thereafter I would be
serving in one capacity or another. I was northern California
campaign manager for Adlai Stevenson in both campaigns.

The most interesting aspect of that political era is that in
1948, I had the feeling that [Harry] Truman could not be re-elected.
I discussed this with William Malone, the Democratic party leader in
San Francisco, and stated to him that I thought it would be better
for me to get some backing for [Dwight] Eisenhower in the Democratic
party so that if Truman were not the nominee, we wouldn't be replaced
by other Democratic leaders.

I then sent a letter to Sacramento and reserved two names,
Californians for Eisenhower and California Democrats for Eisenhower.
At the total cost of $4 — $2 each — I thereby preserved these names
for a period of thirty days. I felt that this would give me ample
time to explore the possibility of General Eisenhower becoming the
Democratic candidate.

So I wrote a letter to General Eisenhower and received a response
from him that he wasn't interested in being a candidate for president,
at that time at least. Earl Behrens was the [San Francisco] Chronicle
political writer at the time and he phoned me when he learned about
the reservation of the names and asked me if I would contact him and
let him know what General Eisenhower said.* I never did, but there

*See Behrens 's own notes on Eisenhower in "Gubernatorial Campaigns
and Party Issues: A Political Reporter's View, 1948-1966," in
Reporting from Sacramento, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1981.

Zirpoli: was a fellow in New England who did the same thing, wrote a letter,
and when he received his response, he caused it to be turned over
to the press and it became a center two-full-page spread in Life
magazine.

At that time, I also went down to Santa Barbara to speak at a
political caucus at which representatives of the various candidates
were invited to speak. There I spoke on behalf of General Eisen
hower as a Democratic candidate. Then we were subject to interro
gation from the audience. I remember one of the questions that I
was asked related in part to his liberal views and his attitude
toward blacks. I had the answers to those questions. There hadn't
been any discrimination in his army conduct. All the orders that
he had issued clearly indicated that there was no such discrimination.
I sent a copy of my speech to the general and I received a thank you
letter.

But feeling as I did, I got other people interested in
Eisenhower as a Democratic candidate including Jimmy Roosevelt
(President Roosevelt's son), so that when the California delegation
went back to the Democratic national convention, there was a group
of them who were discussing the possible nomination of Eisenhower.
That group was led by Jimmy Roosevelt. I think there were about
eight or ten of them in the delegation. There was a little hard
feeling that was engendered in part there. But, of course, I had
protected my bases — my political bases — with my discussions with
William Malone in advance.

As I say, that was the '48 campaign. Then in '52 we had [Adlai]
Stevenson. He came out here and we had a tremendous rally for him
in North Beach, probably the best political rally they ever had in
North Beach. We blocked off Grant Avenue and used Washington Square.
There was a lady, Rena Nicolai, who operated a restaurant on Grant
Avenue, La Pantera. She was providing food and snacks for every
body that attended the rally. They had big, huge bowls of spaghetti
out there that they were serving. Then Stevenson had lunch in the
restaurant and they took his picture eating spaghetti. It became a
rather classic picture in a way. It wasn't used in the campaign, but
she had an enormous enlargement made of it and posted it up in her
restaurant .

Sharp: It was pretty good for business, I imagine. [laughter]

Zirpoli: This restaurant became a gathering place for most of the Democratic
leaders and party workers .

Sharp: Were there a lot of strategy sessions?

Zirpoli: Oh, no, those were mostly social. We would go there and eat and
drink and enjoy ourselves.

Sharp: Now, this was '52 or '56 because —

Zirpoli: In '52 was the big one. It was true in '56 as well; '56 was much
more difficult in a sense because here you had the president
[Eisenhower], an incumbent. In '52, you had high hopes. We had
Stevenson ride the cable car and have his picture taken and pictures
of that nature. We had pictures of the Democratic donkey and the
candidates. I remember one that I have got somewhere with me and
Ben Swig of the Fairmont Hotel. [laughs]

Sharp: Oh, great, I would love to have a copy of that if you can dig it out.
What persuaded you to work for Stevenson?

Zirpoli: I was a Democrat, a loyal Democrat. It would take a great deal to
persuade me not to support a Democratic candidate. I had no
philosophical affinity with the Republican party and their position.
I was a young liberal!

Sharp: I just wondered if you knew him personally.

Zirpoli: No, the first time I personally met him was when he came here for

the campaign. I enjoyed meeting him. I thought he was a very fine
gentleman. He was a nice person to talk to. But other than that,
I had no real connection with him.

Sharp: Was your main function in the campaign as one of the lower level
organizers?

Zirpoli: I was sort of an organizer in a sense for northern California. I
would make speeches throughout northern California, contact people
in the various communities, the county chairmen in the various
counties throughout northern California, and prepare for speakers
to go there or for Adlai Stevenson to go there, and things of that
character.

This is one way in which I got to know Clair Engle who was later
elected the United States Senator. I served as his northern
California campaign manager in a way.

Of course, I was also endeavoring to interest the Italian
community in voting Democratic. The Italian community had been
historically Republican in its political makeup. I remember making
a speech in 1936 at the Columbus Civic Club in which I said that
this was the last stronghold of the elephant and that the elephant
wouldn't be around any more. [laughter]

Sharp: Was that true?

Zirpoli: That was a political group. The Columbus Civic Club was organized
in 1931 to assist Mayor {Angelo] Rossi in his campaign for mayor.
I participated in the organization of the Columbus Civic Club and
in that campaign. I wrote the constitution and the bylaws of the
club.

Sharp: That was primarily a political club?

Zirpoli: That was to become an Italian- American political arm. In other

words, it would be a place where candidates would appear or ballot
propositions would be discussed. Then the Columbus Civic Club would
vote on them and endorse candidates or issues.

Sharp: Was there a real turning around of the Italian community?

Zirpoli: No. In San Francisco, I would say, that I think it is still
predominantly Republican. Of all of the ethnic groups, it is
probably the closest one that still has strong Republican ties.

Of course, as I say, then we were in the '56 campaign and then
came the '60 campaign. But prior to the '60 campaign, I had
breakfast with Senator [John F.] Kennedy at the Fairmont Hotel. He
invited me to breakfast and asked me to commit myself to him for
the 1960 election. I told him at the time I would consider it. I
was a supervisor at that time of the city and county.

Then, of course, when the time came, I decided I would support
Kennedy for the 1960 election. Red Fay [spells name], who became
undersecretary of the navy for Kennedy and had been one of Kennedy's
shipmates during the war, and I became co-chairmen for the Kennedy
campaign in San Francisco. Following that campaign and the election
of President Kennedy, I then wrote a letter to the president, to his
brother Robert Kennedy, to Clair Engle, and to the state chairman
[Roger Kent] of the Democratic party stating that I would be interested
in being named a United States district judge, and I was advising
them of this fact early because I did not want it to be said at some
later date — "We did not know you were interested." Of course, in
'61 I was appointed to the bench.

Zirpoli: Now, during all of these same years, of course, I was active in the
Italian-American community.

Sharp: Right, I was going to ask you.

Zirpoli: That started in 1928. In 1928, I was admitted to practice and I
joined the Order of the Sons of Italy. In fact, my first case
came from an officer of the Order of the Sons of Italy. I also
joined the Italian Mutual Benefit Society, a society that was
organized in 1858 with a charter from the state legislature. It may

98a

Zirpoli: be the oldest mutual benefit society in California. It is still
active. It was a difficult society to get into because they just
permitted relatives and Genoese to become members, but anyway,
they accepted me and my dues were then $1 a month. They have
remained $1 a month since 1928 to this day. I have a plot in the
cemetery by reason thereof. I am entitled to certain hospital
benefits, medical benefits, and prescription benefits free, which
I have not exercised.

This is an indication of the capacity of the society and the
ability of its directors to capitalize on their small investments.
Of course, this is a nonprofit society, so the money could never go
to any of the members. So even though the society may be worth
several million dollars today and has a very small membership of
three to four hundred, the only benefit you really ultimately get
is your plot in the cemetery.

That was the beginning of my Italian-American activity. I
immediately joined the Italian-American Chamber of Commerce. I
eventually became the attorney for the Italian-American Chamber
of Commerce and toward the later years (in fact, the years just
preceding my coming onto the bench), I was president of the Italian-
American Chamber of Commerce, which was, incidentally, organized in
1885. I was also a trustee of the Italian School, which was
organized in 1885. I had joined the Italy-America Society and
served as a director and eventually as the president of that society.
I was a member of the Leonardo da Vinci Society and served as a
director. I eventually became and served as grand venerable of the
Order of the Sons of Italy for the entire state of California and
at that time, we had approximately fifty-five lodges scattered
throughout the state.

Sharp: This speaks of quite a large Italian-American population in
California.

Zirpoli: At that time, I can't tell you what the percentage was, but you

have to bear in mind that at that time, in 1928, about 16 percent
of the population of San Francisco was Italian. If the candidate
had the confidence of the Italian people and particularly if he
happened to be of Italian origin, you were pretty much assured of
nearly 100 percent of that 16 percent vote. So it became a very
influential voting bloc.

Sharp: When Mayor Rossi was a candidate, that was a pretty important net
work, I imagine.

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, he had that vote solid.

100

Sharp: For twelve years, he was mayor.

Zirpoli: It could be; I don't remember whether he was twelve — it may very
well be three terms, yes.

My first interest in Italian-American affairs started at the
University of California when I was president of the Italian club,
II Circolo Italiano, and then I also became president of Pi Mu Iota,
the Italian Honor Society, and I moved right from that circle into
these Italian societies after my graduation, and I did a lot of
speaking. I would speak at Italian functions. I made several
speeches in Washington Square. I made a Columbus Day speech in
Sacramento with then Governor [James] Rolph and I recall riding in
the Columbus Day parade with him. (I may have mentioned this before.)
He was in the car ahead of me, an open car, and we rode along J
Street, or, I have forgotten which street it was in Sacramento.
There were some houses of prostitution on the upper floors and the
ladies would all be looking out the window at the parade. He would
tip his hat to the ladies as he went by. [laughter] Somehow or
other that impressed me. As I say, this was my Italian-American
activity.

Now all of these activities I maintained until I came on the
bench. Then after I came on the bench, I ceased my political
activity.

My Italian-American activity, I continued and to a degree
continue to this day. I was also president of II Cenacolo (which
means "last supper"), which was organized in 1929, and that was a
luncheon club. It started out with club rooms in the Fairmont Hotel
which we gave up during the war because there was a housing shortage
for the military, so we never did get a permanent home thereafter.
But the club would definitely meet once a week for luncheons.

It was composed of Italian business and professional men
primarily. We had a number of illustrious members. I could point
to A. P. Giannini by way of illustration or Emilio Segre (the Nobel
laureate) as a further indication of the makeup. So we had ordinary
businessmen and, as I say, professional men. It was about as
representative of the community as you could get, the Italian-
American community, although you did not have to be of Italian
origin to become a member because we have a substantial number of
members who are non-Italians who have an interest in Italian culture.

The purpose of the luncheon was to hear from speakers on
current subjects every week and to entertain and hear from Italian
visitors. If some Italian senator or deputy or minister visited
San Francisco, we always tried to get him at our club for luncheon
and to speak.

101

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp:

Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Was this almost entirely men then?

All male? Entirely male [laughs] except for the opera outings. We
would give an opera outing in October of each year at which we
would invite the director of the opera of San Francisco and a whole
group of opera stars. We'd have them all up there at the Louis
Martini winery and ranch for a big Sunday outing. It was a beauti
ful outing. We would have one of the major chefs of San Francisco.
In later years, Orsi of Orsi's [restaurant] would come up and
prepare the entire luncheon for us, a picnic luncheon, and a
savoring of all of the various Louis Martini wines, and that con
tinues to this day, the tradition.

Let me back you up a bit because I have some questions. I remember
you telling me that there were a number of Italians who left San
Francisco as part of the alien exclusion. After the war then, was
it a matter of many of these people coming back into the Italian
community, or deciding not to come back?

All of them; I don't know of any who didn't,
they all came back.

Of all those I know,

Was it a difficult transition for many of them?

No, they had no problems. Some of them were taken out of the camp
and brought down to the military school on the peninsula to teach
Italian to the military government officers during the war. Some
of them were gradually released. If they felt someone was not a
risk, he would be released. As I say, by the close of the war
they all came -back without exception as far as I know.

What were the changes in the North Beach area during the World War
II period and afterwards?

Changes in the area?
Yes.

Oh, basically none except the slow and gradual infusion of the
Chinese into the area. The Chinese have taken over most of North
Beach now except for some businesses and some restaurants, cafes,
pastry shops, and delicatessens, and things of that nature. With
those exceptions, North Beach is basically Chinese today.

Was this influx of the Chinese a matter of distress for the Italian
community?

A matter of distress? No, I wouldn't say it's a matter of distress.
It may be a matter of regret because they see the traditional North
Beach-Little Italy disappear. This was an area where you could hear

102

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Italian spoken on the streets and this was an area where you would
buy your Italian paper. (There were two Italian dailies during
this period.)

What happened was that as the Italians became more affluent,
they purchased homes. In the beginning of 1922, they started
purchasing homes in the Marina district and most of the people who
reside in the Marina district today — I don't say most, but a great
majority of them — are Italian because as they acquired a little
wealth and purchased property, they moved there and some of them
moved down to the peninsula. The richer you got, the farther away
you went from North Beach.

So that community was really dispersed —

It was dispersed because they were prosperous. So there was no
distress involved. As you became wealthy, so to speak, you wanted
a bigger home and you wanted grounds and everything else and you
just moved out to get a bigger home. You didn't want to live in a
flat any longer or above a grocery store or restaurant or something
of that character.

A typical family to illustrate that point would be maybe the
Petri family. They had a cigar factory and they prospered. Then
they went into the wine business and prospered and continued to
prosper. They lived in North Beach in one of the flats and, of
course, they moved out. They bought a big home. Angelo Petri
bought a big home on Russian Hill and as the children grew up and
became adults and married, they bought enormous estates. One of
them bought an enormous estate on the peninsula. One of them
bought a tremendous mansion in Pacific Heights and then purchased the
top floor of a big condominium. This is the nature of the progress
economically of these people. I use that merely as an illustration.

Origins of the Indigent Defendant Program

Sharp: Let's talk about the indigent defendant program then that was

established in 1951. You made a few notes about this on your own
tape. You mentioned that Louis Goodman was chief judge [of the
Northern District Court] at this point and that there were some
eighty attorneys involved.

103

Zirpoli: Louis Goodman was chief judge. George Harris* suggested to Louis

Goodman that the court set up an indigent defendant program and that
I be asked to serve as chairman of the committee. I was asked to
serve as chairman of the committee and I said I would. I then
caused notices to be published in The Recorder asking for volunteers
and that there would be a meeting in the courtroom of the chief
judge for the purpose of setting up the committee for the represen
tation of indigent defendants. I said that we had responses from
in excess of eighty attorneys.

At that meeting, we agreed that we would try to arrange to have
two attorneys available every court day of the week, for appearance
in court to represent indigent defendants if needed. We gave the
attorneys postcards on which they would indicate dates that were
acceptable to them. These were then all forwarded to my office
because I ran it out of my office. We prepared a calendar and we
would insert two names based on the return from the cards for each
day of the week with the understanding that if anyone could not make
it for some emergency reason, then I would cover or otherwise cause
it to be covered by another member of the panel.

The lawyers were great in their response. As I said, we had
approximately eighty of them to make up this calendar so that no
one would be given too great an assignment. What would happen was
that you appeared in court. At that time, we had the master
calendar. We didn't have individual calendars as we have it now.
The master calendar judge would call the criminal calendar each day
if there was one. So with two men in court — two lawyers, some women,
of course — (there were a number of women, it was relatively few
compared to today), but with two lawyers, the court would appoint
one. If there were two cases, he would appoint one for one, and the
other one for the other. If there were three cases, you would get
appointed for two of them. This made it fine because you were there
from the outset and you assumed responsibility thereafter for the
representation of the individual involved.

Now, before the indigent defendant panel was set up, the judge
would merely ask a lawyer in the courtroom to step forward and you
were appointed whether you liked it or not, so to speak. This way
you had people who had volunteered and who were willing to appear
and the top trial lawyers volunteered.

*Readers are directed to the oral history conducted with Judge Harris,
Memories of San Francisco Legal Practice and State and Federal Courts,
192Qs-1960s, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, U.C.
Berkeley, 1981. Judge Harris died 18 October 1983.

104

Sharp: This was entirely pro bono then?

Zirpoli: Pro bono, the whole thing, and you even paid your own expenses.

Sharp: Let me just stop you for a minute because I am interested in Judge
Harris. Why did he come up with this idea, do you think?

Zirpoli: Why did he come up with it? I don't know. Well, one reason why he
came up with it, I suppose in part, was because he realized that
there were several lawyers who were getting too many appointments.
I was getting a substantial number, but Jim O'Connor, by way of
illustration, any time he appeared in court, he was appointed. Jim
O'Connor represented so many indigent defendants and spent a lot of
his own money investigating on their behalf. I know Judge Harris
was conscious of this fact. I assume that's the primary reason for
his suggesting that we set up a panel, so that you could draw from
it-
Sharp: And try to spread out the work?

Zirpoli: And spread out the work. Of course, the panel was set up but it

became quite a task for me, and became quite expensive. Eventually
the Ford Foundation took it over.

Sharp: Right. I guess I am looking for some altruistic clue to Judge

Harris's personality, or some special reason that he wanted to do
this because he wanted to help indigent defendants.

Zirpoli: — Altruistic. I know that Judge Harris was a stickler for main
taining the civil rights, all of the rights of the prisoners, so he
had an interest in seeing that they were properly represented. But
I think one of the basic things was the realization that the work
load was getting too great for the small number of lawyers.

Sharp: This is the first time we have talked about Chief Judge Goodman as
well. I wondered if you could tell me some more about him.

Zirpoli: Chief Judge Goodman was an excellent chief judge. He had the

interest of the court at heart. He was always seeking ways and
means to improve the services of the court and he was active even
nationally in the committee work of the Judicial Conference. I was
often appointed by Judge Goodman to represent indigent defendants
and Judge Goodman named me as his lawyer-delegate to the judicial
conference. For about seven or eight years straight until he died,
I served as his lawyer representative to the judicial conference of
the Ninth Circuit. I also remember meeting him in Washington on
one occasion when he was attending a committee meeting and invited
me to dinner and to meet Judge John Biggs of the Third Circuit.
Judge Biggs was a well-known judge, not only as a judge but from his
background as a writer.

105

Zirpoli: As I say, Judge Goodman always thought about the interest of the

judges and the improvement of the court. He conceived the idea of
getting a little dining room where they could all eat together.
You have to remember that initially there were only three judges on
this court and by the time he became a judge of the court, the
number had risen to five, I think, and that's when he thought it
would be nicer if they could meet together at lunch. Then it became
six when Judge Harris came on after him. He conceived the idea and
he was the one that prepared all the initial plans for this
building.

Sharp: Judge Harris or Judge Goodman?

Zirpoli: Judge Goodman prepared all of the initial plans and set out plans
for the dining room, but of course he never lived to see the
completion of the building [450 Golden Gate Avenue] . His widow still
lives in Palo Alto. We named our library after him. He also con
ceived the plan of a loan fund for indigent defendants. If a person
were placed on probation and he was without funds, Judge Goodman
created a fund so that the probation officer would loan the
individual $10 or $20, whatever was needed, to take care of him for
a few days or to enable him to pay his passage back home, subject to
repayment just as you would a student loan fund. I don't know
whether there is any money in it left. I've had some thoughts about
reviving it, but this fund served a very useful purpose for many
years and much of the money was repaid.

Sharp: Is that right?

Zirpoli: Yes, it was started with $500. While it wasn't a great deal that
Judge Goodman contributed, nevertheless it had its real value
because of the ability to rotate.

Sharp: Was Judge Goodman always getting people to contribute to it?

Zirpoli: He never tried to get too much from other people. I mean he was a
man of substantial wealth himself. He had some substantial invest
ments in oil wells. He owned wells and got royalties.

As I say, he was a good man for the court. He was a good chief
judge. One of the reforms that he engendered was to do away with
the master calendar and bring us to the individual calendar. That
was a major reform. But I remember that I had once written a letter
in which I had opposed the individual calendar and insisted we should
maintain the master calendar. But when I came on the bench, I
participated in a campaign for the individual calendar, and some
people reminded me of my previous letter.

Sharp: You were then persuaded that the individual calendar was a better
use of time?

106

Zirpoli: I was persuaded and so we changed over to the individual calendar.
Of course, Judge Goodman had died in the meantime and I inherited
all of his robes and I still have them to this day.

Sharp: That is an interesting tradition. Is that a common custom?

Zirpoli: No, that's the only time. I don't know of its having happened

before. It's just that his widow presented me with his robes just
before I was inducted.

Sharp: Did you wear them then?

Zirpoli: Yes, I have been wearing them ever since for the last twenty years.
I have not had to buy robes, and you wonder what condition they are
in today.

Sharp: Once this indigent defendant program got under way, then did you
have a lot of phone calls or meetings with Judge Goodman letting
him know about the progress of it, or memos —

Zirpoli: No, there was rarely any need for it. I would comment on it at the
judicial conference [of the Ninth Circuit], but that would be the
most. No, it was working smoothly. The difficulty was that it, as
I say, became expensive because I was appointed on some cases and
one of them cost me about $1,500 of my own money to represent the
indigent .

Lawyer Delegate to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference

Sharp: I would like to know more about when you went to the judicial
conferences as Goodman's lawyer-delegate.

Zirpoli: The judicial conference is provided for by statute for all circuits.
Now, at first it was just a meeting of judges. Then they invited
lawyers to participate as spectators. I attended some of the early
meetings in the thirties by really being a spectator in the
audience side of the courtroom. Then when they named lawyer delegates,
eventually I was named. In the beginning, they only named two or
three of them. [Harold] Faulkner was one of the first lawyer
delegates. They could comment, but they had no right of vote. They
could merely comment when called on. Eventually you became the
equivalent of a judicial delegate, so with the passage of time, the
lawyers began to vote on measures, recommendations that were being
made to the Judicial Conference of the United States or recommendations
for legislation, or whatever the problem happened to be.

107

Zirpoli: The conference grew in numbers from a relatively small number to as
many as 250. It became more difficult because you had to have the
necessary meeting place that could accomodate everyone. The judicial
conference meeting dates are set at least three years in advance now
so that you can be sure to have all of the necessary accomodations .

You could participate and you might make speeches. Active
people at the judicial conference, the lawyers, particularly in the
early days, were Harold Faulkner, Eddie Simpson of Los Angeles,
Joe Ball of Los Angeles, Leo Friedman of San Francisco, and myself.

There were many things that we advocated and one of them was the
full disclosure to the defendant of a transcript of all of the
testimony before the grand jury. You are still not entitled to it
and we have been advocating it all these years. Today, you are
entitled only to a transcript of the testimony of the defendant if
he appears before the grand jury. You are entitled to the transcript
of the testimony of a witness under certain provisions of the
criminal code, but only at the time of trial, not necessarily in
advance, although some judges order it in advance. Of course, there
was no provision for stenographic reporting of the testimony anyway.
You had to have a provision first for stenographic reporting, and
then for disclosure, but you still don't get the type of disclosure
that you get in the state court. We had argued that this practice
had gone on for forty years in the state court and we didn't see any
detrimental effects. We thought it would be a good idea on the
federal side.

Of course, all of those names I gave you were all defense
lawyers. The U.S. attorneys were represented at these conferences
as well, and they always gave their point of view. But this was one
subject — for instance, that became a subject of debate for many
consecutive judicial conferences. I see Joe Ball, for instance, is
the attorney for De Lorean. He would make a great history, I'll tell
you that.

Sharp: He would. He also is in with Pat Brown.

Zirpoli: Yes, well, Pat Brown is in with him. [laughs] I think you better
get that order right! Joe Ball was a member of the Committee on
the Rules of Criminal Procedure [of the Judicial Conference of the
United States] with me for many years and I served as chairman. So
I got to know Joe Ball pretty well. I got to know Eddie Simpson
pretty well and not only that but we had a professional relationship.
By way of illustration, if Simpson had a case in the Northern District
of California, either Harold Faulkner or I were likely to be his
representatives .

108

Sharp: I'll end with this indigent defendant program just on the note with
you as a lawyer delegate to the judicial conference of the Ninth
Circuit. Is this program something that you might have talked about
and tried to popularize or persuade some of the other —

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, we did talk about it and it was written up nationally. Then
when the bar association took it over from me and they got a grant
from the Ford Foundation, then I think they got an award for it, a
national award.

Sharp: This would have been after '55 then.

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, '51 to '55. I had it for four years.

Interlude on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors

Sharp: Let's change tracks radically and talk some about your work on the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors back in 1958.

Zirpoli: All right, in 1957, the Volunteers for Better Government asked me to
meet with them. That was a downtown group of young men, business
and professional men. They wanted to run a ticket of three candidates
for the Board of Supervisors. They asked me if I would be a
candidate. I told them I really wasn't interested. I was interested
in politics, but not as a candidate. They asked me to think it over
and I said I would and would give them an answer in two weeks .

I received a phone call in the interim from George Christopher
who was then mayor. I had previously served as co-chairman of the
committee for his election as mayor [in 1956]. He said, "Al, if I
had known you wanted to be on the Board of Supervisors, I would have
appointed you."

I thanked him and then I decided maybe I ought to be on the
board, but I don't want to be known as someone's man. I didn't want
to be designated as Christopher's man and I wasn't voting as
Christopher directed.

So I decided to run and I met with the committee. I wanted to
know what they would do in the way of finances. I wanted to know
what they would do in the way of getting the media, particularly
newspaper support, and they assured me that they could take care of
all of that. So I became a candidate and strangely enough most of
the money that they got for the three candidates, most of it came
from my friends. [laughter]

10 8a

Alfonso Zirpoli , candidate for San Francisco Board of Supervisors,
participating in Chinese New Year parade, 1959. Photograph by Fred N.
Lee, San Franoisao.

109

Zirpoli: I received the endorsement of the San Francisco newspapers, so I

really had no problem. I went out and campaigned. I started out by
saying I would make no promises of any kind or character and I found
that that didn't sit with the voting public. They were looking for
you to make some promises. I didn't feel a man ought to be making
promises . I thought I should be telling them that I would try to
serve the interests of the city in its entirety, and try to evaluate
every issue that comes up, and give my honest opinion as to what was
in the interest of the city. They wanted more; so I had to start
commenting on issues from time to time .

Sharp: What issues did you pick to comment on, do you remember?

Zirpoli: One of them that I commented on, one of the issues of the time, was
the desirability of having district elections instead of city-wide.
I told them that I was definitely in favor of city-wide elections and
I didn't think it was good to have people thinking primarily of a
district rather than the city as a whole. Now, that I remember
discussing in some detail. I really don't recall all of the other
issues, but on the Board of Supervisors at that time, we paid
attention strictly to city business. You were really out of order
if you presented an issue that wasn't strictly city business. In
other words, we weren't presenting issues which were national in
scope or which were social in character. It had to be city business.

Today, the Board of Supervisors introduces resolutions on
everything or writes letters on everything, including the conduct of
the guard of the Queen of England, by way of illustration. Well, none
of that. We wouldn't permit it. We would rule you out of order
right away. Someone would rise and say, "This is not the business of
the board."

When I was on the board, there were eleven members on the board,
of course, and there were only sixteen employees of the Board of
Supervisors, including the clerk. I don't know how many hundred they
have today. You did your own homework. They gave you the privilege
of a use of a car once a week with a chauffeur. You would use that
car and the chauffeur to go into the various areas and personally
review projects and things that had to be reviewed, so you would —

Sharp: — Know what was going on.

Zirpoli: You would know what was going on. If there was a problem with relation
to the city and county hospital, you would have the chauffeur drive
you out there. You would go there, you would make your survey.
Whatever the problem happened to be, you would personally check it
out. You would cover the city for re-zoning purposes and check it all
out and you had no assistants. It was considered a part-time job,
and in a sense it really was just part time anyway. Part time may
have involved twenty hours or more a week, but you could do it pretty

110

Zirpoli: well in that time and conduct your own business. I remember when we
left the board, the salary was $400 a month when I came onto the
bench. It was less than that initially. It was $200 and then it
was moved up to $400 .

Sharp: Let me just stop you for a minute. We don't have any information at
all on the supervisors' role in the discussions of construction of
BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] and of Candlestick Park.*

Zirpoli: BART was conceived as a Bay Area project and it was so set up that

all of the counties involved had to join and participate in order for
it to go ahead. I introduced the resolution for San Francisco's
•participation in BART. That was my role in BART. There is a plaque
somewhere — I've never seen it — with the names on it, including mine.
I also participated in the enlargement of the airport and the
creation of the big airport that we now have. There is a plaque
there somewhere, too, which I have never seen.

Then as far as the ballpark is concerned, Candlestick Park, by
the time I got to the board, there was already a commitment to Candle
stick. There wasn't anything I could do about that, although I did
raise some objections. I would have preferred that they had selected
another location, but there wasn't anything I could do about that
any more.

Sharp: I have a few back-up questions on both BART and Candlestick Park.
Marin County withdrew.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: Did that create sort of a problem as far as San Francisco city and
county were concerned?

Zirpoli: No, the project was still adequate to go ahead.

Sharp: As I understand it, it was 1957 that it was on the ballot.

Zirpoli: Yes, and then the counties had to join.

Sharp: By the time you came onto the board [in 1958], what were the main
issues then that the board had to deal with in terms of BART?

*For additional perspective on these matters, see an oral history
interview with George Christopher, "Mayor of San Francisco and
Republican Party Candidate," in San Francisco Republicans, Regional
Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley, 1980.

Ill

Zirpoli:

Sharp:

Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

There were no problems, San Francisco approved of and joined BART.

Was there sort of automatic support, that everybody was behind it and —

I am trying to think about it. I don't remember any opposition, but
I do know one thing. Whenever there was a particular resolution that
I would want to introduce and I feared opposition from Supervisor
[James Leo] Halley in particular (a strong Republican who reacted to
me as a Democrat), I would tell the people who were interested in the
particular resolution or ordinance to go to see Halley first and get
him to present it. Then I would support it. [laughs] This way we
would be sure of getting our measures through. I mean that was a
political tactic that I employed at that time.

I remember another thing I was very much interested in but I
couldn't engender enough ultimate interest. I presented projects
and plans for a monorail from here to the airport, but I wasn't able
to put it over and now, as I think back, it would have been a pretty
good idea! [laughs]

That would have been sort of addition to BART, as part of BART?

Yes. No, really in a sense in addition to it, a straight monorail
that would have taken you directly to the airport.

Oh, I would have voted for that! [laughs]

Also, there were problems about discrimination . I was interested
in the resolutions that would avoid possible racial discrimination in
employment in San Francisco. This was something that was just
beginning to develop at the very end of my term. Then I came onto
the bench . Before I came onto the bench there was also some talk
about the possibility of my running for mayor, but I really had no
desire to do it. Some people came to see me and wanted me, but I
was interested in the court.

Also, there were some people that thought I would run for
Congress against [William S.] Mailliard. I had no intention to. One
of the Republican leaders and financial backers of Mailliard invited
me to the Pacific Union Club (it was the first time I had ever been
in the club) and suggested that if I would not run for Congress, a
group of financial interests in San Francisco would support me for
mayor. I said that I hadn't really decided but I would let them know
at a later date. I had no intention of running, but I wasn't going
to tell him that. [laughs]

Of course, the man that someone ought to interview about the San
Francisco Board of Supervisors is Robert Dolan, the clerk of the board,
[spells name] Robert Dolan, I think he still has minutes of about
every meeting of the board in the last twenty-odd years or more.

112

Sharp : Was he somebody that you came to know once you —

Zirpoli: Dolan was the clerk of the board. He was the man for whom I had and
continue to have the highest regard and respect as the most knowledge
able man of the governmental and political set-up in San Francisco.
I don't know anyone who knows as much about San Francisco as Dolan
does. I would invite him to all of our meetings of the various
committees I served on, particularly the finance committee. I would
always ask his views and he had a way of presenting them that would
make you listen. He would say, "I would most respectfully suggest
that you consider — ." And that's all he'd say. He wouldn't tell you
yes or no, but the way he went about it and considered it, you knew
damn well you really should consider it! [laughter]

Sharp: Speaking from real experience then.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: What about Donald Cleary?

Zirpoli: Cleary was the —

Sharp: Lobbyist [in Sacramento}.

Zirpoli: He was a former newspaperman in San Francisco. He was a pretty
effective lobbyist, yes. He had a nice way about him and a nice
approach. There was never anything abrasive about his conduct at all
and he'd had a lot of newspaper experience. They all had known him
as a newspaper reporter.

Sharp: I wondered, especially with Candlestick Park and with BART, that
there might have been reason for a lot of communicating between
Sacramento and the Board of Supervisors. Donald Cleary as the so-
called lobbyist for the city I would think might have some special
relationship with the board because of the importance of what was
going on.

Zirpoli: He had a special relationship as a lobbyist, but I don't remember
his participation in BART in any way.

Sharp: I think we have covered just about the main things in terms of your
term on the board.

I had seen a note that [Nikita] Khrushchev had come to San
Francisco.

Zirpoli: Oh, yes.

Sharp: Do you remember that visit?

113

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, very well.

Sharp: Did he meet with the board?

Zirpoli: We had him to dinner at the Palace Hotel. Khrushchev was seated at
the main table next to the mayor, let's say in that chair, and I was
seated at this first table right across from him together with
Fazackerly, who I remember was a former member of the Board of Super
visors, Fazackerly and myself and others, including two of the
security officers for Khrushchev. I remember Fazackerly — I'll never
forget — saying to me, "Shall we do it now?" [laughter] I don't think
those security officers understood English, but that was quite a
comment to come from him while we were there at the table.

He was a very affable person, so I rose from my table and had my
program and I presented it to him for his autograph and he autographed
it for me, whereupon [Mayor] Christopher asked me to get his auto
graph and people began coming to my table for me to go to Khrushchev
and get his autograph.

That is my basic meeting and recollection of him. I met him and
shook hands with him and things of that character and that was it.

Sharp: Did he speak English?

Zirpoli: No, not that I know of. He may have spoken it.

Sharp: When he came in '59, that was a very difficult time for the United
States. [Fidel] Castro had taken power in Cuba nine months before
and I had sensed that perhaps relations might be quite a bit strained.

Zirpoli: No, he was very cordial in San Francisco and he developed a very

strong relationship with George Christopher and later invited him to
visit him in Russia. Christopher spent a week with him there, and
brought along two San Francisco newspaper reporters as part of the
entourage. He walked along Nob Hill. He was interested in the cable
car. People were a little worried about his walking on Nob Hill
because they felt he needed more security. He wanted to visit
Disneyland.

Sharp: I had a few extra questions, mostly relating to your work in 1958 on
Stanley Mosk's campaign for state attorney general.

Zirpoli: He asked me to be his northern California campaign manager and I

consented. Stanley Mosk had been [executive] secretary to Governor
Olson before he was appointed to the municipal court and I met him
when he was secretary to Governor Olson. As I say, being active in
Democratic politics, he asked me to serve as his northern California
campaign manager. So I did and I went around collecting money for
him. I collected quite a bit, but I always brought a beautiful young
lady wherever we would go to interview to collect money.

114

Sharp:
Zirpoli:
Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Did that work pretty well?
Yes, [laughs] I think it did.

We had an interesting interview with Stanley Mosk as part of the
[Edmund G.] Pat Brown [Sr.] project. One of the things that they
came across in the interview was that Mosk was a real stickler for
no deficits in his campaign.* I wondered if you had found that to
be true also.

I don't know whether it was true or not.
all our bills. We had no problem.

All I know is that we paid

When Mosk came into office, he was swept in with many Democratic
victories in 1958. Pat Brown becoming governor was the most obvious
one. Mosk then was running not against an incumbent. He was running
against Pat [Patrick] Hillings who was a [Richard] Nixon protege,
from what I can tell. Do you have a sense of Hillings as a candidate?
Do you remember him at all?

Not very much. I, of course, knew Pat Brown very well and had some
interest in all of his campaigns. In fact, he was in the same high
school that I attended. He was two years behind me, in my brother's
class. He was the cheerleader at Lowell High. They created a group
called [The New Order of] Cincinnatus in San Francisco and he was an
unsuccessful candidate. Then he eventually was elected district
attorney and Tom Lynch became his chief deputy. Then Tom Lynch became
attorney general.

*See "Attorney General's Office and Political Campaigns, 1958-1966,"
in California Constitutional Officers, Regional Oral History Office,
The Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley, 1980.

115

V ON THE BENCH OF THE NORTHERN DISTRICT

Appointment in 1961 and Transition

Sharp: Had you been interested in a position in Mr. Brown's administration
once he became governor?

Zirpoli: No. No, I wasn't interested at all. I had been appointed district
judge. Pat Brown's brother was a candidate, but I got the appoint
ment.

Sharp: That was Harold?

Zirpoli: Harold Brown. I may have commented about that already, I don't know.
I sent that letter I told you about to everyone saying I was
interested. When a vacancy occurred on this bench, they called me
from Washington [D.C.] and indicated that I would probably get the
appointment. There was a meeting of the congressional delegation

with the chairman of the state Democratic party and the national
commit teewoman from California [Elizabeth Smith Gatov] . They agreed
on me, but then a few days later (Clair Engle had agreed, too), Pat
Brown came into the picture and pushed forward his brother's name.
Then I knew I was having a problem. In fact, Pat Brown had urged
me to withdraw my name in favor of his brother in return for future
support. I refused to do it.

Sharp: Future support for what?

Zirpoli: I would withdraw my name for appointment to the district court, he
would support me for a later appointment.

Sharp: To the district court?

Zirpoli: Yes, but I told him I wasn't interested. This all happened during
the induction ceremony of Cecil Poole as United States attorney.
I had been asked if I wanted to be United States attorney by Robert
Kennedy and William Orrick, who was deputy attorney general at the

116

Zirpoli: time. I told them I wasn't interested in going back to be a

U.S. attorney. So Cecil Poole was appointed. At the induction
ceremony, Pat Brown attended because Poole had served as his chief
deputy and [clemency] secretary as governor. He then asked me to
step into the corridor and we walked down the corridor and he asked
me to withdraw my name. I said no.

Then we went to a ground-breaking ceremony in the Western
Addition and Mayor [George] Christopher was there. I was there and
Pat Brown was there. He suggested to the mayor that the mayor talk
to me to see if he could get me to withdraw. Of course, the mayor
said no, he wouldn't do it. The mayor told me about it later.

I went back to Washington to attend a meeting of the Order of
the Sons of Italy in America. I was a delegate at the Mayflower
Hotel. (I'll throw this in as a sidelight because it's a cute story.)
Also as a delegate was an individual named John DiMassimo [spells
name], who worked as a gardener for the city and county of San
Francisco. He was an ex-wrestler and built short and stocky, almost
gorilla-type, but a very likable soul who had two heroes. One of
them was George Christopher and I was the other one.

What happened was that while I was attending the convention, I
phoned "Whizzer" White, now a U.S. Supreme Court justice, who was
then deputy attorney general (under Kennedy) at 8:30 in the morning
for the purpose of talking to him about my appointment. His
secretary said, "Come right over." So I said, "He knows what I want
and he tells me to come right over, that's a good sign." So I went
right over and when I arrived in his office he asked me to sit down
just a minute- and he sent for a fellow named Andretta who handles
all of the business of the attorney general's office and the
financing. When Andretta stepped into the room, he turned to Andretta
and he said, "I want you to meet the next Italian judge." I think
that's in that [Jackson] book somewhere.

That night I was in the Mayflower and we were there having a
little cocktail or something and John DiMassimo came up to me and
said, "I went to see Jack Shelley [Congressman from San Francisco
and later mayor] today," [imitates Italian accent] in his broken
English, "to get appointment with attorney general. I want him to
appoint you for the judge. Jack Shelley tell me to come back
tomorrow, so tomorrow morning I will go back." In view of what had
happened, I phoned Jack Shelley and I said, "My gosh, this guy may
spoil it. Whatever you do, don't get him an appointment with the
attorney general."

The next night I asked John DiMassimo what happened. He said,
"I go to see Jack Shelley and Jack Shelley, he say I cannot get an
appointment, so I go to the office of the Department of Justice on
the first floor, on the second floor, on the third floor, on the

Armando Zirpoli with his
brother, Alfonso J. Zirpoli.

Chief Judge George B. Harris swearing
in Alfonso J. Zirpoli, as Mrs. Zirpoli
and daughters Jane and Sandra look on.

Induction of Alfonso J. Zirpoli as judge of The United States District
Court for The Northern District of California, 24 October 1961.

Left to right: Harold Faulkner, Alfonso
J. Zirpoli, Sylvester Andriano.

Left to right: William T. Sweigert,
Michael J. Roche, Oliver J. Carter,
Lloyd H. Burke, Sherrill Halbert,
Albert C. Wollenberg, Sr., Thomas J,
MacBride, George B. Harris, and
Alfonso J. Zirpoli.

117

Zirpoli: fourth floor. I see a big sign: Office of Attorney General. I go

inside and the secretary, she say, 'Mr. Robert Kennedy, he is not in.
He won't be here until close to six o'clock.'" John DiMassimo said,
"That's all right, I'm from San Francisco, I wait."

He waited and five minutes to six, Kennedy put his head out the
door. He rarely wore his jacket, he was always in his shirtsleeves,
and saw this fellow there. So he invited him in. I said to John
DiMassimo, "What did the attorney general do while you were talking
to him?" He said, "Oh, he was just chuckling." So he didn't do me
any harm. [laughs]

As I say, I was told by "Whizzer" White at the time, after he
spoke to Andretta, to just be patient and they would get Harold
Brown's name withdrawn, and I was patient.

Sharp: There was an actual Senate confirmation hearing, and all of that?

Zirpoli: Oh, there was, yes. I was asked to go back. There always is. I
went back to Washington to appear before the Senate committee.
There were only two Senators there, Hiram Wong and the Senator from
Colorado, and I was asked one question. Hiram Wong just turned to
me and said, "Do you understand you may no longer engage in politics?"
I said, "I understand, Senator." And that was it. [laughs]

Sharp : No fanfare —

Zirpoli: That was the whole confirmation hearing.

Sharp: No television cameras —

Zirpoli: No, no, I was there with Clair Engle and that's all that happened.

Sharp: I had just a few extra questions about Mr. Mosk's campaign because
it seemed to be really interesting. Now, Mosk was running as a
superior court judge from Los Angeles.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: I wondered since you were so well a part of the legal community, if
you made a special effort to get support from the legal community of
San Francisco, if that's how you saw your bailiwick?

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, I tried to get support from the community of San Francisco.
I was interested in getting the lawyers particularly in support of
his candidacy. Mosk had been elected superior court judge by the
biggest vote ever given a candidate in Los Angeles County and that
was the thing that we played up. That was the primary thing to put
forward.

118

Sharp: He also said that he got the CDC [California Democratic Council]

endorsement and he said that he thought it was very important to his
victory .

Zirpoli: Which one?

Sharp: The CDC, the California Democratic Council.

Zirpoli: Of course, you had to get Democratic support, but he had no problem
on that score. Of course, the Democratic voters were in the great
majority.

Sharp: Apparently, there was some question about Pat Brown not supporting
Mr. Mosk.

Zirpoli: I can't tell you; I don't remember that.

Sharp: The last thing is more about Mosk as a Democratic national committee-
man, which he was in 1960. He came out fairly early for Mr. Kennedy
and I wondered if you and Mosk then might have worked together on
your campaigning —

Zirpoli: No, it didn't work out that way at all. What happened is that we

had a San Francisco meeting with Bill [William M. ] Malone, who called
the meeting. Among those in attendance were myself and Bill Malone,
Red Fay, whose name I have mentioned, and Tom Lynch. At that meeting
it was decided that Red Fay and I would be co-chairmen for San
Francisco, an all-citizen group. In other words, we were trying to
get Republicans in as well as Democrats.

Sharp: Now, this would have been sometime in '59?

Zirpoli: I don't know. It was already after the first of the year sometime

when we were organizing the campaign proper. Up until then it was a
question of getting commitments in the Democratic national convention
and it wasn't until after the convention that the campaign of which
I spoke got underway.

Sharp: Up until 1960, was anything particularly notable about Mr. Kennedy's
campaign that impressed you?

Zirpoli: I met him for breakfast at the Fairmont Hotel. When Christmas came,
I got a beautiful Christmas card of himself and his wife and the
baby (they only had one child at the time) signed, "Jack." There
after I got to know Robert Kennedy well and, as I say, my. daughter
(Jane) served as an extern or intern or whatever you want to call it
with Kennedy while she was going to Radcliffe. My son-in-law
[Richard de Saint Phalle] worked in Kennedy's office while he was
attending law school in Washington. So I got to know the Kennedys,
not so much Ted Kennedy but Robert, yes.

119

Sharp: Would your relationship have continued on with Robert Kennedy after
you became appointed judge?

Zirpoli: My relationship with Kennedy? I really feel that it would because

he told me that "whenever you are in Washington, drop in to see me."
So I would drop in to see him. If I wanted to attend a meeting of
the Senate, he would personally escort me to a seat in the gallery.
He wouldn't have someone in the office do it. He would do it him
self. So we got along beautifully.

Sharp: We'll talk more about that once we get talking about your years on

the bench. That is really all of the questions that I have. I have
kept you longer than I had expected to. I hope that's okay.

Zirpoli: Oh, it's okay, it's fine. Thank you for bringing me that book.*

Ed Ennis is still around. I hear from him. He is in New York.
After I went into private practice and he went into private practice,
I also associated with him in some professional matters. I got a
letter from him about three or four months ago asking how I was .

Sharp: We talked about your appointment last time, but I had a few

transition questions. About the time that you came onto the bench
in the Northern District Court, there were a series of seminars I
know that were being given for new federal judges.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: I wondered if you happened to go to any.

Zirpoli: I set up the first one for the judges at Carmel [California] and it
was in March of '63 or '62, or thereabouts.

Sharp: How did you go about deciding what should be in these seminars?

Zirpoli: We talked about it and the Administrative Office [of the Courts in
Washington, D.C.] asked me to set it up. So I made all of the
arrangements for our housing at what is now the Hyatt House in Carmel
there (just before you enter Carmel). We were there for a week. It

*The Japanese-American Relocation Reviewed, Volume I: Decision and
Exodus , Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, Univer
sity of California, Berkeley, 1976. Judge Zirpoli had been interested
in the oral history interview conducted with Edward Ennis which was
included in this volume.

120

Zirpoli: rained every day, I remember that very well, and we had these judges
from different parts of the country who attended the seminar.

There were other seminars held in some other parts of the
country. These were for all of the new judges. There were about
sixty new judges appointed at that time.

We had experienced judges talk about various subjects such as
habeas corpus and sentencing procedures. We had discussions about
criminal trials and how to make the maximum or better use of your
time. Things of that character were discussed.

Now, I don't remember all of the details any longer. I
remember I always accused one of the court of appeals judges as
misleading us because the law subsequently changed in one area. As
I say, it was very pleasant. It was a very nice meeting with all of
these judges and we got some value from it.

Sharp: What were some of the ways that the issues were raised? For instance,
with the habeas corpus, were the judges that were talking about
habeas corpus, was it a way of getting the new judges to —

Zirpoli: — To better understand such things as exhaustion of the state

remedies before you entertain a habeas corpus petition from a state
prisoner. Fortunately, that happened to be an area with which I
was already familiar. It was an illustration of the things that
they discussed. They discussed judgment and sentencing and time
for modification. They reviewed some of the rules.

Sharp: I imagine that the sentencing, that was not particularly controversial
but a very personal sort of —

Zirpoli: The sentencing is not controversial except that there is a desire to
avoid disparity in sentences, to avoid a situation in which for the
same offense under similar circumstances one judge might give some
body the equivalent of five years, and somebody else would put them
on probation and, of course, that's bad. So we wanted to discuss
those problems .

Sharp: I know that the seminars are now pretty routine, that is is sort of
an expected thing.

Zirpoli: They are routine, but I was not responsible for the fact that we had
the seminars . I merely served as arrangements chairman for the
seminar and the Administrative Office arranged for the judges to come
out and speak to us. We had Joe Estes come out from Texas and we had
Walter Hoffman come out from Virginia. We had the ex-governor of
Minnesota, Luther W. Youngdahl, then a judge in Washington, B.C.,
come out. We had Judge [William F.] Smith of the Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit come out. He was a former U.S. attorney and

121

Zirpoli:
Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

trial judge who had a lot of experience in the criminal law field.
These were the people that came out and spoke to us .

When you first got onto the bench, did you feel that maybe you were
a few steps ahead because you had been an assistant U.S. attorney,
and you had practiced in the San Francisco federal courts?

No, I didn't feel that I was ahead, but I felt secure in my ability
to discharge my responsibilities, let's put it that way. Although
I did learn one or two things immediately. On my first day as a
judge, the first case I had, a criminal case, I learned that a judge
has to be careful of what he says and how he says it. I had a
defendant appear before me — maybe I mentioned this before?

I don't think so.

I had a defendant appear before me in a criminal case. He wanted to
plead guilty. It was his first appearance and I said to him, "It's
not my normal practice to accept a plea of guilty on the first
appearance of the accused. Are you aware of the consequences of a
plea of guilty?" I said, "Do you appreciate that if you plead guilty,
I can sentence you to as many as ten years imprisonment and a fine
not to exceed $10,000?" His response was, "I don't appreciate it,
your honor, but I do understand." So I felt secure that the plea
would never be reversed because his response indicated a thorough
understanding, but I recognized that I had to be careful, that the
word "appreciate" was improper. The question was, "Do you understand
that that's what the consequence of a plea of guilty will be?"

The basic thing was that I did realize that a judge has to be
careful. He can say too much and that's not good.

What about the shifting from advocating for one side or one party to
not doing this?

I didn't have any trouble on that score as far as discharging my
responsibilities is concerned. However, I probably interrogated
witnesses a little more than any other judge would. This displeased
some of the defense lawyers.

I would think so .

If I would turn to the witness right away and say, "Isn't it a fact,"
and he says, "Yes," then it's all over. [laughs]

Did you find that there were certain situations where you did that
more frequently than in others where you did some of the interrogating?

122

Zirpoli: I would do it more frequently if the counsel were not competent.

That often happens. If the counsel is not competent or the counsel
doesn't know how to get an exhibit in evidence — and there are some
simple things to be done — then I would proceed to lay the foundation
for it and then tell him to proceed.

Sharp: It still seems to me though that it would be fairly complicated for
you as a new judge even two to three years into your being a judge,
the whole idea of not advocating one position or the other still
might seem difficult for you.

Zirpoli: No, but I still interrogate more than most judges do as far as that
part of it goes. I do that on the justification that if the
questions and answers have not been sufficiently clear, and there is
some clarification required, then I really have an obligation to
clarify the situation or the facts for the benefit of the jury.

But, no, I don't take on the role of an advocate in the sense
that I become partisan in my approach.

I may take on the role of an advocate to ask a question when it
appears that somebody is trying to deceive the court or the jury,
and I may interject a question which could carry with it some adverse
implications, but it's merely a question that should be answered
directly and can be answered and disclose the true facts.

Changes in the Code of Civil Procedure

Sharp: What about this work with Judges [Albert C.] Wollenberg [Sr.] and
[William T. ] Sweigert on the new rules for the civil cases?* This
seemed to be fairly early in your years on the bench.

Zirpoli: Yes, in '62, I think. That was a committee that Judge Harris set up,
Most of the work was done by Judge Sweigert when you get right down
to it. He had the knack for it and the capacity to write rules. He
was a man who was very business-like and well organized. We worked
with him, but basically to give our thoughts or ideas. He wrote the
whole thing and we just helped him make changes or suggestions.

*See "Revolutionary Changes in Federal District Court," by James
Murray, in Brief Case, July, 1962, pp. 10, 61.

123

Zirpoli: This pretrial and discovery procedure was just beginning to get into
full bloom. In the prior years, there was less disposition to make
full disclosure or to admit facts and Judge Sweigert, as I said,
being very well organized, decided we ought to rewrite our rules and
rewrite them based upon the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure
as they relate particularly to discovery and pretrial. So he did a
good job.
^

We basically follow those rules today. There have been modifi
cations . There continues to be some modifications .

Sharp: Are these rules done district by district?

Zirpoli: Yes, so-called local rules. Of course, in 1963, the Northern
District of California had two divisions, our division and the
Sacramento division, and these rules were written for our division.
They had their own local rules for the Sacramento division, although
the judges here sat in Sacramento and the judges in Sacramento sat
here from time to time.

Sharp: So they had to keep shifting?

Zirpoli: Well, there was not too much shifting, but there was some depending
upon the volume of business and the needs.

Sharp: Did you see some fairly quick impact after these rules were brought
into use? Did things really change quite a bit?

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, certainly. These changes were helpful because we were able
to get cases to trial as soon as they were ready. Now the whole
procedure is in a sense even more expeditious because the court will
call status conferences and most courts, after ninety days or
whatever period they want to fix, will insist that if there has been
no action in the case that the parties be brought before the court.
If they don't indicate activity, the case will be dismissed. So that
prods the attorneys.

The whole theory behind these rules is that the court wants all
cases filed to be the responsibility of the court, to police them
from the cradle to the grave. While a case is in the attorney's
office, it is the lawyer's business and the client's business, but
the day they come into court, then the responsibility of policing
that case and seeing to it that it moves properly is that of the
court's. So this theory of policing from the cradle to the grave was
being given some meaningful support by these new rules.

Sharp: Could you comment on any resistance on the part of some attorneys?

124

Zirpoli: Very frankly, I don't recall any particular resistance from the
attorneys. They were given an opportunity to continent, and some
attorneys did. But I don't recall any real resistance. These
rules required, for instance, that the lawyers meet in advance of
a pretrial hearing, confer, and agree on certain things where they
can and indicate where they don't agree. They have to set forth
issues and do all of the things that are necessary to expedite the
actual trial and facilitate it. The judge most knowledgeable on
the new rules and their prime author was Judge Sweigert.

Sharp: Okay, maybe we can get him to tell us about —

Zirpoli: Well, Judge Sweigert is in his last days.* It is very sad.

Sharp: I have heard that he was ill.

Zirpoli: Yes, he has cancer and he is in bad shape, so I don't think you will
get anything more from Judge Sweigert .

Sharp: We actually had done an oral history interview with Judge Wollenberg
and Sweigert together. We have been unable to get the interview
back from Judge Sweigert, so it is unfinished at this point.

Sampling Antitrust Cases; From Electrical Equipment to Wall Products

Sharp: I would like for us to move on to talk about antitrust. What I have
done is to get some questions about each case and then to shift to
a more general consideration.

Zirpoli: My first meaningful introduction to antitrust was to attend a

conference at the request of Chief Judge Harris in the electrical
equipment cases. There were over 1,900 cases filed throughout the
country and a great number of them were in this district. So he
sent me to sit with these judges who met in a conference at Palo Alto
for the purpose of working out a program for the handling of these
cases.

That became my introduction as a judge into complicated multi-
district antitrust cases. From there on, I became the representative
of this court. One hundred and forty-four electrical equipment cases
or thereabouts were assigned to me for what we call common discovery.

*Judge Sweigert died on 16 February 1983.

125

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

In other words, the conference of judges took the various product
lines that were being furnished and sold by General Electric and
Westinghouse and Allis-Chalmers and assigned different product lines
to individual judges.

I took on one of the [product] lines and my cases were settled.
These cases would be transferred to you only for discovery purposes.
When the discovery was complete, the case presumably would go back
to the original judge in each case unless it was settled.

After a few went to trial (two or three) in different parts of
the country, they were all settled. In the first one plaintiffs
got a judgment against General Electric for $29 million. There
was some question about the power of the assignee judge to entertain
these cases or motions made in connection with them. I wrote an
opinion on that sustaining the power of the transferee court.

So this was my big introduction to antitrust. Now, I had had
some prior antitrust experience both as a prosecutor for the govern
ment and as a counsel in private litigation.

Then, of course, the biggest cases were the gypsum cases,
were other cases of a somewhat similar magnitude.

There

The Hughes Air West case was a securities case, but it had all
the trappings of a big antitrust case. That case became significant
because Howard Hughes refused to respond to a notice to take his
deposition that was issued by opposing counsel, the counsel for the
plaintiffs, representing the stockholders of Air West. After giving
him every opportunity to purge himself for his failure to submit to
a deposition, I finally entered his default. The potential value
of that default went into many millions of dollars.

How did it all end up then?

They settled. They ended up with a settlement before me for some
$37 million. They couldn't get around that default. They tried.
They took an appeal and I was sustained. They never got anywhere
and then finally they settled the case.

You had mentioned that you had been sort of tangentially involved in
the electrical equipment cases, but I wasn't sure how you fit in there,

No, I never got involved except for discovery purposes, but there
never was a trial of the cases assigned to me. The cases were all
settled. That took care of them for me.

Sharp: How many judges were there involved in the electrical equipment cases
at your level, at the discovery level? Do you have any idea?

126

Zirpoli: Oh, I would say thirty or more because there were about thirty

different districts involved. There were over 1,900 cases. When
it was all over they paid several hundred million dollars to the
various plaintiffs throughout the country.

Sharp: That's what I thought. Well, I think we can come back to this in a

bit because I have some questions about the multidistrict litigation.

Zirpoli: Yes, I might say that these meetings which we had resulted in the
enactment of the multidistrict litigation statute.

Sharp: Oh, it did?

Zirpoli: Yes, but I had had a prior experience myself. Before we got into
the electrical equipment cases, one of the first antitrust cases I
had involved the furnishing of bleacher seats for gymnasiums and
stadiums in schools throughout the country. I can't think of the
name of the company now, but at all events, there were four different
districts involved. Judge Edwin A. Robson of Illinois suggested
that we all meet in Chicago and determine how to handle these cases
so that we wouldn't each go off on a different tangent.

I worked out a formula for it, which was to have common discovery
In other words, we take the deposition of the defendant or defendant
employees once and all of the states which were involved would
appear at the deposition, or where motions were involved they would
all appear, and they would all agree to be bound by the deposition or
ruling of the court. So you would have one deposition instead of
four for the same person.

We went to Illinois and we worked it out, but the state of
California wouldn't go along with me. So I would just enter an
order deferring any ruling on any motions California made until the
judge who heard the case pending in the other three courts had made
his ruling and I would enter an identical ruling. So it worked out
all right and this was the forerunner to these meetings. Of course,
Robson played on important role in the electrical equipment cases.
Other judges who played important roles were Judge Joseph S. Lord,
III, Judge William H. Becker, Judge Hubert Will, and Judge Thomas
J . Clary .

Sharp: Let's talk about some of these cases then. The first one (and I put
these in chronological order just for ease) is the Winchester Drive-
in Theatre case.* I noticed immediately that Joseph [L.] Alioto was

*Winchester Drive-in Theatre, Inc., et al . v. Twentieth Century-Fox
Film Company et al . , No. 39632, 232 F. Supp . 556 (1964).

127

Sharp: one of the attorneys for the plaintiff. He is considered an

important antitrust plaintiff's attorney from what I know. Had he
come before you in many other cases?

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: What was that like?

Zirpoli: He appeared as counsel for plaintiff in the Winchester case, which
went to trial, but Alioto lost. In that case, Alioto wanted to
testify and I said he could not testify. I said that if you testify,
you may not argue to the jury. He elected not to testify.

His primary opponent was Allan [N.] Littman, and he was one
lawyer that knew how to handle Alioto, I'll have to say that.* Not
everybody knows how to handle him, but Allan Littman knew how to do
it. He did a good job, and he eventually got the verdict in his
favor.

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Of course, Alioto was in some of the electrical equipment cases
as well, but he was not in any of those before me. His firm was
involved in the gypsum cases. They represented one line, but he
did not personally appear. He rarely appeared personally. An
attorney who is now in Los Angeles appeared, Max [Maxwell M.] Blecher,
He is now a famous antitrust lawyer, too. They were all in the
Oakland Raiders case in Los Angeles .

Oh, that's right. I have a few questions then about the particulars
of the case.

The Syufy drive-ins had been in an antitrust case before, the
so-called Rancho case of 1958 with the same problem basically.**

Yes, and in the prior case they issued releases which the jurors in
the subsequent Syufy, Winchester Drive-in case found to apply to
the new defendants in Winchester.

Joseph Alioto had a very effective method of presenting a case
which was to put on a prima facie case for the plaintiff (he was the
plaintiff's attorney most of the time) and rely on his abilities as
cross-examiner when the defense put on its case. In that regard,
he was very good.

*Littman was an attorney with Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro.

**Rancho Drive In Theatre Corp. v. Fox West Coast Theatres Corp. and
United Artists Theatre Circuit, Inc., No. 37792, Nov. 8, 1958.

128

Sharp: In this particular case, it seemed like your opinion turned on the
defendant's situation as tort feasors. There are some important
comments that you make toward the end about federal courts applying
state law.

Zirpoli: Yes. Well, you wouldn't apply state law in an antitrust case because
that's typically federal legislation. So I said you should apply
the federal rule. The court of appeals agreed that I should apply
the federal rule.

Zirpoli: Another important case was the attempt of the Department of Justice
to enjoin the merger of the Citizens National Bank of Los Angeles
and the Crocker National Bank of San Francisco on the theory that it
would result in a restraint on interstate commerce.* I disagreed.
I felt and concluded that the money market, the availability of
funds for all purposes was of such a nature that it was in a sense
really nationwide for the big insurance companies making more loans
for housing than the banks. Add to this the activity of your
savings and loans and other categories: credit union, savings and
loan, insurance companies, and the banks, this merger couldn't
possibly have an anticompetitive effect. There was no proof that
Crocker was going to actually start de novo, so to speak, enter into
banking in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and there was no
indication that Citizens was going to enter into banking in San
Francisco .

Then on top of it, we had a situation in which Transamerica
owned 41 percent of Citizens [National Bank] and Transamerica would
be finding itself in possible difficulties as a bank holding com
pany which would subject it to the banking acts. On analysis of the
whole picture, I concluded that the community interest was better
served by having these banks merge than by not having them merge.

Sharp: There are two things in particular that struck me. The passage of

Bank Merger Act originally in 1960 and then amendments in 1966. And,
it intrigued me that you had so much of the history of the legisla
tion in your decision. It seemed like you wanted to weigh fairly
heavy on the side of what the intent —

Zirpoli: If Congress didn't intend any change, why did they go to all of this
trouble? We were satisfied that Congress definitely intended these
changes and that there were some other considerations when you talk
about bank mergers that do not necessarily apply to the usual anti
trust case.

*United States of America v. Crocker-Anglo National Bank, Citizens
National Bank, and Transamerica Corporation, Civ. No. 41808, 277 F.
Supp. 133 (1967).

129

Sharp: How did you and Judge [Walter L.] Pope and Judge [William T. ]
Sweigert divide the work on this case?

Zirpoli: We divided it originally on the question of preliminary injunction.
Judge Pope wrote an opinion on that. When the time came for the
final opinion, he was the presiding judge and asked me if I would
write it. I said yes, but I relied a great deal on what he had
already done. I thought that, leaving me out of it, that was a
very good team, the three of us . We had Judge Sweigert who was
well organized and Judge Pope had some prior banking knowledge.

Banking was not new to me. I studied banking at college at
the University of California. I had been A. P. Giannini's messenger
boy. My brother was a vice-president of a bank. I knew something
about banking, probably not as much as I should have known, but that
was an interest that piqued my curiosity more than might otherwise
have been the case.

Sharp: Your expertise or at least good working general knowledge of banking
brings up the question which is really general, about the expertise
of the judge especially in antitrust cases where there are excru
ciatingly detailed questions.

Zirpoli: Yes. I am not claiming any real expertise. I am just saying that I
had prior exposure. "Money and banking" was the course that I took,
so I had prior exposure and I had the prior experiences, unrelated
to expertise, which were sufficient to pique my interest and
curiosity and make me delve into it in greater detail.

We had many experts who were called in the course of that trial,
and that case was tried in a relatively short time. That was a case
that was exceptionally well prepared. In other words, we had an
excellent pretrial with everything properly marked — exhibits and
witnesses identified — so the trial moved with great rapidity. I
don't think it took more than two weeks to try this case. Under
normal circumstances that case could have gone on for a month or two
months but, as I say, we were well organized. We made counsel for
all parties go by the rules. We made them prepare a pretrial state
ment and everything was done that could possibly be done to get the
case in proper order for trial.

Sharp: It's a very interesting case from the point of view of Bank of America,
its history, and its growth and then the growth of Crocker and Citizens
as well. What would you say were the most persuasive arguments
brought by Mr. [Richard] Archer who was the attorney for the defen
dant?

Zirpoli: The most persuasive argument? He argued everything that went into

that opinion to a great degree. His most persuasive argument in the
final analysis was that the community really benefited thereby, and

130

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli;
Sharp :

Zirpoli;

that in truth and in fact there was no indication that Crocker was
about to enter metropolitan Los Angeles or that Citizens was about
to enter San Francisco. This was the big thing that the government
was relying on because they had a memo that had been prepared by
somebody from Transamerica, I think it was — either Citizens Bank or
Transamerica because of the relationship — which indicated that they
ought to look into the possibility of a branch office in San Fran
cisco. But it is one thing to talk about something that you ought
to look into and another thing to know what you intend to do, and
Solomon, who was president of the Crocker Bank, was an exceptionally
good witness and able to convince us that they couldn't make it if
they had to go in de novo, and if they tried to accomplish the
same objective, it would have taken them ten years or more. Those
were the basic arguments. Archer did a good job in the case, very
good.

I was intrigued by Bank of America. Your connection with Bank of
America goes back to when you were a very young man.

I added a footnote there on Bank of America that was not relevant to
the case, but I just wanted to add it anyway. It related to Bank of
America becoming the goliath of the West because A. P. Giannini catered
to the little fellow, whereas Morgan was only interested in deposits
from the president or executive of big corporations.

The Bank of America's image has changed so much in the many years that
have passed.

Oh, yes. [pause]

There are the three Wall Products v. National Gypsum cases.*
know how many Wall Products cases there are.

I don't

Oh, there were over a 140 cases pending. What we did was take the
first eleven and we tried those as a pilot case on the theory that
if liability was established, then these major companies would be
foreclosed from the denying liability, so that once we established

*The three cases referred to here are Wall Products Co. et al . v.
National Gypsum Co. et al., Civ. Nos . 46414, 46455, 46487, 46640,
47195-47197, 47323, 38214, 38235, 38549, 38550, 48778-48784, 48787-
48789, 48797, and 48798, 326 F. Supp. 295 (1971); Wall Products Co.
et al. v. National Gypsum Co. et al . , Civ. Nos. 46414, 46455, 46487,
47197, 48550, 48780-48782, 48787, 48789, and 48797, 357 F. Supp. 832
(1973); and, Wall Products Co. et al . v. National Gypsum Co. et al . ,
Civ. Nos. 46414, 46455, 46487, 47197, 48550, 48780-48782, 48787,
48789, and 48797, 367 F. Supp. 972 (1973).

131

Zirpoli: the antitrust violation for the major companies — U.S. Gypsum and

National — then we had the case established on liability for all the
cases. After that it was going to be a question of what the damages
were. So we fixed damages initially in the first cases and I fixed
attorneys' fees in the first case. After that, it became a question
of establishing damages for the remaining cases and they finally
settled. Now, they could have settled — the defendants — settled these
cases a lot cheaper as the counsel for U.S. Gypsum (the local counsel)
actually wanted to do, but the house counsel and general counsel for
U.S. Gypsum didn't want to settle. Eventually they had to.

The value that came out of the gypsum case was that in the
course of the litigation, the price of gypsum wallboard dropped
considerably and saved the consumers during that period, and not
too great a period, some $87 million. Then they ended up with a
settlement of $67 million. The monies were deposited at 11 percent
and we earned nearly $10 million in interest before the monies were
paid out. That took care of the attorneys' fees, administrative
costs, and everything.

Sharp: I hadn't thought of that sort of arithmetic and that sort of genesis,
not genesis but —

Zirpoli: In fixing the attorneys' fee we made a multiplier, depending upon
the contribution the attorney made to the success of the case. The
important thing there is that [the attorney] Fred [Frederick P.] Furth
had spent a tremendous amount of his own money before he got his first
settlement.* He must have spent $150,000 or more.

Plaintiffs first settled with one of the defendants, Kaiser
Aluminum, at a relatively small figure. Kaiser's attorney, Gordon
Johnson, was very smart to get his client out of the case for about
$100,000, nothing compared to what it would have cost them had they
gone to trial. Of course, the Brobeck firm got out of the case
because they didn't establish participation on the part of another
named defendant, Georgia-Pacific.

Sharp: I was interested to see that in terms of the importance of the case
that there was some setting out of the rights of sellers in price
verification with respect to their consumers.

Zirpoli: Yes, as long as they were careful in what they did, there would be no
violation of the Robinson-Patman [Price Discrimination] Act. In other
words, you say, "Is it true that you are selling for less?" That is
all I want to know. I don't make too much inquiry. Then I am
entitled to meet the competition under the act. But if I start
talking about it, what we are going to do or what can be done, then

*Furth was the attorney for the plaintiffs, Wall Products Company.

Zirpoli:
Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

132

you are getting beyond the proper area there.
on that somewhere.

I had some discussion

I think it is in the 1971 case. At least that is what I was referring
to. These gypsum companies learned from each other this new pricing
program and centralized the pricing authority then.

What happened is that U.S. Gypsum put out this revision with the
understanding that if everybody else didn't go along, they would
take it back and that was my theory, that such conduct constituted
a violation. Now, that's why I called it conscious parallel action
pursuant to the tacit understanding by acquiescence. That's the
language that I worked out and it still applies. [pause to go
through papers] Sometimes I forget that I wrote all of this stuff!
[pause] You go ahead.

In the 1973 case, you had the second half of the suit from what I
could tell and some different conclusions regarding the results of
the price fixing. Now, this set of plaintiffs took the suit further
than the 1971 case to say that they were actually put out of business.

They claimed that as an element of damages.

Yes, and I was interested in the assessment of the overcharges as
well as the assignment of the penalty of the treble damages.

The overcharges were fixed by getting actual figures from different
parts of the country. There were very many marketing zones, right.
In these cases it is difficult to establish damages with any exacti
tude. You can't be exact and if you come up with a good estimate
and they don't controvert it, then it will stand.

What about this issue of the plaintiffs' other losses, the plaintiffs
in antitrust cases wanting to ask for more than seems fair when it
is difficult to decide what is fair or what is reasonable?

Zirpoli: You would have to prove specifically that they actually forced you
out of business. As I recall, they never made an adequate proof in
those cases. I think I just allowed them damages based on the
differential and their values.

Sharp: Yes, I wondered about what the formula was for arriving at it.

Zirpoli: I might add something very important about the wallboard cases. A
later decision of the Supreme Court would not have permitted the
wallboard verdict for all plaintiffs, basically only the first user.

Sharp: Why is that?

133

Zirpoli: Because they then reverted to the theory that the only one who can
recover is the immediate purchaser. You can't pass it on. Now, I
had no problem on that because the various parties involved worked
out a formula — the plaintiffs — that was acceptable to all of the
classes and, as a result, the damages were applied only once and
then they were distributed proportionately in accordance with your
relative share of the market and the costs involved. A later
decision, the Illinois Brick [v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 720 (1976)],
said no.

Sharp: How much later was Illinois Brick?

Zirpoli: Oh, I don't know, at least four or five years later. In fact, there
was one gypsum case that remained unsettled. The attorney came
in and I told him, "What are you going to do now? You're out of
luck." Kaiser was involved with this company and Kaiser agreed to
pay them $30,000 to get it out of the way.

Sharp: That was the end of it at that point?

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: Is this a good time to talk about the treble damages penalty?

Zirpoli: Well, the statute provides that.

Sharp: I know, but the statute provides other sorts of penalties too.

Zirpoli: The only statute provides for treble damages and attorneys' fees.
What happens is that normally you present the case when you are
going to a jury trial in such a fashion that the jury will merely
fix the damages and the court will thereafter treble it. Otherwise,
you get into a difficult area: Should the jury know that the damages
are to be trebled? Preferably not. So then they just decide what
the damages are. Then the court trebles them.

Then based upon the damages and the results, the court proceeds
to fix the fee. But the fee is fixed based on time consumed and the
legal fee scale existing at the time, so the attorneys have to
justify their attorney fees by bringing in their records. They
bring them in. Then the court can apply some kind of a multiplier
because of the complication involved, the contingency basis on which
the case was undertaken, and other factors of that character. That's
where the attorney, Furth, got his real benefit because he was the
lead counsel, he was the counsel that pressed the case.

He was the one who brought it to a successful conclusion and,
of course, he was lucky in many respects because he was starting out
on the theory that it was the interchange of communications on price
information. It didn't turn out to be the basis for his case. His

134

Zirpoli: case turned on some memoranda which had been written by and prepared
by United States Gypsum officers indicating that they were going to
put this out and if everybody accepted and agreed, that would be it,
and if they didn't, it wouldn't. This was something that he got in
the course of discovery when he was spending all of this money for
discovery .

Unfortunately, there are a lot of situations in which lawyers
don't have a good antitrust case. They file it in the hope that
they will get the evidence that they would like in the course of
discovery. That happens quite often.

Sharp: I was going to ask you about that because the discovery has gotten
so elaborate now and has gone on so long.

Zirpoli: There is criticism that there is abuse of discovery, and there is,
there is definitely abuse of discovery. But controlling it is very
difficult because at the same time you want to curb any abuses, you
can't preclude someone from getting something to which he might be
entitled.

Sharp: Is there some way, do you think, of the judge or some other person
drawing some limits on discovery case by case?

Zirpoli: Some judges fix the limit on the number of interrogatories that you
can file. While I have no specific limit on the number of inter
rogatories that are filed, if I find that they are oppressive, then
I will sustain objections. Otherwise, I prefer that the interroga
tories be limited primarily to the ascertainment of the individuals
having the knowledge of the incidents or possession of the documents.
When that is established, it is preferable that they proceed to take
the deposition of the individual involved.

Sharp: What is the most interesting part of the whole wallboard pricing
issue?

Zirpoli: The principal problem?

Sharp: The principal or most interesting —

Zirpoli: The most significant, of course, is price fixing. It is the

conspiracy of agreement to fix the price or a conspiracy of agreement
to allocate distribution centers among different manufacturers. In
other words, I'll say, "You take this area and I'll take this area,"
and things of that character.

Sharp: That is one of the most common areas of antitrust litigation?
Zirpoli: Yes, probably the most common.

135

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp:

I don't think we have gone over this, but what would you say were the
major impacts or impact of the wallboard cases?

The major impact of the wallboard case was the very fact that it
reduced the price of wallboard immediately and throughout the pro
ceedings and it continued. Building costs were going up during this
period. When you bear in mind the fact that building costs were going
up but the price of gypsum wallboard went down substantially, then
you get a good idea of the benefit that the consuming public got from
it.

I don't know if they know to thank you for the price going down.

[laughs softly] Well, I am not interested in the thanks as such. I
mean I just try to do whatever I think is right based on the law as
I see it.

It seems like the victims and the enemies get lined up pretty quickly
in an antitrust suit as an area of litigation. The idea of competi
tion in American business is a very sacred sort of element.

Yes, but antitrust still remains a partially controversial field.
The approach to antitrust, unfortunately, may depend upon the
administration in power as far as the Department of Justice is
concerned. Some attorneys general will take a very strict view of
it and be very forceful in their attempts to enforce the antitrust
laws, and others won't be that way. They will be far more liberal.

So you have seen quite a few swings?

I would say you see some swings. When you get into the criminal
prosecution end of it, which you don't get too often, then you get
more fighting on the part of the industry. The [U.S.] attorney
general's office, unfortunately, has not been able to compete with
private counsel. The litigation goes on for years, the administra
tion changes, the attorneys in charge, let's say, of the Ma Bell
[American Telephone and Telegraph] cases, by the time they finish it,
they will have had at least six, seven, or eight different attorneys
in charge in and out of the administrations. You get the IBM cases,
which have been going on for years before Judge Edelstein in New York.
God knows how many different government lawyers have been in that
case, whereas the representation on the part of IBM has been pretty
consistent throughout. The representation of the telephone company
has been consistent throughout.

I was just wondering if there were other sorts of questions I could
ask you about the length of the cases.

136

Zirpoli: They take quite a while, the antitrust cases. I had another anti
trust case involving the Alioto firm and that is the Pacific Far
East Line, but that is very recent, in which I dismissed the case
in the form of a sanction because of the failure of Pacific Far East
Line and its counsel to comply with the discovery orders of the
court and I also found fraud on the court. I had the testimony from
John Alioto who was the president of the Pacific Far East Line and
I was satisfied that he was not truthful in his answers to the prior
rebate practices of the Pacific Far East Line.

Now, that case is on appeal. What the court of appeals will do
with it, I don't know, because the field of sanctions is a field that
is to a great degree within the discretion of the trial judge, but
the court of appeal may say that I went too far, that I should have
just made them pay monetary damages instead of dismissing the case.

I dismissed that case because I felt that the defendants were
denied their full privileges, their full defense. The denial of
discovery had so prejudiced their case and then I had some serious
doubts on the ability of the defendants to prove their defense in
the light of what had transpired.*

Sharp: The issue of the attorneys' fees, which is the main concern in the
other 1973 Wall Products v. National Gypsum, I am not
sure that we need to say anything more about it.

Zirpoli: In that case I limited the attorneys' fees to the time involved in
establishing the Sherman violation. I denied them compensation for
those efforts and time and depositions involved in the so-called
Robinson-Patman violation. In other words, I fix attorneys' fees
based on the results achieved and the successes obtained, and where
there are no successes, I don't grant attorneys' fees.

Sharp: Is that sort of a general rule for you?

Zirpoli: With me, yes, but it is not very clear right now. Some courts say
if you prevail, you should collect on everything. If you have two
theories and you prevail on one, you should be able to collect what
ever you had to expend. I am not ready to buy that in its entirety.

Sharp: Why?

*Upon his review of this interview, Judge Zirpoli noted that he had
been affirmed in this case by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in
all respects .

137

Zirpoli: Because if you have a theory on which you don't prevail, there is
no reason why you should incur all of these costs and require the
other side to pay for them, have them incur costs on an issue that
you can't sustain. For the one that you sustain, yes, I understand
it; you prevail and that's what you should be paid for, but I don't
think that the defendant should pay for an issue in which he pre
vailed just because the plaintiff prevailed on the other issue.

Sharp: Because it could go on and on?
Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: I hadn't realized this before, but I saw that it is only in antitrust
litigation that recovery of attorneys' fees are provided on top of
treble damages.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp : I wondered why that was .

Zirpoli: To encourage private enforcement so the lawyers will take these
cases and enforce the antitrust laws. If you don't give them an
incentive, they are not going to take on a complicated case that
may involve the expenditure of very substantial sums, particularly
if they take it on a contingency basis. The attorneys' fees are
paid to the plaintiff so that if you recover, by way of illustration,
a verdict of let's say $750,000 and the judge allows $250,000
attorneys' fees; that becomes a total of $1 million to the plaintiff,
but if the attorney has a 40 percent contingency fee contract, he
gets $400,000 instead of the $250,000. Some people think that the
attorney gets the fee that has been fixed by the court. No, the
fee is awarded to the client (the plaintiff) and then the attorney
gets his fee in accordance with his contract.

The encouraging of private attorneys to take these types of antitrust
cases then lessens the burden on the government essentially?

Yes, there is more enthusiasm on the part of private counsel,
[laughter]

I would think so. The U.S. attorney isn't going to benefit in
quite the same way as the private attorney. In setting these fees,
you drew on an earlier Ninth Circuit case regarding Twentieth
Century-Fox film from 1964.

-
Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: That had given some guidelines for attorneys' fees.
Zirpoli: There were other cases besides those.

Sharp :
Zirpoli:
Sharp :

138

Sharp: Right, yes, but I was intrigued though that it was actually a Ninth
Circuit case that you selected.

Zirpoli: It was a Ninth Circuit case, but there was another case that the
Ninth Circuit had been following, if I am not mistaken.*

Sharp: The point is a small one really, but I was interested to see that
you were looking back to the Ninth Circuit for some suggestions.

Zirpoli: Well, I always look there first!
Sharp: That seems a good move.

In that last case, which is a fairly short one, one that you
dismissed, Franck v. Carborundum, a horizontal price fixing case
that you dismissed because of lack of evidence — **

Zirpoli: Franck had filed a number of antitrust cases. When anybody sold him
anything he didn't pay his bills and they would ask him to pay or
sue him, he would then file an antitrust case against them. I have
had him in here before. In this case, he wasn't able to establish
anything really, so I just threw it out. In the last case I had
with him, even his son was going to testify against him. He was
doing it to harass in the hope they would pay him or discharge his
indebtedness to them.

Sharp: So people bring in the antitrust cases for all sorts of grievances.

Zirpoli: And in propria persona. The sad part of it is, he [Franck] is a

fairly intelligent man. He might have been a good lawyer if he had
studied law. But he wasn't an honest man.

General Concerns in the Area of Antitrust

Sharp: That brings me all the way around to some more general questions

about antitrust. Of all of the antitrust cases that have come before
you so far, what are the most difficult ones to sort out?

*Perkins v. Standard Oil Company of California, 474 F. 2d 549 (1972).

**Herman D. Franck et al. v. The Carborundum Company et al., Nos. C-
71-278, C-73-0146 and C-74-0177, 347 F. Supp. 83 (1977).

139

Zirpoli: One of the difficult cases naturally was the Howard Hughes case

where I had entered a default. If I start picking them on the basis
of difficulty, that is number one. Number two, I would say the
Pacific Far East Line case was very difficult because that's a case
where you had to find some fraud that was being exercised on the
court. You had to find that there was a deliberate destruction of the
discovery process, things you don't like to do. So those are the
most difficult.

Probably Pacific Far East was even more difficult than Hughes
because in the Hughes case, as I said, I entered a default as far
as Hughes was concerned in the two companies he owned. Hughes had
written me a letter (and I verified that it had been signed by him)
in which he said, "I have no objection to my deposition being taken,
but at the proper time and place and under appropriate circumstances."

So I said to his counsel, "Mr. Hughes is telling the court what
to do, so to speak." As the principal witness he was denying the
parties the essential evidence that they needed to prove their
case, so I just entered the default.

When his lawyers appeared before me, I said to his lawyers, "Are
you telling me that Mr. Hughes will see me in hell before he will
submit to a deposition?" Then I said, "If you are, you tell Mr.
Hughes he is going to have to wait a long, long time." Hughes died
about three years ago and he will still have to wait a long time
before I join him.

Now, the Hughes case was a securities fraud case, but it has
much of the aura of an antitrust case and the problems that arise
are very much the same.

Sharp: If you look just at just this short stack of cases altogether, it
seems that part of it is trying to figure out whether or not some
thing is really a violation if it hasn't come up before.

Zirpoli: What you do is you review all of the facts. You look at what is
supposed to be the relevant market in which the competition takes
place, and does the conduct of the parties constitute what is known
as an unreasonable restraint on trade. If their conduct results in
unreasonable restraint on trade, then you take whatever action is
necessary .

I had one which was a divestiture case involving one of the
major paper companies. Eventually I ruled that they should divest
themselves of their San Francisco unit. I remember I wanted to keep
this secret. I didn't want anybody to know what my ruling was going
to be, until I actually issued it, because I was afraid it would
have a reaction on the stock market as to the companies involved. It

140

Zirpoli: turned out that the only reaction on the stock market was that it
moved down one-eighth of a point. [laughter]

Sharp: Not a great one!
Zirpoli: No.

Sharp: Could we talk about varieties of penalties a bit? In 1974, President
[Gerald R. ] Ford signed a new act, the Antitrust Procedures and
Penalties Act, which is actually after several of these cases, which
changed penalties for antitrust violations of the Sherman Act.

Zirpoli: That was on the criminal side.

Sharp: Yes. There are three areas: changing the charge from a misdemeanor
to felony, increasing the [maximum] jail sentence, and then upping
the [maximum] fine. Apparently, this was passed after years and
years of discussion on the part of Congress. Since we haven't talked
very much about the criminal side, I thought we might for just a bit.

Zirpoli: Criminal antitrust cases are rare, very rare. If I go back over

twenty-five years, I don't think I can, in my own mind, conjure up
more than three or four criminal cases in this district.

Sharp: Why are they so rare?

Zirpoli: Because a civil case will serve the necessary remedial purpose.

After a successful decree in a civil case the government rarely goes
after them in a criminal case. Of course, the first one I parti
cipated in was the lumber products case, in the prosecution of
which I aided Tom [C.] Clark. That goes back to 1941.

Since 1941 to this day, I have some serious doubts that anyone
can point to more than five or six criminal prosecutions in this
district.

[Around 1957] one of them involved wire nails and the Japanese
importer thereof. I was defense counsel then and I represented
Nissho Iwai, one of the biggest trading companies in the world. My
people were not indicted because I cooperated with the government.
I found out what was happening and immediately said to the govern
ment prosecutor, "Look, tell us what you want us to do." The govern
ment filed suit against others and they then ended the cases by entry
of consent decrees. Sometimes that is all that happens. There were
treble damage suits that followed thereafter, but my people were
never involved with them. We were very fortunate. So you can think
of a few criminal cases, but I really have a tough time giving you
the name of an antitrust criminal case.

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli;

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

141

It does bring up the question though of penalties for civil anti
trust litigation. It's fines mostly?

Yes, mostly fines,
be imposed.

Once in a while, a six-month jail sentence will

Do you consider fines to be the most effective remedy?

No, because the individual doesn't pay it, the company pays it.
General Electric can afford to pay fines. Rarely has anyone gone to
jail for antitrust violations and if they have, for not more than
six months, as I recall.

Is there another solution to all of the antitrust litigation?
trust practices is what I am asking.

The

No, I don't know of any other solution. Unfortunately, it is a long
and difficult one. The whole process is so long and difficult. You
have to establish a relevant market; you have to establish the parti
cipation; you have to establish the conspiracy; you have to establish
the impact on the market; and things of this character. I have had
other antitrust cases. I remember an IBM [International Business
Machines] case involving [computer] software.* I ruled that there
was no impact, that the conduct of IBM did not result in damages.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sent it back saying, "You didn't
inquire enough." I think they were wrong, but I am not going to
argue! [laughs] That remains to be resolved. The case has now been
settled.

I had another one involving the trucking industry, but this was
also on the civil side. That went up on appeal and it's back now for
further trial based on the question of whether or not the defendant,
California Trucking Association, was properly asserting its Fifth
Amendment rights or whether they were using this as a subterfuge to
fix prices.**

Sharp: What about the recidivism? Corporations, generally large corporations
especially, are showing up again and again in antitrust litigation.

Zirpoli: There isn't that much. Where would you find it? Maybe Standard Oil.
By way of illustration, you would see one or two cases involving
Standard Oil. The gypsum people were involved once before, about
thirty-odd years ago.

*Symbolic Control v. International Business Machines Corporation, C-
71-2207 AJZ (Dec. 31, 1975), reversed, 643 F. 2d . 1339 (1980)

**California Trucking Association v. Brotherhood of Teamsters, 679 F.
2d. 1275 (1981).

142

Sharp: I haven't seen yet any Judicial Conference committee, for example,
on antitrust trying to figure out what to do about it.

Zirpoli: The Judicial Conference has on occasion interested itself in

legislation that could be deemed to be antitrust in character, but
it avoids taking any positions because this is not a judicial
function. I mean, enacting the law is not a judicial function. The
only time we would take an interest is when there is a possible
impact on the courts.

In other words, if you had litigation which would permit a
user to sue on behalf of every user in the United States, this
would be of great concern to the courts, and while they haven't had
legislation quite to that degree, there have been statutes proposed
from time to time (that have yet to be enacted) which would begin to
take on a magnitude of that character. Of course, the Judicial
Conference has opposed that type of legislation because, after all,
whatever you get has to be manageable.

Sharp: What about the skills and the efforts that the trial court judge
uses in antitrust cases generally, simply because of the size and
the length?

Zirpoli: The size and the length and his knowledge of the particular area.
He has to educate himself, that's what it amounts to. In the IBM
case on software, I had to educate myself on the use of computers
and software (of which I knew nothing before the trial started), and
I had a glossary of about two and one half inches thick of language
that I had to learn. This was very complicated software which they
used in equipment to manufacture airplanes and things of that
character where, by use of the numerical process, you could set up
a machine that could cut all of the steel and the gear and every
thing that was needed.

Sharp: Done by computer programs.

Zirpoli: That's what happens to federal judges when they get appointed to the
bench. They know nothing about patent law and they have to take the
trouble to read about it and learn about it. Most of them know
nothing about admiralty. They have to take the trouble to learn
about it and read about it.

Sharp: I don't know quite how to ask this, but are you generally satisfied
that you found out enough to work with each case?

Zirpoli: I told you the story before, didn't I, that of Judge George M.

Bourquin of Montana? Judge Bourquin was an old judge in Montana who
had never tried an admiralty case. He came to San Francisco to try
an admiralty case. He called the lawyers involved into his chambers
and said, "Gentlemen, I know nothing about admiralty law. Therefore,

143

Zirpoli: I wish you would furnish me with the text you think I should read
and the material I should read in preparation for this trial," and
so they did.

When the trial was over, he said, "Counsel, will you please
come to my chambers?" When they got into his chambers, he said,
"Gentlemen, be seated. I want to tell you fellows that you have got
a hell of a lot to learn about admiralty law." [laughs]

There you are! That's the kind of preparation that you have to
indulge in.

Sharp : Because there is some feeling that the whole thing should be reworked
and that there should be —

Zirpoli: There are feelings that the things should be reworked, and that we
ought to have specialized judges with expertise in particular areas
and fields. Even the chief justice [Warren Burger] has expressed
himself on this subject, but I am not in accord with this view. I
mean there isn't anything that the lawyers can do for which they
cannot properly prepare the court or for which the court cannot
properly prepare. If they have got a case and they want the judge
to get an education, they can give him a glossary as they gave me
with the software. They can give him a statement of the whole
operative procedure of input for purposes of use in computers and
things of that character. Then they can write proper briefs. There
is no reason why it shouldn't be that way in my view.

There are a lot of people who won't agree with me. They think
you ought to have judges, a special judge handling patent law, a
special judge handling admiralty or antitrust or securities fraud.

I discovered the same thing in my TECA, Temporary Emergency
Court of Appeals, that I sit on. I knew nothing about oil and gas
regulations affecting allocation and pricing, but the regulations
and prior decisions were there for me to read. I was able to read
the regulations, legislative history, and preceding cases. Strangely
enough, no member of that court had any prior expertise in the field.
Yet the [U.S.] Supreme Court has not to date accepted certiorari
in a single one of their cases. Their decisions have been final. I
mean if you are going to carry it to that extreme, you might as well
get specialized judges on the [U.S.] Supreme Court.

Sharp: What about circuit court review, appellate review, of district court
antitrust decisions? Do you have any sense of a general criteria
for antitrust decisions review or is it the same as any other case?
Are there special things going on?

144

Zirpoli: I don't know. I have been sustained in most of my cases, but the
two of them which were sent back to me, I could never understand,
[laughter] One of them was on the question of impact.* I found
there was no impact. If there is no impact, no damage, that ends
it. I was going to assume everything else, violations or anything
you want. They said, oh, no, I should go into the violations and
so forth. But I had assumed them, so that there was no need to go
into them. So I don't know.

In the other one,** I concluded that this company that was
complaining about tariffs was exercising its statutory right to
complain about tariffs, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said
no. The court of appeals said maybe they had an ulterior motive and
were just trying to create an unlawful, unreasonable restraint in
trade, things of that character. So I don't know, I don't know that
they act differently in their handling of antitrust than any other
type of case.

Sharp: Is there anything that can be done, do you think, to ease the

backlog of the antitrust cases that are in the courts currently?

Zirpoli: The only thing that I know of that can ease it is to impose sanctions
where frivolous cases are brought; beyond that, I don't know.

Sharp: What is and what isn't frivolous is up to the judge somehow?

Zirpoli: He can tell from the facts, say if a fellow like Franck brings a
frivolous suit. Franck v. Carborundum is a good illustration.

I will tell you that one of the early cases that I had was
against a judge, [Marvin] Sherwin of Alameda County. That was when
the judges here had to disqualify themselves because of previous
professional relations with him. It was in June of '63 that the
decision came out from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. I have
forgotten the date of the trial, but it was at least a year before
that, so I was relatively new on the bench. The members of our
court asked me to take over the case and I did. He was found guilty
of violation of the income tax laws. It was a very interesting case
because here was a judge who was on trial, a former legislator, and
who had served on the [Assembly] Revenue [and Taxation] Committee of
the legislature. He was saying that he didn't understand the
internal revenue laws !

*Symbolic Control v. International Business Machines Corp. (1975)
**Cal. Trucking Assn. v. Broth, of Teamsters (1981).

145

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

I presided over that trial. The only question that was ultimately
raised on appeal was related to the instructions that I had given
the jury. The instructions to which they objected were instructions
that I had previously advised counsel I would give. Sherwin's
lawyers not only did not object but they had actually approved the
instructions I gave.

There is another early case that you wanted to talk about there?

Now, if we start going over cases, there were a lot of cases
involving prisons such as Santa Rita and the state penitentiary
practices .

I thought we would spend some time on the prisoners' rights cases.
The first couple of times that I was here, we picked some from the
Lexis printout. I thought I would send those over to you and you
could see them.

Is there a changing process of trying antitrust cases from the
1960s from when you first came on?

Change?

Change just in the process of the way that they are conducted?

No, except possibly they are better prepared for trial. I mean
the cases are more thoroughly briefed.

Are there some differences between the private antitrust and the
cases brought by the U.S. attorney's office?

Basically, there should be no difference because the government has
to establish a restraint in trade, unreasonable restraint. In a
civil case you have to establish an unreasonable restraint by a
preponderance of the evidence, but on the criminal side, of course,
the proof has to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt. So the proof
increases on the criminal side when the government prosecutes.

As I say, I find that there were relatively few criminal prose
cutions. Generally, when a criminal prosecution took place in anti
trust cases in the past, the officers would come in and plead nolo
contendere or some such plea. Then the court would impose a fine.
On rare occasions would someone get a prison sentence and if they
did, it wouldn't be more than six months.

But most of those would be cases where they would come in and
plead guilty or nolo contendere with the thought of saving hundreds
of thousands of dollars in legal fees and costs.

146

Sharp: I have just two last questions. One is in your use of the consent

decree and consent agreement. I had understood that there was quite
a variety in how judges approach the use of both of these. I

wondered if you had some general feelings about the use of both of
them?

Zirpoli: The judge has to review any consent decree. It has to be one that
he would be willing to sign in the first place. If he doesn't like
it, he is not going to sign it. Now, what happens is that people
come in and they will enter a consent decree depending upon the
nature of the case involved. If it is just a case between you and
me involving my illegal use of your copyright and I say I won't use
it anymore and if I do, this will be deemed a violation of the
court's order (the consent decree), such subsequent violation will
be found to be in contempt of the court's order and subject to
sanctions .

On the other hand, if it is a class action, then you have to
give notice to all the members of the class. That may involve
sending personal notice to thousands of people and publications in
the newspaper and on TV indicating what the consent decree is, when
it will be heard, so if there are any objections, the people can
come into court and object.

In the gypsum cases, we had to have that kind of a hearing. In
the Hughes Air West case, we had to have that kind of a hearing. So
the people involved are all advised and they come in and interpose
their objections.

In the cases involving discrimination, such as the Southern
Pacific [Railroad] case or any other case of that nature where
discrimination has been alleged and there is a consent decree, then
you have to hold a hearing so that people can come in and voice their
objections. The judge is not going to sign a consent agreement that
is not proper.

In other words, let's assume that there was a suit filed by the
American Basketball Association against the National Basketball
Association and thereafter the parties wanted to come into court and
enter into a consent decree in which the court would approve a
merger of the American and the National associations into one. Well,
the judge is going to think twice. I had a situation of that charac
ter in which I said no. I said, "If you ever want to dismiss this
case, you have a perfect right to dismiss it, but I am not going to
give you a consent decree of this nature."

Well, the case was dismissed. In later years, the two associa
tions merged [laughs], but I had nothing to do with it. I wouldn't
approve it because, in effect, the nature of the antitrust violations
that they were complaining about would have been enhanced by what
they were about to do.

147

Sharp: Can you generalize at all about your feelings regarding concentra
tion and competition in business? You have seen a lot of it. You
have seen a lot of antitrust cases come before you in all sorts of
industries. I wondered if you had ever come to any grand conclusions,

Zirpoli: No, my only grand conclusion is that I am a believer in free enter
prise. There is no argument about that in my mind. That I believe
in, although I think we are gradually becoming a socialist state.
But nevertheless, I still believe in free enterprise. I think that
that's the system that best serves the individual and is the one
that I would prefer because I, despite my age or any other circum
stances, feel that I can still compete! [laughter]

148

VI THE JUDICIAL CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED STATES, 1962-1982 ##

Perspectives on the Work of the Conference: Membership on the
Advisory Committee on Federal Criminal Rules and the Committee
on the Administration of the Criminal Law

Sharp: Are you ready?

Zirpoli: Yes — that depends on what you're going to ask me!

Sharp: I thought we might talk some about the [Judicial Conference] Committee
on Federal Criminal Rules.* Both in talking about your work on this
committee and on the committee on the Administration of the Criminal
Law, what I am interested in is the process of how you worked on it,
the process of the discussion, options, and alternatives.

Zirpoli: These committees are arms of the Judicial Conference of the United
States . The Judicial Conference of the United States is the
governing body of the federal judicial system so to speak, the work
of the courts . It makes recommendations to Congress from time to
time as to legislation that may have an impact on the courts. It
may suggest legislation or it may comment on legislation. Generally,
it doesn't comment on proposed legislation unless requested to do so
by the Congress .

But, at times, the Congress fails to make such requests. Then
we have to take the initiative ourselves in one or another of our
committees so as to bring to the attention of the Congress whatever
problem we have in mind that we feel ought to be considered by the
Congress .

*Judge Zirpoli was a member of this committee from 1962 to 1971 and
its chairman, 1966-1971.

149

Zirpoli: The conference has the responsibility of supervising the courts and
the administration of justice, the promulgation of Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure and Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and rules
of evidence. The members of the conference are the Chief Justice of
the United States, the chief judge of each judicial circuit (there
are twelve circuits), the chief judge of the Court of Claims, the
chief judge of the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, and a district
judge from each judicial circuit (a total in all of 27).

They couldn't possibly as a group handle all of these problems,
so the conference creates committees. There are standing committees
and ad hoc committees which are created to deal with particular areas,
so there is a committee on the administration of the courts, there is
a committee on the budget, there is a committee on judicial ethics,
there is a committee on the administration of criminal law, and there
is a committee on practice and procedure which has below it advisory
committees, one on the civil rules and one on the criminal rules.
The chairman of each committee reports to the conference at each
session of the conference. The conference meets twice a year,
generally in March and September of each year, to consider the
various problems that arise.

Now, with relation to the committee on the rules of criminal
procedure (on which I served for a number of years and eventually
served as chairman) , what we were interested in were the necessary
changes or modifications in the criminal rules. The basic problem
that arose and which we felt required review by us was a revision of
the criminal rules in such substantial measure so as to permit
greater discovery, pretrial discovery, thereby eliminating to the
degree possible the elements of surprise, and also, problems with
relation to bail reform. At the same time we had to be careful not
to create an abuse of discovery.

So during my period, two of the most significant areas in which
we functioned had to do with the revision of the rules . We worked
on these revisions. In 1970 we published the preliminary draft of
the proposed amendments.* Now, this preliminary draft was a pretty
extensive review of the rules with modifications, additions, and
suggested changes. If you will pick up the rules today, you will

*"Preliminary Draft of Proposed Amendments to the Federal Rules of
Criminal Procedure for the United States District Courts," Committee
on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the
United States, January 1970, Washington, D.C.: United States Govern
ment Printing Office, 1970. See following page for names of committee
members .

149a

Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure

Judge Albert B. Marls, Chr.
Judge George H. Boldt
Peyton Ford
Dean Mason Ladd
Prof. James William Moore
J. Lee Rankin
Bernard G. Segal
Prof. Charles Alan Wright
Judge J. Skelly Wright
Prof. Bernard J. Ward, Reporter
William E. Foley, Secretary

Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules

Alfonso J. Zirpoli, Chr.

Joseph A. Ball

Dean Edward L. Barrett, Jr.

George R. Blue

Judge George C. Edwards, Jr.

Robert S. Erdahl

Judge Gerhard A. Gesell

Judge Walter E. Hoffman

Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr.

Judge Walter R. Mansfield

Robert W. Meserve

Prof. Maynard Pirsig

Justice Walter V. Schaefer

Barnabas F. Sears

Will Wilson

Prof. Frank J. Remington, Reporter

Committee on the Administration of the Criminal Law

Alfonso J. Zirpoli, Chairman

Ruggero J. Aldisert

Richard B. Austin

Jean S. Breitenstein

William B. Bryant

W. Arthur Garrity, Jr.

Earl R. Larson

Lloyd F. MacMahon

John W. Peck

Adrian A. Spears

Roszel C. Thomsen

150

Zirpoli: find that most if not nearly all of the suggestions we made were
adopted. There were some slight modifications, one or two that
weren't — but for the most part, they were all adopted. With some
small changes since, they are the basic rules that we function under
today. Now, this was a big job and it took a little time.

Then there was the Bail Reform Act. I have forgotten the exact
date of the Bail Reform Act [1966], but it was initiated by Senator
Robert Kennedy. It resulted in the present statute with relation to
release on bail. The basic requirement is that if a person was
charged with a crime, he should be released on his own recognizance,
or admitted to bail under particular conditions with the criteria to
be, will he present himself in the court when required to do so. In
other words, basically to secure his presence in court.

While there was some discussion that the court should also con
sider whether he constitutes a danger to himself and to the community,
that was not accepted in the Bail Reform Act. Our committee reviewed
that and at one time it was suggested that we incorporate this pro
vision, but we said, no, we will not. I have forgotten exactly which
year we did that.

Then came the revision of the federal Criminal Code and that was
being presented as a reform of the federal Criminal Code, rather than
mere revision. There were a lot of suggestions being made then about
preventive custody and things of this character depending upon the
nature of the crime or the offense.

We were not favorable to reforms for preventive custody, but we
were then, by that time, disposed to include a provision that the
court may consider whether or not the defendant is a danger to him
self or a danger to the community when the matter is referred to the
court for the setting of bail or other conditions of release. Now,
that is still with the Congress. That has yet to be resolved. This
question of the reform of the federal Criminal Code has been going on
now for over ten years, eleven or twelve years. I don't know what it
is now — twelve approximately.

Our committee started working on it the minute we received a
copy of the Brown Commission report, which was a very thorough, well-
prepared document. The Brown Commission report was a report of a
commission for the revising of the federal Criminal Code of which
Edmund G. Brown [Sr.] (former governor of California) served as
chairman. We had many observations to make in connection with it.
Now, in the first report we made on it, [George C.] Edwards [Jr.] was
chairman of the committee at the time, and we had not had an oppor
tunity to go through it in any detail at all.

151

Zirpoli: Thereafter, I was appointed chairman and we worked diligently on it.
In fact, we took the first Senate bill and reviewed it, the entire
bill, line by line. When I say we reviewed it line by line — Senate
Bill 1 — you can see by the sheer volume involved just what an
enormous task it was. When we reviewed it line by line, we were
primarily interested in those procedural aspects of the legislation
which might have an impact on the operation of the court. When it
came to the description of substantive crimes — what shall or shall
not constitute a crime — of course, that is basically a prerogative
of the Congress. We accepted the language of the Congress, unless
we saw a specific need to comment. But there was very little that
we commented on in that regard.

There were aspects of it that we were very much interested in.
They related to the fact that first there would be an increase in the
litigation of criminal cases. There would be an expansion of federal
jurisdiction. Now, we said, "That's a matter for Congress and what
ever the responsibility is, we will accept," but we felt that Congress
ought to realize the degree to which there would be an expansion of
federal jurisdiction. There were proposed statutes that we called
piggyback provisions in the new laws which would have expanded
federal jurisdiction in matters which would normally be the respon
sibility of the state.

Then we looked into the procedural and evidentiary problems as
they related to what you might call states of mind, which is not really
procedural but in a sense it is. We were very much interested in the
procedures to be employed in the new law as it related to states of
mind with relation to the commission of crimes, what are the states
of mind. There are various states of mind known as "intentionally,"
"knowingly," "recklessly," "negligently," and we felt that there
was some confusion in this area and that we could simplify it. So
we offered our suggested states of mind.

Sharp: Yes, the definitions.

Zirpoli: The definitions, and they have been or are still being considered by
the Congress.

Then there was the question of bars to prosecution. These related
to trials where the party was not convicted of a major felony, but
was convicted of a lesser included offense. Here we were confronted
with a statute of limitations on a misdemeanor, let's say, of a year,
and for a felony of five years. We didn't feel that the statute of
limitations could be deemed in a sense to be waived if the fellow was
tried for a felony and convicted of a misdemeanor. One of the reasons
we objected to that is that we were afraid, too, that there might be
a series of prosecutions truly based on the lesser offense, but the
greater offense would be charged. Then you would end up with a

152

Zirpoli: conviction of the lesser, and the statute may have run on the
lesser offense. We didn't approve of that. So we entered our
objections there.

Then there were questions with relation to offenses of general
applicability as we call them. They relate to criminal attempt,
criminal conspiracy, and criminal solicitation. We were particularly
objecting to criminal solicitation as creating a new area of criminal
conduct which we felt was adequately covered by conspiracy and
criminal attempt.

There were some problems with relation to what constitutes an
attempt. There were some problems of what constitutes an abandon
ment of attempt, or an abandonment of conspiracy. We tried to point
out, based on our experience, the various problems that arise in
these areas and we set them all forth in our report, which was a
very extensive report.

Then there were proposed amendments to the pretrial release
provisions of the code and we had our objections on the question of
pretrial because they were setting up an equivalent — not entirely the
equivalent — of another agency separate and apart from the probation
office. We didn't see any sense in a probation officer going over
to check you and spend time and effort to find out about you and
your family and everything else for the purpose of pre-release; then
have a head of a department to do that (who was going to be paid
under the act even more than the chief probation officer); and then
have the probation officers go through and do the same thing over
again.

Now, I am not saying that there is no justification for such
difference in approach because that difference has since been
accepted, and recently by the Congress, but at the time we were very
much concerned about that particular problem and we felt that our
experience didn't justify this setting up of another bureau so to
speak. I am still not satisfied that the circumstances as they exist
in the courts justify it.

We now have a pre-release provision, but I have never had any
difficulty in setting bail or conditions for release based on our
past experience. If I wanted a pretrial investigation by the
probation officer, I would order it. I did on occasion and I didn't
have to do it too often. But in all events, we have that now and
those were additional problems upon which we commented.

Now, these are all problems that have an impact on the court.

153

Zirpoli: Of course, another thing that we were interested in was this civil
commitment of mentally dangerous persons. Now there is a federal
statute that permits commitment if a person is unable to carry on
his defense or to confer and consult and cooperate with counsel, but
that is a temporary commitment and that is before trial. What we
were interested in was the enactment of a statute that would permit
the confinement of a person who was mentally ill and who was a danger
to himself or to a community.

We worked on that for a long time with the Department of Justice,
with the Public Health Service, for the purpose of working out a
procedure that would guarantee and provide all of the necessary due
process. To insure such due process we provided that after a trial
in which an insanity defense had been raised, and the defendant found
not guilty, we could nevertheless conduct a subsequent hearing with
appropriate medical and other expert testimony. If after such
hearing we found him to be a danger to himself or to the community,
he would be then confined in a federal institution.

Now, this was a difficult problem because there were constitu
tional questions involved in the due process area. Now, this is
somewhat reminiscent of [John] Hinckley.* Hinckley was confined, but
he was confined under the equivalent of a state law. He was confined
under a statute applicable to the District of Columbia because in our
state courts, we have civil commitments. We don't have the equivalent
of state civil commitment on the federal side. So whenever a person
is involved in the violation of a federal law, if he is found not
guilty by reason of insanity, there is nothing we can do. We can
only call it to the attention of the state authorities and suggest
that they take the appropriate action.

If the court were satisfied that a defendant was mentally
incompetent, it could commit him pending trial to the medical center
until he is competent to stand trial. However, there is a limit to
how long you can keep him there. If you get a report that he is okay,
you bring him back as soon as you get that report and the trial goes
on.

But sometimes you get a report that he is okay and he comes back
and he ±s really not okay, and he has been in custody for a year.
Sometimes they can be in custody for a longer period for mental
incompetency than they would be for the offense that they committed.

*This is a reference to an attempt by John Hinckley to assassinate
President Ronald Reagan in March 1981.

154

Zirpoli: So there the court might dismiss the case. The court must then turn
to the district attorney in the city and county and the chief of
police and say, "This guy is a danger to the community. He is your
responsibility now. You better institute civil proceedings against
him." But that isn't always done.

So to meet that problem (and we started this long before the new
code was suggested, Senate Bill 1), we submitted proposed legislation,
namely a revision of Chapter 313, Title 18, United States Code. There
have been some versions of it since submitted, primarily coming from
Congressman [Peter] Rodino . I forgot the number of his bill. We
reviewed his bill and pointed out some modifications, but his bill
basically tracked what we have suggested. However, such a statute
has still to be enacted.

Of course, there is a lot of discussion about enacting such a
statute now particularly in light of Hinckley. So this is a continuing
indication of the nature of the work of the committee.

Another problem that arose was the question of sentencing. The
new Criminal Code set forth various formulas for sentencing. They
were concerned, and the courts have always been concerned, with the
disparity in sentencing. It could be that a person in Michigan
commits the same offense as one in California and their basic social
positions are identical. Yet there may be a tremendous disparity in
sentence because if the law says you can be sentenced for not more
than five years, one judge could give one year and another judge
could give five. It could even happen within the district where you
have a number of judges.

So we have been trying to meet this question of disparity in
sentencing all along ourselves . What the legislation proposes is
that a [Sentencing] Commission be set up to fix guidelines. The
original bill provided that the commission would be composed primarily
of people appointed by the president. It would be a separate commission-
appointed three or four by the president and the rest by the Judicial
Conference. We felt that was wrong because this responsibility is
a judicial responsibility — sentencing. It is not a congressional one.
Congress can fix the terms of the sentences, but when it comes to the
exercise of discretion within the terms fixed by Congress, this is a
judicial function.

We thought that the setting up of a commission in the fashion
they suggested was wrong. It would create a separate commission with
people getting enormous salaries. Once they had set forth the guide
lines, after the first year or two, they would be getting these
enormous salaries with maybe little or nothing to do thereafter. We
concluded that the best way to handle it is to let that become the
responsibility of the Judicial Conference of the United States. That

155

Zirpoli: is still our position. That is something yet to be resolved because
they have not passed any legislation which constitutes a reform of
the Criminal Code despite the passage of all these years. So this
was the position that we wanted the Congress to know about.

Then there was the question of appellate review of sentences
based on this same question of disparity. The new Senate bill tries
to set forth guidelines for sentencings which would permit an appeal
by the defendant if he thought it was excessive and an appeal even by
the prosecutor if he thought it wasn't adequate within certain minimal
standards as provided by the Senate bill. I am referring generally
to the Senate bill [SB 1 in 1974] because that was the first bill
after the Brown Commission report.

We pointed out that we thought such appeals should be to a panel
of district judges and not to circuit judges because district judges
have a greater familiarity with sentencing and the sentencing process.
There were also questions as to what records should go before the court
of appeals. The way they had written it, apparently the appellate
review body would get the whole record of the case. It would be
ridiculous to give the appellate review body the transcript of a trial
that lasted for weeks or months when all that is involved is the
question of sentencing. So we made suggestions in that regard as to
what type of records should go up and that basically we would prefer
that it be a panel of district judges set up for that purpose. There
has been no legislation to date on it, but it is a matter still being
considered. These were the suggestions that we were making.

Then there was the question of the failure in the Senate version
and even the House version to include any provisions for the continua
tion of the Youth Corrections Act. We felt that that had to be
continued. There is the question of fixing sentences without parole.
We discussed that but that is not basically our responsibility. In
other words, whenever we made a suggestion, we would definitely say
to the Congress, "This is basically your responsibility; it is not
ours. However, these are problems that we foresee that we think you
ought to know about. That was as far as we would go.

Now, the other problem was the effective date of the new law. We
suggested that the effective date be three years after enactment (they
had it for one year after enactment). Basically, because there would
be a tremendous process of re-education and re-evaluation. Also,
because we discovered that in connection with the Speedy Trial Act
(and you discover it in connection even with the Bail Reform Act),
that with the passage of time, you find that there are some modifica
tions that ought to be made. If you had this three-year interval in
which to work those all out, I think the ends of justice ultimately
would be better served and the judiciary better served. So we made
suggestions of that character as well.

156

Zirpoli: Of course, I remember when we were first asked to submit a report to
the Judicial Conference of the United States on Senate Bill 1 and I
was speaking to the chief justice [Warren Burger] just before the
conference. I said, "Chief, this is going to mean a re-education of
the entire judiciary." He put his arm around my shoulders and said,
"That's all right for you young fellows." Well, I am at least three
years older than the chief justice, so I felt pretty good about it!
[laughs softly]

As I say, there I was discussing the work of the Committee on
the Administration of the Criminal Law. Now, more often than not,
when bills were referred to us we would make no recommendation
because we felt that they were not within the responsibility of the
judiciary and were basically the responsibilities of the Congress.
But when we did that, if we felt that there was some area that might
indicate an impact on the court, we would make whatever observations
we felt justified without making a recommendation.

These bills considered by the committee come to us either
because we initiate them and then submit them to the Congress or the
Senate, or the House refers them to us for our consideration and
comment. Such bills arise in many areas. There are quite a few
bills in the antitrust field on the criminal side that are presented.
If there are problems, we will see what the problems are and we
will then alert the Congress .

Now, on the Speedy Trial Act, there was a problem that arose in
connection with the criminal rules. We were not asked to comment on
the Speedy Trial Act by the Senate. It was Senator [Edward M. ] Kennedy
who started it. But after the Senate had approved it, we got an
invitation from the House and I went over to testify. We worked on
that line by line and in great detail and I indicated to them why I
thought it was not desirable to have this statute enacted.

The chairman of the Subcommittee [on Criminal Justice of the
House Judiciary Committee] said, "Why didn't you tell all of this to
the Senate?" I told him, "Because they didn't invite me." I was
speaking in vain, in a sense, because they had already agreed on what
their vote was going to be before I even addressed them! [laughs]
But anyway, I went into detail. On Senate Bill 1, I went into
considerable detail with Senator [Roman L.] Hruska when I was chair
man of the Committee of the Administration of the Criminal Law. He
gave me a good audience, I'll say that, and even though there were
only a couple of Senators there, he was the primary spokesman because
he was quite familiar with it, far more than most of the Senators.

To make a long story short, I suggested that they not pass this
Speedy Trial Act because we had already taken measures to take care
of that situation ourselves under Rule 50 (b), whereby each district

157

Zirpoli: worked out a plan for the handling of cases so as to expedite the
processing of criminal cases. This was done initially through the
Committee on {Federal] Criminal Rules. We had adopted a model plan
and submitted it to each of the districts subject to such variations
as they felt they would like to impose. For the most part, our plan
was pretty well adopted. It became pretty much the uniform plan.
Based on our experience, we were satisfied that we could accomplish
all of the objectives of the Speedy Trial Act.

Zirpoli: In fact, during the first three years, we felt that our approach

would work out even better than the Speedy Trial Act. Since our plan
had been in effect not quite eighteen months, we wanted Congress to
defer enactment of the Speedy Trial Act at least for thirty months
so that we could get the benefit of the effect of our plan.

We had a professor from Harvard who was using some statistics
that didn't have a valid base. Senator Kennedy was also using
statistics that didn't have a valid base.

Sharp: This is Ted Kennedy at this point, isn't it?

Zirpoli: Yes, Ted Kennedy, yes. Congress went ahead. After enacting the

Speedy Trial Act they had to make some changes. The only concession
we got from them was to extend the effective date of the act for an
additional six months. [laughter]

As I say though, we have since had problems, not too great, and
the courts were able to comply. We would have been able to do this
under our plan as effectively as they are doing it under the statute
as enacted — not that we had any quarrel with it. We agreed with
their objective. We thought it was right. We didn't necessarily
have any quarrel with their statute, but we said this is something
that we are in fact resolving.

It is this same question of the court in fact resolving
questions that caused us to raise objections on the Senate Bill 1,
which would reform the Criminal Code as it relates to certain types
of defenses such as insanity, entrapment. We didn't want to see
these defenses codified and frozen because these were areas of
development. It wasn't clear as to what definition should apply with
relation to entrapment. Is it the propensity of the individual to
engage in this conduct? Does that relieve the situation from
entrapment? On the question of insanity there were various types of
defenses. So we were saying to the Congress, "Now, in these areas,
don't enact legislation." I doubt that they will; I really doubt
that they will. I think they'll adhere to our suggested program,
that these defenses be left to the judiciary.

158

Zirpoli: We have these fairly well-established principles, and when you

rewrite those defenses and freeze them, then everybody comes in and
asks to have these defenses interpreted by the courts anew. As a
result, you have appeal after appeal trying to find out just what
Congress meant by this, and what they meant by the other. At least
we have enough precedents in these various areas to have a pretty
good idea of what constitutes entrapment today, what constitutes a
proper insanity defense. So there, by way of illustration, we were
objecting to any freezing of definitions.

Now, what I have just outlined to you is basically the most
important aspects of my work on the Committees on the Administration
of [the] Criminal Law and the Federal Criminal Rules.

I did work on the Habeas Corpus Committee, but on the Habeas
Corpus Committee we made some progress but not a great deal of reform.
The basic work on reform in that area has really been performed by
Judge [Ruggero J.] Aldisert (since I left the committee) of the Court
of Appeals of the Third Circuit, who is a very able and a scholarly
judge and a good administrator. He served with me on the Administra
tion of the Criminal Law.

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

The one thing we did do is we worked out a set of forms that we
tried to make applicable, that would be uniform, and would apply
throughout the country whereby the prisoners would have to set forth
the specific information that was needed to properly evaluate a
petition for writ of habeas corpus. He'd have to show that he
exhausted his state remedies and he would have to assert all of his
constitutional claims at one time. We didn't want the condition to
continue that was existing whereby the petitioner would come in with
one claim one day and it was denied, and then two or three months
later he would look around and find another, and then that was denied,

So a specific set of forms was set up for that purpose and a
set of forms was set up for what they call Section 1983 [of Title 18
U.S.C.] cases, which are based upon the denial of civil rights to
prisoners. As I say, we made progress in that regard in that we have
worked out some programs to facilitate our entire approach because of
the volume involved. As of today, and in recent years, the major
draftsman of procedures of that nature has been Judge Aldisert of
Pennsylvania .

Now, I think I have covered the committee work to what may be
deemed to be adequate for our purposes. I don't know.

Could I have a few questions?
Oh, yes.

159

Zirpoli: Oh, I might make one other observation before I leave on the

committee work. Now, I appeared before Congress on three separate
occasions, but as a result of my working on the committees. I found
toward the end that I was better off if I asked the representatives
of the Department of Justice to come, the representatives of the
House Judiciary [Committee] and the Senate Judiciary [Committee] to
come, and we would meet jointly. These were people who were doing
the spade work. Before my term ended I participated in three
sessions of this nature which I found to be very productive, because
we were discussing details together. These are the fellows that were
going to advise their congressmen or prepare memos for them. I felt
that this was by far the most effective way to work on legislation.

Sharp: There was a sense of some real give and take in these sessions then?

Zirpoli: Yes, this is a better method of operation. You just go before a

committee and you make a speech and that's it. Then maybe the staff
reviews it. But, if you work with the staff and you sit down with
them, you sit at a table, all around a big table, and discuss these
various items, and you work out details, it turns out a lot better.

Sharp: I sense that there must have been some tension between the Congress
and what it might have thought its purview was with respect to some
of the court procedures and some of the committees that you were on,
and perhaps it wasn't altogether clear what you thought you were
supposed to do and how Congress was reacting.

Zirpoli: No, I wouldn't quite say that because, after all, they refer a bill
to us and ask us for our comments and recommendations, and we would
make comments and recommendations. We would approve it or disapprove
it and give our reasons therefor. That's about all you can normally
expect. Of course, we would appear whenever requested to do so.
There have been appearances naturally before the Congress by members
of the Budget Committee of the conference when Congress must fix the
budget for the judiciary.

There would be members of the Probation Committee, if it related
to problems regarding probation. There were members of the >fagistrate's
Committee (which was separately created later when problems relating
to magistrates arose), and there was a committee on the Speedy Trial
Act that was later provided for. At first, the [Committee on the]
Administration of [the] Criminal Law handled problems relating to
magistrates. Between the two, between Criminal Law and Criminal
Rules — we handled just about everything that had to do with the
administration of criminal justice; that would be magistrates, and
the Criminal Justice Act, which provides for the representation of
indigent defendants.

Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

160

I might say on the question of representation of indigent defendants,
one of the great influencing factors as far as the creation of the
public defender's system is concerned was the plan of the United
States District Court of the Northern District of California. Now,
that plan was the forerunner if any particular plan was.

That was pretty early, wasn't it?

Oh, yes, I started that in '51 to '55.
Bar Association of San Francisco.

It was then taken over by the

All right, now I will see if I can answer any specific questions,

The Federal Magistrates Act

Sharp: I had a few questions about the Federal Magistrates Act. I was looking
at bits and pieces of the act as I found them in the 1970 revisions
of the Criminal Code. It seemed to me that the purpose of the
Magistrates Act was to take a bit of the burden off of the district
court. Is that right?

Zirpoli: That's right. It was definitely to take a bit of the burden off of
the district court, and to handle all of those petty offenses, of
course, which were previously handled by United States commissioners.
So they continued the work of the commissioners. Then they were given
the title of magistrate in order that they might carry on other
functions that are very time consuming. For instance, even in civil
litigation matters pertaining to discovery, there is no reason why the
court should have to spend its time reviewing interrogatories or
documents and so forth, when they can be referred to a magistrate, by
way of illustration, who then makes the review or makes the tentative
rulings, which the parties can agree shall be binding or which shall
be subject to review by the district judge or shall constitute only
recommendations to him.

Now, to the degree that it is helpful depends upon the judge.

Also, cases can be tried before the magistrate; you can have a
jury trial before the magistrate under circumstances in which he
otherwise would not have jurisdiction if the parties agree to it.

Certain extradition matters used to be handled by the court and
now they are handled by the magistrate. Certain types of removal are
handled by the magistrate, so that a lot of problems of this character
can be taken from the court and thus relieve the court.

Of course, it was necessary for changes of this nature because
of the continuously expanding federal jurisdiction and a continuing
increase in the complicated nature of the cases that are being
presented to the court, and have been for the last ten years, so to speak.

161

Sharp: With the Federal Magistrates Act, I had seen a note in one of the

testimonies that you had given that referred to the use of the Youth
Corrections Act by the magistrates.* It seemed to be somewhat of a
problem, a controversy about the magistrates —

Zirpoli: No, it was not necessarily a problem. We merely wanted to be sure

that the magistrate had the power to sentence under the Youth Correc
tions Act, and expunge the record if the circumstances justified it,
and they hadn't made provision for it.

We just wanted to make sure that this provision was really in
the new Senate bill. When they were talking about magistrates, they
had not made that provision. There was no mention of situations, for
instance, of revocation of probation. These are little gaps, that's
all, that I was interested in and we were interested in filling.

Modernizing the Rules

Sharp: In reading through the draft of the changes in 1970, I saw lots of

references to making the rules more in line with pretty recent district
court decisions, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, some state court
decisions, as well as new American Bar Association standards relating
to pretrial procedures. It looked like there was a tremendous effort
at modernizing the Criminal Code.

Zirpoli: The effort of modernizing goes back to 1963 and the primary author
there was Judge [William T.] Sweigert. He revised all of the local
rules to do just exactly that — to expand discovery. He did a great
job. He was the draftsman. The other members of the committee were
myself and Judge [Albert C. Wollenberg, Sr.], but Judge Sweigert did
the work and he did a tremendous job, which is evident if you pick
up his original draft of the rules and compare them with the rules
today. You will find that his rules are the basis for everything
that we have today. There have been changes, most of them being
promulgated through the work of the rules committee headed now by
Judge William W Schwarzer.

*This is a reference to "Summary of statement of Senior District Judge
Alfonso J. Zirpoli concerning the Criminal Code Reform Act of 1978,
S. 1437 and H.R. 6869, before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice
of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives,"
April 10, 1978. This issue also came up in 1972.

162

Sharp: I guess it takes a special kind of insight to be able to sense what
the rules should be, and how the rules should be different from the
way they were, as Judge Sweigert was doing this whole time.

Zirpoli: That was the result of experience, of his experiences in court. He
found that if we could have proper pretrial, by way of illustration,
you could narrow the issues; you could get a stipulation of the facts
if they were not in dispute; you could have all of your exhibits
prepared in advance; you would know in advance who your witnesses are.
If they were experts, you had to indicate, for instance, the nature
of their testimony. This way you wouldn't spend a tremendous amount
of time trying to find out about this expert. They would have to tell
you what he was going to testify to and if you wanted to depose him,
you would know what to depose him about. Otherwise, you could carry
on a deposition with him that would go on for several days, whereas
an hour or two hours might have done the trick.

He saw all of these and worked out these procedures. One of
the significant procedures, of course, is pretrial. Then there were
questions of status conferences. I mean if a case is filed and nothing
has been done for three months, somebody has got to do something to
get this case moving. So you call what is known as a status con
ference. I may have commented on this before.

Sharp : No .

Zirpoli: This is this concept that when the case is in the lawyer's office, it
is his business and the client's business. The day he moves it into
court, it becomes the court's business. The court has the responsi
bility of policing it and seeing that it moves and then to see also
that the parties do not indulge in tactics that are going to be
abusive in character. That is the whole purpose of this pretrial
procedure and the rules enacted in connection therewith.

Sharp: The whole time that you were working to put together the 1970 draft of
the rules, was it a matter of your portioning out the work among the
judges on the committee?

Zirpoli: Oh, no. Our committee had a reporter. Professor [Frank J.] Remington
was the basic reporter of our committee. We would discuss everything
at these meetings and submit memos . Based upon the conclusions we
would reach, he would submit to us suggestions with relation to the
rules, so that we had someone who was working as a draftsman there.
If I had to do all of that, as well as all of my trial work, [laughs]
it would be too much.

Sharp: Was it a matter of you as the committee of the judges drawing on all
of your experience and saying —

163

Zirpoli: The Criminal Rules Committee [of the Judicial Conference] is composed
of judges, lawyers, and professors (because you can appoint persons
other than judges to these committees), so that we had the benefit
of the three areas of the law.*

On the Administration of the Criminal Law, the committee
consisted of one judge from each of the eleven circuits (now twelve)
and no lawyers — that was another matter — and there I really had to
work pretty hard because I didn't have a reporter. I had a represen
tative of the Administrative Office [of the Courts], general counsel,
Mr. Carl Imlay, who was of tremendous help to me, but that was some
thing that I had to do quite a bit of work on.

Sharp: Did you share with Judge Sweigert some of these things that were going
on in the Committee on the Federal Criminal Rules?

Zirpoli: No, other than conversation. I mean there was no true consultation
in that sense. The committee was big enough that we had a reporter,
but what we did, and which would apply to it, we would make a report
to the judicial conference for the Ninth Circuit. So the judges would
get a copy of our report.

As far as, let's say, the federal criminal rules are concerned,
those rules were distributed throughout the country before they were
adopted. We were generally allowed as much as eighteen months for
comment from judges and lawyers. We didn't get as many as you would
expect. That was the surprising thing. There weren't too many people
that really took the trouble to go through it and comment. Each judge
got it and he had the privilege of commenting.

Sharp: Did Judge Sweigert comment to you?
Zirpoli: [laughs] I can't recall at the moment.

Sharp: I just thought that it was something that he was interested in already,
so he might have.

Zirpoli: — Although Judge Sweigert was a greater stickler on the civil rules
than he was the criminal.

Sharp: Why is that, do you think?

Zirpoli: Oh, it is pretty hard to say. I guess because under the civil rules
the pretrial was far more significant. The criminal cases do not
require a great deal of pretrial. The basic pretrial problems in

*See lists on p. 149a.

164

Zirpoli: criminal cases are the right of the defendant to any statement that

he had made, or the right to copies of statements of witnesses, under
what is known as Section 3500 of Title 18; or the obligation of
informing of an alibi defense if requested by the U.S. attorney; and
things of that character. So the rules were not quite as significant.

Sharp: There is the theory or issue of the idea of judicial rule making. I
think the federal criminal rules were originally written in about
1944. The civil rules preceded it by about ten years.

Zirpoli: That's an objection that Justice [William 0.] Douglas made.

Sharp: But the feeling that maybe it shouldn't be the judges and these
committees that are sitting around [writing new rules].

Zirpoli: That's a good subject for argument. As far as I am concerned, I

think it is appropriate that the Judicial Conference should be the
basic party responsible therefor. Now Congress instead of just
adopting our suggested rules or failing to act on them within a
specified period of time, thereby making them law, has been going
into the proposed rules in greater detail.

So it is becoming more of a case of congressional acts, so to
speak, or ultimate congressional responsibility to a greater degree
than it was before. I'm not so sure that that's necessarily good
because when they get it, it takes them too damn long to work it out.

Sharp: That's probably the major —

Zirpoli: This has been the problem that arises with the new evidence code, for
instance. So the problems do arise on that score. But you can argue
basically on congressional responsibility.

Sharp: I had a few additional questions on the Administration of the Criminal
Law Committee. One of the early reports that I saw was 1970, which
was when Judge [George C.] Edwards [Jr.] was still the chair. There
were extensive comments about the committee's feelings about Senate
Bill 30 which related to the control of organized crime in the United
States . Was that something that you worked on?

Zirpoli: Yes, but eventually it resulted in some forms of congressional enact
ment. But the big bill, as originally presented, wasn't getting
anywhere and we felt that they were invoking provisions that weren't
necessary and they were having problems in the area of protective
custody. We had some doubt about the constitutionality of it because
the bill was extending protective custody beyond questions involving
homicide or treason or something of this character. The bill would
also create some crime commissions that we felt were not going to be
of any particular service and that the bill would create problems,
which we also felt would just prolong litigation and just make it
a lot harder.

165

Zirpoli: So I don't recall the specific details and if you look at the

report, the report won't tell you very much — I mean if you look at
the report of the Judicial Conference — because it merely refers to
Chapter X or Chapter XI and who knows what Chapter X or Chapter XI
said? Looking at a report of that nature wouldn't be very helpful
or significant. [pauses to go through papers]

There were provisions. There were immunity provisions. There
were provisions for housing, housing facilities for people who
committed certain crimes, and there were problems of protective
custody, special provisions for dangerous offenders. [pause] We
didn't think there ought to be special statutes for special things.
If there were sentencing provisions, they ought to be included in
the overall sentencing provisions.

These were some of the problems that arose. There were problems
with relation to the granting of immunity to witnesses under certain
circumstances. There were problems that arose with relation to the
wiretapping. There were problems in relation to the reforming of
the grand jury.

There were problems with relation to the secrecy of testimony
of witnesses before the grand jury. The way the law is written now,
if I appear before the grand jury, there is nothing to stop me from
going out and telling anybody what I said to the grand jury. Though
grand jury proceedings are secret and may not be disclosed, this
does not apply to a witness before the grand jury.

These were all problems to which we gave consideration. Some of
the areas were strictly matters for the Congress and not for the
judiciary and we would just so state to Congress.

Now, there were a number of bills of that nature that came up,
including some bills that came up with relation to a reform of
antitrust. There was a period there when there was going to be a big
crackdown on antitrust and permissibility of greater class actions on
the part of users.

Of course, they are all wonderful things, but the important
thing is to say what will the impact be on the courts . If you do
this, you say, "Well, that's fine, we are protecting the consumer."
No one has stopped to consider what the ultimate impact on the court
would be or the ultimate cost would be. Then you might find yourself
in trouble. That's where the references to [the Judicial] Conference
always served a fairly useful purpose because we could at least tell
them what the impact on the court would be.

Sharp: With respect to the Judicial Conference, I wonder if you think there
might be some issues that the Judicial Conference doesn't deal with
right now that ideally it might deal with?

166

Zirpoli: In my view?
Sharp: Yes.

Zirpoli: I don't know that they really overlook very much. Of course, right

now the Judicial Conference of the United States is greatly concerned
about the bankruptcy courts and the result of the Supreme Court
decision which said that there were basic functions that the bank
ruptcy judge could not perform because he was not an Article III
judge.

Now, that is the most immediate problem as it affects the courts.
We are getting the effects of that because there are a number of
people in the bankruptcy proceedings now who are asking for different
types of orders, restraining orders, and things of that character.
They won't accept rulings from the bankruptcy judge.

But here we do have some very, very serious problems that have to
be resolved and Congress may resolve them by just making them Article
III judges and that ends it.

Zirpoli: Pending legislation we have adopted a procedure for reference of
bankruptcy matters to the bankruptcy judge as a sort of special
master. The plan adopted by a general court order has been adopted
throughout the circuit. The circuit made that a rule and it was
adopted throughout the circuit. We get this exchange from time to
time. We find out how other courts handle their business. That is
one of the purposes of the Ninth Circuit judicial conference each
year. You go to a conference and you learn quite a bit from the
other judges and the innovations that arise.

A great example of the innovations that arise was the innovation
that brought about the creation of the multidistrict panel and the
transferring of multidistrict cases to a single judge. These were
all part of the innovative process. Some people have innovative
processes that you might not like. There is one on the method of
settlement that they have that a lot of judges are talking about
favorably where they have the equivalent of a mini-trial, and have
the jury give a preliminary verdict. Then the case is settled based
on that. That's a form that I don't approve because I think I have
a better procedure for settling cases, but this is an innovation that
some people might like very much and adopt.

Sharp: The way you talk about the work of the judges and the work of the
districts, it is very individualized.

Zirpoli: Now, what do you mean by individualized?

167

Sharp: Each of the district judges seems to have his or her own way of

working in the courtroom. You spent some time telling me about your
ways of working in the courtroom.

Zirpoli: Oh, working in the courtroom it is true, but we do have some general
rules. We have our own Rules Committee. Judge Schwarzer is chairman
of the Rules Committee and we review our rules every year or two years
and update them. That goes back to Judge Sweigert and his time. But
you have a committee there that represents the court. The matter is
then discussed at a judges' meeting and the judges all have their
input in it. Then they adopt a rule that it is adopted after every
judge has had an opportunity to comment on it and give us the benefit
of his or her input, so there is enough exchange really.

It's individualized in the sense that generally the chairman of
the committee is doing the spade work and the hard work, but he is
getting suggestions from other judges from time to time and, of
course, here we have the benefit of the common lunch room and we can
discuss problems every day if we wish. But we do meet approximately
once every month with a full calendar of matters under discussion.

Sharp: These would vary from procedural rules to what other sorts of topics
on the calendar?

Zirpoli: To illustrate some of the things discussed at a lunch meeting, if a
new statute is enacted and we want to know what the effect of it is
and the impact on the court, we have the most knowledgeable person
with relation to that problem come to lunch and to tell us about it.

Sentencing and the Sentencing Commission

Sharp: Would there also be some discussion of individual cases and how
judges might be handling them?

Zirpoli: Oh, not quite that much on individual cases. Sometimes you might

confer with another judge on the sentencing problems, if you feel you
have one. Of course, they have a plan in some districts where they
do just that; three judges will confer. I have the responsibility
of sentencing, but I will confer with two others and get their views
before I sentence. But we don't do that very often here. Sometimes
a judge will confer. He is a little concerned about what would the
reaction be to this kind of a situation and he'll come and say, "What
do you think about it?"

168

Sharp: You were talking about the Sentencing Commission and the opposition
of the Committee [on the Administration of the Criminal Law] to the
idea of a sentencing commission.*

Zirpoli: We're not opposing a commission; we're opposing the idea of a

commission as a separate, independent body and as a body that receives
its responsibility primarily from the executive. The executive has
the obligation of enforcing, not sentencing. Sentencing is the
function of the court.

Instead of calling it a commission, we could say, "Let the
conference set up a committee." You don't have to hire new people or
pay new people. The conference can set forth their rules and guide
lines for sentencing, the factors to be considered before imposing
sentence.

Now, those are not going to change from day to day and, as I say,
we just don't want to create a commission for which there is no actual
need.

Sharp: But it isn't a resistance on the part of the committee for uniformity?

Zirpoli: Oh, no; oh, no. We believe in uniformity. We are as desperately

trying to do that as anyone. In our courts, in order to help bring
about uniformity, we used to get reports on every sentence, a factual
background, which is distributed to the judges every month for review.

This would be particularly significant, let's say, in the area
of tax evasion or in the days of the draft resistance. You wouldn't
want one judge sending the fellow to jail for five years, and another
one putting him on probation or give him six months or two years. We
would get all of these reports and we'd look at them and we'd see how
our court judges were reacting so we could have a better understanding
and bring about some greater uniformity.

Uniformity is wonderful and I believe in it, but you can only go
so far because it isn't that often that two cases are really alike.
There are different circumstances in relation to each person's life.
I mean the factors that prompted him to commit the crime, his respon
sibility, his background, his education, the temptations that were
put in his way, whether he is remorseful. You have to look at all of
these various factors; whether there was violence involved or not
involved.

*Report of the Committee on the Administration of the Criminal Law,
contained in Report of the Proceedings of the Judicial Conference of
the United States, 1976.

169

Zirpoli:
Sharp :

One of the functions of the commission would be to set forth the
various criteria upon which to ultimately predicate a sentence.

But that would be, you think, better housed within the Judicial
Conference as opposed to a separate entity?

Yes.

I saw it mentioned in your report, the report on Senate Bills 2698
and 2699 (2699 was the Sentencing Commission; 2698 was the mandatory
minimum sentence bill), that your committee sought the counsel of
the Probation Committee of the Judicial Conference, of which Judge
Wollenberg, of course, was a member. I wonder if there was this sort
of cross-exchange —

Zirpoli: What happened, when you get into a situation of that character, Judge
Wollenberg would be invited to our committee on the Administration of
the Criminal Law, and he would invite me to his committee. We would
be exchanging views and ultimately come out on some that we were in
a sense both agreed upon. We wouldn't come out with a conflict.

Sharp: No, I meant sort of a cross-fertilization of ideas.
Zirpoli: Oh, yes.

Sharp: I wasn't sure how independently these various committees within the
Judicial Conference worked.

Zirpoli: They're independent but, for instance, there is a member of the

[Criminal] Rules Committee who is also serving on the Administration
of the Criminal Law Committee. He is the liaison judge for the two
committees. I was serving in that capacity until I became chairman
of the Administration of the Criminal Law Committee. I was liaison
member serving on both committees.

Sharp: That's important to have.

Let's see if I can just wind this up with a few other questions.
I did wonder about the role of the [U.S.] attorney general in the
Judicial Conference and his office, and how much he might have been
involved.

Zirpoli: The attorney general, a representative of the attorney general, sits
on the Federal Criminal Rules Committee and we listen to his views.
He may express them strongly and we may disagree. If we disagree, we
say so. If he wants to insert a dissent, we add his dissent. That's
happened more than once .

Sharp: I'm sure! Are there some specific kinds of dissent that the attorney
general's representative might sort of automatically have?

170

Zirpoli: The attorney general may have had from time to time some views about
the national security and wiretapping that might not be in conformity
with the views of the judiciary, so you hear his views. But the
subject is controlled by the judiciary. You can wiretap under certain
circumstances, an emergency, but you have to make a report within
forty-eight hours (I've forgotten the time limit now) to the special
committee that has been set up in the judiciary, or you go to them
in advance and get authority to conduct certain types of domestic
surveillance in the way of wiretaps or otherwise.

It is the same way with wiretapping for racketeering. You go to
court and get an order first. That's been a subject of some debate
and disagreement between the attorney general's office and the
judiciary.

Of course, if you go back far enough, if you go back fifty years,
why, they conducted wiretapping! [laughs]

Sharp: That's right, you were telling me about some of that.
Zirpoli: Those were practices that are not proper.

Sharp: That's just about all of the questions that I have about the Judicial
Conference.

171

VII THE NORTHERN DISTRICT COURT

Friendship and Service with William T. Sweigert

Sharp: If you're out of steam then we won't go on, but I had two other kinds
of questions. I wonder if you might like to make some notes about
Judge Sweigert and some sorts of things you might recall about him
and his approach to judging.

Zirpoli: Did you see the story in The Recorder?
Sharp: No, I didn't see that.

Zirpoli: You ought to get the story in The Recorder. See if you can get a

copy of it downstairs. I have forgotten which day it was, Thursday
or Friday of last week.* I adjourned court in tribute to the memory
of Judge Sweigert. That's my comment in open court. [gives inter
viewer comments]**

I might say that Judge Sweigert was beautifully organized and
well disciplined, and I would repeat everything that I said in court
as far as that goes. He was a very warm and friendly person. He was
a wonderful man to be with at lunch time. He could tell stories in
the style that few people could do and they all had a moral to them,
or if he told a joke it was really something that was funny and had
a point to it. He had some strong views and moral convictions and he
stood by them. I have rarely seen him become aroused, but I also
recall one occasion in which he did and there was every justification
in the world for it. This was in a [Ninth Circuit] judicial conference —

*An obituary on Judge Sweigert appeared in The Recorder, 17 February
1983.

**Judge Zirpoli 's comments on Judge Sweigert appear on p. 171a.

171a

STATEMENT OF SENIOR JUDGE ALFONSO J. ZIRPOLI:

HAVING BEEN PRIVILEGED TO ENJOY A CLOSE PERSONAL
AND PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR BELOVED SENIOR
JUDGE WILLIAM T. SWEIGERT THROUGHOUT THE GREATER PORTION
OF HIS PROFESSIONAL LIFE, WHICH COVERS A SPAN OF SIXTY
YEARS OF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AS A LAWYER, TEACHER,
DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL. EXECUTIVE SECRETARY TO GOVERNOR
EARL WARREN, AND STATE AND FEDERAL JUDGE, IT IS WITH
GREAT SORROW THAT I LEARNED AND MUST PAINFULLY ACCEPT
THE FACT THAT HE WILL NO LONGER TAKE HIS PLACE WITH
US ON THIS COURT.

WE BOW IN REVERENCE AND TRIBUTE TO THIS WARM AND
FRIENDLY GENTLEMAN WHOSE STRENGTH OF CHARACTER, IMPECCABLE
LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP AND WISDOM, LACED WITH COMMON SENSE,
ENABLED HIM TO BRING TO THIS COURT NOT ONLY A PROFOUND
UNDERSTANDING OF THE LAW, BUT A DEEP AND ABIDING SENSE
OF THE NATURE OF HIS RESPONSIBILITY IN THE ADMINISTRATION
OF JUSTICE, WHICH HE CONSCIENTIOUSLY DISCHARGED WITH
GREAT INDUSTRY, COURAGE AND COMPASSION AND WITHOUT FEAR
OR FAVOR.

HE WAS A TRULY GREAT JUDGE, WHO POSSESSED AN
INHERENT CAPACITY "TO HEAR COURTEOUSLY, TO ANSWER
WISELY, TO CONSIDER SOBERLY AND DECIDE IMPARTIALLY."

WHILE HIS LOSS MEANS SO MUCH TO US AND TO THE ERA
HE SYMBOLIZED AND THE LEGACY HE LEFT, WE MOURN HIM AS
A FRIEND AND EXPRESS OUR DEEPEST SYMPATHY TO HIS WIDOW,
VIRGINIA. AND TO ALL THE MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY.

THERE IS COMFORT IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT HE LIVED
A FULL AND USEFUL LIFE, A LIFE THAT MADE ALL WHO CAME
INTO CONTACT WITH HIM, AND IN PARTICULAR THIS COURT
AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE, THE BETTER BECAUSE
HE PASSED OUR WAY.

WHEN THIS COURT ADJOURNS TODAY, IT WILL DO SO IN
RESPECTFUL TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE SENIOR
JUDGE WILLIAM T. SWEIGERT.

172

Zirpoli: which related to whether or not we should name Judge Wollenberg as

our district representative on the Judicial Conference of the United
States. A judge in the Southern District was objecting and made
some comments that caused Judge Sweigert to rise to his feet and
really let him have it. That's the only time I ever saw him get
truly angry, by way of illustration.

He could be critical in court at times but he did it in such a
way that it was beautiful. He never had an iota of malice in any
thing he ever did or ever said. So he was about as ideal a gentleman
as you can find. I'm not going to describe the ideal gentleman, but
if you give me all of the virtues of an ideal gentleman, I am sure
he would fit them all.

He was well read. That's why he was such an interesting person
at the lunch table. No matter what the subject was, he was well read.
He had a great influence on Earl Warren as governor, probably a
greater influence on Earl Warren than any other man that I could think
of.*

Sharp: Why was that possible, do you think, that he had such a great influence?

Zirpoli: Earl Warren had named him deputy attorney general [of California] .
He served there for eight years. Then he named him his executive
secretary. Earl Warren learned to trust him, lean on him, and he
valued his counsel and his advice. If anybody did anything to
convert Earl Warren to the liberal that he eventually became, I would
say it was Judge Sweigert.

Sharp: In terms of Judge Sweigert being a judge, how do you think he was
different than you are, for example, in the courtroom?

Zirpoli: I would say that his cultural background is better than mine, for
one thing. His approach is better than mine in that he is better
organized than I am. He kept copious notes, which I don't do. I rely
on the transcript. I don't know whether I procrastinate more than he
did or not. I'm not going to say. I don't like to say that I pro
crastinate at all. [laughs] But I'll say one thing, that he was
very industrious and he got his work out on time, in plenty of time.

*A lengthy oral history interview was conducted in 1972 with Judge
Sweigert, entitled, "William T. Sweigert: Democrat, Friend, and
Advisor to Earl Warren," as part of the Earl Warren Era oral history
project. The interview transcript is in process.

173

Zirpoli: You have to evaluate judges in different periods of their life. If
you want to evaluate Judge Sweigert, you don't evaluate him by the
last year of his life. You have to evaluate him by the preceding
years because, having died of cancer, it's quite obvious that in the
last years, particularly the last six or seven months, he was going
downhill and naturally was a different person. He was more quiet
at the lunch table. He didn't get the same pleasure of telling
stories that he used to get. It would be hard to get him to repeat
a story in the last months, whereas before he used to relish in
telling stories. A new judge would arrive and he wouldn't want the
judge to hear it, that's all. [pause]

Courtroom Comments: Lawyers' Styles and Juries

Sharp: I have a few questions that spin off from last time when we were
talking about antitrust and some other material.

I wondered if you see now that there are differences in
attorneys' styles depending on the kind of cases that are at hand?

Zirpoli: Naturally there are. There are differences in style that relate to
the inherent talents and the benefits of thorough preparation. If
you are an inherently great trial lawyer with a tremendous feel for
the courtroom, there are certain types of cases that you may try with
great ease or facility.

If, on the other hand, you have a case that requires tremendous
preparation and detail, all of these inherent qualities are not going
to help you because you are going to have to engage in that preparation
and detail .

So, when you get into the area of antitrust, personality is
meaningful but far more meaningful is preparation and understanding
of the detail, organization. You get into antitrust litigation and
you have to have your case well organized and prepared so that every
thing follows in its logical order.

If you have a one-day or a short two-day trial, your personality
can be far more significant than it can be in a long trial.

One basic example of the differences were Johnny Taaffe and
Harold Faulkner, the two great criminal trial lawyers. Faulkner's
greatness was based more on the thoroughness of his preparation.
Johnny Taaffe, not that he wasn't thorough and well prepared, had a
little flair about him, an aura about him, that was a little different,
He could say something that if another lawyer said it, it would sound

174

Zirpoli: like corn, but if he said it, it was fine. For instance, if he said,
"the temples of justice will crumble," an expression of that charac
ter, it was fine, it was okay.

So there are differences, but of course there is nothing to
compare with preparation and thorough knowledge.

Sharp: Is the preparation always obvious?
Zirpoli: Oh, yes, I would say yes, it's obvious.

Sharp: Maybe this is part of your comparison and contrast of Mr. Faulkner

and Mr. Taaffe, but have there been changes over the years in the way
lawyers approach their cases?

Zirpoli: Their approaches may differ, but sometimes I comment to the lawyers

about that. My favorite comments come from my experience in part and
in part from Piero Calamandrei, who was a noted Italian jurist. His
little book, Eulogy of Judges, is full of gems. When a lawyer is
getting too loud or something, I might give him a quote from Calamandrei
to tell him that he shouldn't create such a glare when indirect
lighting is far more effective! [laughter]

There are some of those differences. You don't try to comment.
You have to be careful about commenting to lawyers. If a lawyer wants
to come in and he is a new young lawyer and he wants to get the judge's
reaction, fine, I am glad to give it to him. It's a good idea. But
you certainly can't be critical of a lawyer in court unless he gets
out of line. Then you have to call him on it because if he is getting
out of line before the jury, you can't have the jury walk out of that
courtroom with a misinterpretation of the law, or a misstatement of
fact.

Sharp: A couple of times you have mentioned your active role in questioning
the witnesses and others during a trial. How does an attorney
accomodate this?

Zirpoli: Oh, sometimes he accomodates, sometimes he goes out in the courtroom
and says, "The son of a gun, he spoiled my cross-examination!"
[laughter]

Sharp: Does everybody know that about you?

Zirpoli: Oh, I think that is pretty well known.

Sharp: Is that a good thing? Is it perceived as a good thing?

Zirpoli: Oh, probably in the long run it is. I may go too far though and that
is because of my nature and my inability to restrain myself at times.
But I am not tough on lawyers . I am considered a fairly easygoing

175

Zirpoli:

Sharp:

Zirpoli;

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:
Sharp:
Zirpoli:

judge and I am not a stickler for strict adherence to the rules. If
I can dispose of a matter and the lawyers are all there, I am not
going to worry about whether they complied with all of the required
rules or not. Now, some other judges look at it entirely differently.
They just won't bother to listen to you unless you comply with the
rules .

Now, what about juries? Have you seen a lot of changes in juries,
and how they deal with cases in the years that you have been on the
bench?

It depends upon how far back you want to go. If you go back forty or
fifty years, the probability of convictions were far greater than they
are today, for instance, in a criminal case. Once in a while, jurors
are not truthful. They will tell you that they have no particular
prejudice or bias. Then you end up with a jury hung eleven to one
and you find that someone is opposed to the Vietnam war, for instance,
[and] he wasn't going to find anyone guilty of draft evasion under
any circumstance. I am using this as an extreme example but it illus
trates what I have in mind.

But on the whole, the jury system works out very well. If the
jury pays attention, they are going to do pretty well. They get a
definition of a reasonable doubt from the judge and if the facts
create a reasonable doubt in their mind, they're not supposed to
return a verdict of guilty. Therefore, even though you might not
agree with the jury's verdict, it must be accepted without comment.

Now, the composition of juries has changed considerably since you were
first an attorney —

Oh, yes, now it's representative because it is basically taken from
the voter registration lists. In the old days, you go back at least
fifty years and you find that the jury was composed of members of the
Olympic Club, the Bohemian Club, the Pacific Union Club, the clubs
here on Van Ness Avenue, and names suggested by the various assistant
U.S. attorneys. People would suggest names to the clerks and they
would throw all of those names in the jury wheel. It was an entirely
different jury in my view. It certainly was not representative. In
the early days, women weren't on the jury anyway. Now there are more
women on the jury than men.

That's because of work situations?

Primarily.

Does that seem a better way to go?

Well, it's at least a fair way to go, definitely.

176

Sharp: Last time we talked about the issue of the expertise of the judge.
What about the issue of the expertise of the jury? I saw a note
that suggested that sometimes a case can get over the collective
heads of the jury.

Zirpoli: That's a problem. That's a problem of an antitrust case. There are
certain types of litigation that really don't lend themselves to a
jury trial. I think a complicated antitrust case would not lend
itself to a jury trial. I had proposed legislation years ago that
would remove this type of litigation from the right to a jury trial.

Sharp: How far did that get?

Zirpoli: It didn't get very far. They're still talking about how to resolve

that. There have been several decisions on this question and I don't
know what the [U.S.] Supreme Court will ultimately find, if there is
a situation that is too much for a jury. If you get into very technical
areas, you may find that very difficult. There could be difficulty
even in a patent suit, an antitrust suit. It could be very difficult
in very complicated business transactions, with corporations and
numerous parties involved. You try to resolve these by preparing
glossaries for the jury. Every effort is made to facilitate the
work of the jury but, as I say, there are situations that could very
well be well over their head.

Sharp: Are there advantages and weaknesses as well in judges rather than
attorneys conducting a preliminary examination for the prospective
juror?

Zirpoli: Oh, I am 100 percent in favor of the procedure that we employ. The
judge asks the question in such a fashion as not to create any
innuendoes. In other words, the judge would inquire as to the back
ground of the jurors. He is not going to start probing a juror's
mind by offering a question that suggests in its wording how he is
supposed to react.

Sharp: The judge is as the neutral one?

Zirpoli: As far as I'm concerned, I never had any problem on it. I interrogate
the prospective jurors as thoroughly as I can. When I finish, I ask,
"Are there any questions that counsel wishes to ask?" Rarely do they
ask any questions or they ask, "I didn't hear what she said her
husband did," or would she elaborate on a particular point. That's
about all that's ever happened in all the years I have been sitting
on jury cases.

You see, in the state courts picking a jury in some criminal cases
will take weeks .

177

Zirpoli: Here you can pick a jury in an hour or two hours. For a very

complicated case it may take you one or two days at the most, par
ticularly if it is a case that has received much public notoreity
and is of such a character that you feel you should interrogate the
jurors individually. Then it takes a little more time, but you can
see the tremendous difference. There is still much activity on the
part of some lawyers who want greater participation and on the part
of legislatures who now are considering the federal system because
they see the enormous savings of time and expense.

Sharp: So that is something that might end up legislative one way or the
other.

Zirpoli: Yes, there is a bill before Congress that would permit attorney

participation. So far it has never been enacted. On the other hand,
there is now suggested legislation on the state side to follow or
adopt the federal system. But we have it because our rule says that
the court may permit counsel to participate — we don't do it very often
but we may. Some judges do to a limited degree.

Sharp: That is all the questions that I had for today. Are there some things
that we haven't covered that you thought we should on these topics?

Zirpoli: Well, not based on your letter. We have done fairly well. I

undoubtedly will think of a lot of things later. It's just like a
gentleman does when he makes a speech at a big dinner when he is
driving on his way home. He thinks of all of the nice things he
could have said, or the jokes or stories he could have told.

Conscientious Objection and Selective Conscientious Objection:
U.S. v. McFadden and Other Cases

Sharp: I thought that we might start by talking some about the issues that

were raised in the four cases — the Stauf fer, the Browning, the Miller,
and the Goodwin.* They all involved men who had filed for conscientious

*The complete citations for these cases are Private Michael J. Stauf fer
v. Melvin Laird, Secretary of Defense, et al . , 334 F. Supp. 571 (1971);
James Andrew Miller v. Melvin Laird, as Secretary of Defense, et al . ,
318 F. Supp. 1401 (1970); Private Willard Goodwin, II v. Melvin Laird,
etc., et al., 317 F. Supp. 687 (1970); Robert Pack Browning v. Melvin
Laird, etc., et al.. 323 F. Supp. 661 (1971).

178

Sharp: objector status and for withdrawal from the army, but they were

actually habeas corpus cases when they came to you. At the point
that the cases came to you, they had all been denied the CO classifi
cation.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: One of the things that I noticed first about the cases is that they
show a bit about the process that the men had to go through while
they were in the army, talking to the chaplain, talking to the
hearing officer, and then being denied by the Conscientious Objection
Review Board, which was an army board. There was quite a bit of
disagreement among the different army personnel . In some cases , the
chaplain and the hearing officer said, "Okay, yes, this man should be
a CO," but then the board came in and decided the other way.

Zirpoli: Well, basically, of course, I concluded that they had not applied

proper standards. Once the man indicates that this was his belief,
that in effect he is kind of a true conscientious objector, he doesn't
have to be a pacifist, but he might say, "I'm willing if we are
invaded, and we're placed in jeopardy ourselves, then whatever is
necessary to repel the invasion or the jeopardy that the individual
is put in is permissible, but not as an active act on my part." I
felt that those were proper objections. I also concluded in most
instances that in my view the military boards had not applied the
proper standards.

I had a little difficulty later. The head of Selective Service
was critical of my activity and that of Judge [Robert H.] Peckham's,
but they later sent a letter of apology.

Sharp: What was that all about?

Zirpoli: The head of Selective Service was saying that we were being too

lenient. Then they had to send a letter of apology because, after
all, the responsibility was ours. I mean they performed their
responsibility and we performed ours. If we are in disagreement,
that's because the law permits a disagreement and permits the court
to be the ultimate decider on a question of that nature.

As I say, San Francisco got to be known as a lenient place for
those who wanted to violate the Selective Service Act, primarily
because our sentences were not as severe as they were elsewhere in
the country.

In a review of the history and development of these Selective
Service cases, you can start with the Jehovah's Witnesses. In the
beginning, the Jehovah's Witnesses were not disposed to perform work
of national importance if they were granted conscientious objector
status. We worked that out on the theory that this is work of national

179

Zirpoli: importance, it was, so to speak, a direction from Caesar and you have to
do what Caesar says, and this does not impair your religious beliefs
in any way .

Eventually we worked these things out for the Jehovah's Witnesses
in this district. There was particularly a lawyer from San Jose
(whose name I don't recall) who represented most of them, and then
they applied this test really throughout the country for Jehovah's
Witnesses .

Sharp: Now, the Jehovah's Witnesses, those cases, were they part of this
period or earlier?

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, they were definitely part of this period.

Sharp: So among the so-called CO cases there really were a variety of
religious beliefs and moral beliefs.

Zirpoli: Yes. Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses, there wasn't any question about
their objection because they were objecting to war in any form.

Now, when you got to the Catholics and the McFadden case then
the problem becomes a little different. The question is, can you
say you are a conscientious objector only if you are one who objects
to war in any form? Of course, I decided in the McFadden case that
if you were a Catholic, and the Catholics say that if you have a moral
conviction that is an unjust war, it's your conviction that decides,
but it's also a conviction which, if you make it, coincided with the
teachings of the Catholic church, and I quoted Pope John [XXIII]
somewhere in there . *

Of course, it went up to the [U.S.] Supreme Court. Now, when it
went to the Supreme Court there were two other cases somewhat similar
in nature.

Sharp: From the Northern District or from other districts?

Zirpoli: No, from other districts, and the Supreme Court wrote an opinion in
those two cases, Gillette and something else [Negre] . They consoli
dated these two cases and wrote an opinion and Justice [William 0.]
Douglas dissented. When it came to the appeal of my case, they just
said, "Reversed upon the grounds stated in these other two cases,"
and Justice Douglas said, "I again dissent as I did in the other two
cases . "

*U.S. v. James Francis McFadden, 309 F. Supp . 502, 1970.

180

Zirpoli: I worked pretty hard on that case. I thought I did a pretty fair job
[chuckles], but the Supreme Court did not agree. In other words, for
them the test was that you had to be opposed to all wars.

Sharp: A more blanket —

Zirpoli: Yes, you couldn't discriminate as to which war you would support or
would not support. My argument was that it isn't a question of
discriminating which you would support or wouldn't support for
personal or political preferences. It was because you were satisfied
with the dictation of God and your conscience that this was an
immoral war. If you are going across the Pacific to engage in a war
of that nature, there is every justification for a personal con
clusion that this is not a morally just war. If it is not morally
just and God says I should not participate, I shouldn't. But anyway,
as I say, I was reversed on that.

There were questions of recognition; I mean this is denial of
recognition of Catholic teachings in my view. Therefore, it violated
the establishment of religion clauses. Denial of equal protection
was another of the arguments I made. In other words, I went through
all of those issues and tried to resolve them.

Sharp: Since we are on the McFadden [case], I have got a few other questions
about it and then we can go back a bit to the other. The U.S. v.
McFadden is considered one of the strongest cases for what is called
the SCO, the selective conscientious objector.* It's strongest
because you actually dismissed the indictment against him [James
McFadden] in a pretty sweeping way. You mentioned that you worked
real hard on the case. I guess I would like for you to tell me what
you went through in terms of having thought about it.

Zirpoli: Just about every religious faith filed some kind of brief as a friend
of the court. So I was reviewing all of these various teachings and
the teachings of the Catholic church, and having reviewed them all I
had to also make the necessary constitutional analysis as it pertained
to equal protection and freedom of religion and the various problems
that are invoked under those circumstances.

*Readers interested in this case and the issue of the SCO may want to
see John A. Rohr, Prophets Without Honor: Public Policy and the
Selective Conscientious Objector, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971.

181

Sharp: You also are a Catholic yourself, aren't you?

Zirpoli: Oh, I am a Catholic myself but I'm like — like the cases say, I don't
go to church very often, but the fact that I go or don't go to church
does not mean that I couldn't be a conscientious objector, just
giving you a quick illustration. I was not influenced by the fact
that I am a Catholic because I didn't know enough about the Catholic
teachings and religion. I had to find out about them, so it wasn't
because I was one. It was after reading the various treatises that
were presented and the various briefs of the friends of the court —
I think we had briefs from — have you seen the opinion?

Sharp: Well, yes, I have actually. It's 'right here.

Zirpoli: Let's get it. I think there is an indication somewhere; there may
be. [looks through opinion] Yes, [reading] "Amicus curiae briefs
were submitted by representatives of the following religions: Jewish,
Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Quaker, Disciples of Christ, United
Church of Christ, Reformed Church in America, and also the Inter
denominational National Council of Churches."

Sharp: That's about all of them, isn't it?

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

[continues reading] "There are strong suggestions in the briefs that
the role ascribed to one's conscience by the various religions are
quite similar. There is also some suggestion that religions other
than Catholicism also distinguish between wars."*

So, as I say, this was the type of information that was placed
in my hands. So I had the various documents of the church. Here is
the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World [from
Vatican II, 1967] .

Were you able to separate how you thought about it in terms of theology
and theologies as opposed to just what your more intimate personal
feeling was about being a conscientious objector?

I was able to do that because of Pope John's statement,
the basis for it. I don't understand this —

He provided

Sharp: I don't think it is all there.
Zirpoli: No, it isn't.

*Both quotes are from U.S. v. McFadden 309 F. Supp. 504.

182

Sharp: That's what I thought when I was reading it, that it wasn't all
there.

Zirpoli: No, what is it, 310?

Sharp: No, 309 [F. Supp. 502].

Zirpoli: Let's see if I can get it. [looks for opinion]

Sharp: Do they always leave out some?

Zirpoli: No, they're not supposed to. I was looking for the reference to St.
Thomas Aquinas, but also a reference to the pope. [further pause to
go through opinion]

Sharp: Oh, and to Vatican II?

Zirpoli: I thought I had it in the opinion.

Sharp: There are references to Vatican II, to the Pastoral Constitution of
the Church in the Modern World and then to Pacem in Terris [1963] .

Zirpoli: That could very well be because the date, 1963, would coincide. I

had some other references, [Chief] Justice Harlan Stone among others,
but in all events — [pause] As I said, I based it on free exercise of
religion and equal protection, the basic arguments, and establishment
of religion. Those were the three constitutional bases for my action
and, therefore, I felt that the statute which required it to cover all
wars was unconstitutional.

Sharp: That is Section —

Zirpoli: [Section] 6(j) —

Sharp: — Of the Selective Service Act.

Zirpoli: Yes. In other words, I concluded that it violates the equal protection
and due process .

Sharp: Did you expect that the Supreme Court would reverse you?
Zirpoli: I really didn't know. I thought I had — [laughs]
Sharp: You thought it was pretty tight?

Zirpoli: — And I thought it was pretty good, but then I was reversed. As I
say, the only one to dissent was Justice Douglas.

Sharp: Was that because he was in agreement with you or for some other reason?

183

Zirpoli: He was basically in agreement, yes. Of course, he dissented in

the other two cases, but they were satisfied that the statute was
proper. I just felt that, you know, if you can find it unconstitu
tional to stop the president insofar as it relates, for instance, to
something like the steel strike or things of that character, that
there is every justification for concluding that this was unconstitu
tional .

Sharp: What was the response to this case and your decision in this case of
the other judges here at the court?

Zirpoli: My response?

Sharp: Their response to you and to your ruling in this case?

Zirpoli: I don't know. No one objected, let's put it that way. I don't recall
anyone finding any objection. They may have had them. If they did,
they just didn't tell me.

Sharp: Because this is not just your average, everyday case.

Zirpoli: No.

Sharp: And it seems to me as though it would have sparked —

Zirpoli: Well, it sparked a lot of interest in the Catholic world, no question

about that, because the Catholic paper (I've forgotten the name of it),
the Catholic Monitor or whatever it is, published the whole opinion.
Of course, the clergy did comment, as you have found out already, to
the ruling of the Supreme Court.*

Sharp: I guess I am interested, too, in your feeling about being a selective
conscientious objector, because it is something very different, I
think, from just being a conscientious objector.

Zirpoli: But the basic question was do you have to be a true pacifist in

every sense of the word. I said, "No, you don't have to be a true

pacifist as long as it is in good conscience." I mean, if it's

something that is contrived, that's one thing; the question is, is

this a sincere belief? If it's a sincere belief and if that's what

you say God dictates to you and it's a sincere belief, then I thought

you qualified, even though it was based upon your conclusion that this was

an immoral war or "unjust war" as the Catholic church puts it.

*See article on this case on following page,

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184

Sharp: You had some support for your decision because of an earlier

decision that Judge [Stanley] Weigel had made in [December] '69 in
the U.S. v. Bowen case where he had declared the same Section 6 (j) to
be unconstitutional.

Zirpoli: I think I cite him —

Sharp: You did, yes. I'm not sure which page it's on, but you did. Were
there other SCO cases that you had? I. didn't find any of them.

Zirpoli: No, I had no others because the others, most of them, were Jehovah's
Witnesses cases .

Sharp: Right, and they were more clear-cut because of the established
religious practices and theories.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: Do you think that you would have been a conscientious objector?

Zirpoli: No, I would not.

Sharp: Do you think you would have been a selective conscientious objector?

Zirpoli: No, I don't think so. There is one reason for that; one of them is

that my religious beliefs are not that strong when you get right down
to it.

Sharp: Is it hard at all to understand that some peoples' beliefs are that
strong, that James McFadden could —

Zirpoli: No, it wasn't hard to understand at that time because you had enough
precedent. You certainly had the Jehovah's Witnesses, number one.
Number two, you had a number of conscientious objectors who would
refuse to accept alternative work of national importance and who went
to jail.

That's the irony of the whole thing, that the fellow who wouldn't
budge an inch, who wouldn't do anything conditional, whose convictions
were so strong, he probably had greater justification as an objector
than anyone else, and he's the one that went to jail every time. I
went down into the marshal's office and talked to one of these fellows.
I was convinced that his beliefs were absolutely sincere, but he
wouldn't accept alternative service. So he ended up with a sentence
of two years in jail. Somebody else accepts alternative service and
may not be as sincere, certainly as the man I have just mentioned,
and he would be given probation.

185

Sharp: I know. I was astounded at the numbers of conscientious objector

cases and draft resister cases that came through the Northern District
in this period, '68 through '71. It must have created a dilemma for
the court, the mass number of cases and just dealing with the issue
of the war and people saying, "I'm just not going to — "

Zirpoli: No. I mean, the volume was there, but for the most part these were
all cases that wouldn't take more than a day or two of research on
the part of the court. I mean, we got cases where you really have
to spend weeks and months on them. If you start comparing them as
to complexity and magnitude, you could almost say they became run-
of-the-mill cases.

Sharp: Yet there is something very special about them to write an opinion in
which you talk about the soul, God, people's conceptions of God, and
people's conceptions of war. It is somehow qualitatively different
than talking about antitrust or bankruptcy.

Zirpoli: You do that because Congress did it. If Congress had not created a

conscientious objector class, had not created it at all, I don't know.
The Congress created the exception, which is the conscientious objector.
Let's assume that Congress had not created an exempt class. You'd
have an entirely different ball game. But having created the exempt
class, then you look at it to see what is a conscientious objector.
And I can't use my standards. I have to use the religious standards
of the parties involved and I have to determine whether or not these
are sincere. That's some of the discussion that I went into in those
cases where a soldier sought discharge as a conscientious objector.
Whether there was a difference in view depending on whether it was
the padre or the captain or some other officer who made these particu
lar findings and as to the competence of the person who was making
the finding.

Sharp: You allowed in these other cases a broader definition of religious

beliefs and commitment than the people in the army did. Another word
for that is more liberal, I guess.

Zirpoli: That's right.

Sharp: You have a reference in Browning to "universal moral law" and that
that's okay.

Zirpoli: Yes, I have a footnote on that, do I not, in Browning? [pauses to go
through opinion] But that conclusion, I think, is supported by a
previous decision, that what is morally good is traditionally a
religious question and I cite the Seeger case.*

*U.S. v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965)

186

Sharp: Right, and the Seeger case is pretty central to setting a precedent
for this broader religious belief.

Zirpoli: That's right. I think in those two cases I referred to the Seeger
case.

Sharp: I think so, too, yes, which is quite a bit earlier being '65.
Zirpoli: That was a Supreme Court case.
Sharp: Right.

Zirpoli: Again here, the tenets held by the applicant can be nonorthodox
religious belief and again I cite Seeger.

Sharp: So it is pretty important in these kinds of special cases to use
precedents from other courts, especially the Supreme Court.

Zirpoli: Well, I am bound by the Supreme Court unless there are exceptional
circumstances that make you feel that if the Supreme Court were to
reconsider the problem in the light of the passage of time or change
of circumstance, they would reach another conclusion. Then you can-
gamble on it and hope that your case will go up to the Supreme Court
and that the Supreme Court will agree. Of course, that does happen
on rare occasions.

Sharp: The other part of these cases that I think we need to talk about

especially in Miller and Goodwin is what you refer to as a "crystal
lization" of the applicants' beliefs.

Zirpoli: That's right, but the "crystallization" can arise at any time in his
life as a result of his experience and what he sees and what he
learns; convictions are formed based on experience and things that
you learn.

Sharp: It seems like that would be sort of difficult to pin down; at least,
the army sure couldn't do it or they did not accept that this person
could think through something and go from, over a long stretch of
time to —

Zirpoli: But I think I tried to justify it by showing the history of the

person and his reactions, and how beliefs or convictions were formed,
and when they were formed, and what helped him form them, including
conversations with individuals or letters received from family
members or something of that nature.

Sharp: Were there ever cases where you weren't convinced that the person
was sincere?

187

Zirpoli: Very frankly, I don't remember. If there were, there would be no

particular need for me to write an opinion. As I say, most of them,
when you get right down to it, were Jehovah's Witnesses, so on some
of them I didn't write an opinion. Yes, there were one or two. I
think I remember one of them, a fellow (I don't know if I can
remember his name), he married Joan Baez.

Sharp: David Harris?

Zirpoli: Yes, although I think ultimately he was sentenced by Judge Carter.
I'm not sure about that, but he is an example of one who resisted.
Now, whether he raised truly religious reasons I don't recall, but
he got a sentence. He got a heavy sentence.

Sharp: That was through his draft resistance as opposed to his conscientious
objector [status].

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: I am just trying to piece together how you might have decided that
somebody wasn't sincere in his conscientious objector feelings.

Zirpoli: You would have to look at the history of his conduct and his life
history. If his life history showed no religious training of any
kind and no affiliation with any individual or discussion of
religion, and if religion came up for the first time in the draft,
and it appeared to you that there is no basis for it, and that he is
not sincere, then you make that conclusion.

You may be wrong at times because that is where judgment comes
in, and if you make a mistake, you make a mistake. But the responsi
bility then is placed on you. If there is a reasonable basis for
your conclusion, you are not going to be reversed by the court of
appeals because they are not going to substitute their judgment for
yours .

Zirpoli: [You must consider the] impact, if these people were not granted
conscientious objector status they would turn out to be poor
soldiers anyway. Even the army didn't like to get people in that
category within the army because they weren't going to prove to be
proper army men.

Sharp: It is sort of a morale thing, too.

Zirpoli: It does a lot of harm, more harm than good.

Sharp: I have a few more questions and then we can get on to the other ones.

188

Zirpoli: Then I also made an analysis of the conscientious objector class as
opposed to those who were in the university and were being exempt.
When you start making an analysis of it, the injustice and inequity
of the situation, it would strike me that somebody with religious
belief is certainly to be [more] preferred as a conscientious objector
than somebody who decided to stay in college. Maybe he graduates and
decides to move into law or into medicine so he can get three more
years of college and escape the draft. You can rest assured that
there were a number of people who did just that.

Sharp: Oh, I'm sure. I think I know some! [laughter]
Zirpoli: It could be!

Sharp: There wasn't too much mention of the war itself in most of these cases.
In Browning, you say that the war was a triggering agent for the
petitioner's rejection of participation in any war. I wondered if
there was somewhat of a conscious effort to stay away from the war
itself and stay more toward dealing explicitly with the habeas corpus
issues?

Zirpoli: No, we didn't try to get into the war. It was just a question of
whether they qualified or didn't qualify. I've tried a number of
cases in which somebody would get up and make an argument about the
war, and I would instruct the jury that they are not to consider the
war or people's political arguments about the war. They would want
to even make the arguments to the jury.

I had the one situation in which the defendant elected to
represent himself (I'm not sure whether I mentioned it), a
Selective Service case, and I told him he should have counsel. He
didn't want counsel and I instructed him as to all of the applicable
rules. Then when the time came for him to argue, he argued. When
the time came for me to instruct, I had to instruct the jury to
disregard his arguments about the war. The people in the courtroom
got up and objected and I had to clear the courtroom.

What happened was the first fellow got up and objected and I had
him come forward and asked him his name. He told me and I put him
into custody of the U.S. marshal. Then another fellow got up and I
put him in the custody of the marshal. Then I said, "I am ordering
the courtroom cleared of everyone except the lawyers, the parties, and
the press." Some lady got up and started to object and I said, "There
isn't anything you can tell me about this war and your objections that
I haven't already heard from my daughters." So I said, "You are
excluded from the courtroom." After the trial was over and the jury
returned the verdict, I then let these two people go that I put in the
custody of the marshal.

189

Zirpoli: But those are things that you expect. I had an Indian object, the
whole Indian tribe tromped in and out of the courtroom.

Sharp: What case was this?

Zirpoli: I don't remember the name of the case, but it was an American Indian.

Then I had another case where after the defendant and his
friends left my courtroom, they all gathered together and walked
down the corridor and out the building shouting, "Hell, no, we won't
go."

I had another one in which I was seated on the bench and all of
the flower children came in. They all had flowers. There were some
flowers on my desk and a little girl came up, a three or four-year-
old, not more than that, and presented me with a bouquet of flowers.
I told you about that.

Sharp: I have heard about that.

Tempers of the Changing Times

Zirpoli: Yes, well, these were all incidents that indicate the temper of the
times and the reactions of people.

Sharp: When I was going through the Chronicle looking for some information
about the draft and your role in some of the cases, I couldn't help
but see sort of in a time warp all of the protests that were going on.
At the same time you were reading about some horrendous situations
in Vietnam itself with some of the [civilian] massacres that unfor
tunately occurred, the invasion of Cambodia (that was in 1970), and
the Senate's condemnation of the president [Richard Nixon].

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: You saw all of those things, too, and you had all of these people
even closer to you in the courtroom. How do you filter out all of
that and get yourself back to considering the issues that are in the
cases?

Zirpoli: You just follow the rules: This is the charge, this is the offense,
there are the accepted instructions, and you just follow them, you
just follow them. It's only when you get to a position, let's say, as
to determine whether a person is or is not a true conscientious
objector and you have got all of this background, then you use that
background. Based upon the conclusions that I reached in McFadden,
conclusions of that type, I make that decision.

190

Zirpoli: No, I have practiced law for a long time and by that time I had

practiced law for over thirty-five or forty years, depending upon
which year that came up. When you have that much practice behind
you and most of it in the federal court, you know what the rules are,
you know what the rules of evidence are, and you just play it accord
ing to the rules .

Sharp: Were these cases somewhat easier for you then because you had had that
much experience?

Zirpoli: I had also prosecuted Selective Service cases in World War II. That
was one of my assignments in World War II. Judges were a lot tougher
then, too. They gave five-year sentences.

But you have to remember, World War II was a very popular war.
Everybody wanted to get into the army. It wasn't just a question of
trying to stay out. It was a question of how can I get in, particu
larly if you were a college graduate or a college student. It
wouldn't be long before you would end up with a commission or you
would try to get a commission. So the atmosphere was entirely
different. That would be classified as a just war, let's say, by
way of illustration whereas Vietnam would be classified, as at least
some of the Catholics did, as an unjust war.

Sharp: How different were the CO cases in World War II that you worked on?
You said the judges were harsher, for example.

Zirpoli: The sentences were tougher.
Sharp: Like what, for example?

Zirpoli: Five-year sentences were not uncommon and a two-year sentence would
be about a top sentence in the Vietnam war. So the sentencing was
different.

Sharp: From what I had read, the attorneys, the defense attorneys for the CO
cases in World War II, that was quite a bit too in the sense you had
more Jehovah's Witnesses, I suppose, then. During the Vietnam period,
there was a much broader range of religious belief that was considered.

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, definitely.

Sharp: I wondered what sort of comments you would make about the lawyer's
side — the defense lawyer's — side of it, and the comparison between
the wars, and how the CO cases were presented and the people defended?

Zirpoli: I don't know that there was any truly great difference.

Sharp: A lot of people have said that it is significantly different during
the Vietnam war.

191

Zirpoli: The representation?

Sharp: The representation in the sense of the lawyers, and we might get
into this with the draft cases.

Zirpoli: Well, the representation in the sense of the lawyers is that you

didn't have to be a strictly Jehovah's Witness lawyer in the Vietnam
war. The lawyers in the Second World War were very limited in number
and they had a definite tie to the particular group. These lawyers
for the most part had no particular tie. They weren't doing it
themselves for religious reasons and sometimes not even for political
reasons. It was either because they were retained or were appointed.

Sharp: A few other questions about these four cases, the Conscientious

Objector Review Board, which was the army board, did they generally
deny these petitions, do you know?

Zirpoli: I have no way of telling because all I got were the ones that somebody
raised the question on. Those that were denied and that no one raised
the question on, I haven't any idea. So if I were to determine the
number that ended up in court as contrasted to the number of actual
denials, I would have no way of knowing.

Sharp: From what I had talked about with Judge [Albert C.] Wollenberg [Sr.]
and some of the other things that I found out, there was this large
number of cases of CO and draft evasion cases. I guess I'd like to
push you a little bit further to tell me how these cases might have
been an occasion for comment among yourselves.

Zirpoli: Among the judges?
Sharp : Yes .

Zirpoli: There was no particular occasion for comment. At that time the

probation officer prepared reports showing the sentences of all judges
in which we could see what the other judges were doing and, as I say,
I don't know of anyone who gave a five-year sentence, for instance.
Maybe they did; I don't know of anyone who did. I think the standard
sentence was about two years and I think most of the judges applied it.

Sharp: But I wondered if you remember sitting around and talking about it
with the other judges and how you felt about it?

Zirpoli: I am sure we did, but I can't pinpoint an actual conversation in
my mind because we would meet for lunch every day, so we'd talk
it over. For purposes of sentencing, judges often consult with one
another, not that they are bound by what the other judge says or
anything, but they want to get a reaction, "What do you think given
these circumstances?"

192

Zirpoli: In fact, there are some courts that have a regular committee to do
just that. The judge meets with two other judges and discusses and
presents all of the facts to them and seeks their comments and
recommendations. He is not bound by them. But we don't do that here.
On rare occasions it is done, however.

Sharp: Does that seem like a good idea, to have that in a common fashion?

Zirpoli: It's a good idea when you've got cases that require that type of

consideration and interpretation. But let's say the run of the mill
case, there is no need for it. I mean if you have got somebody who
has embezzled $200 or $300 from a bank and you are going to give him
probation, you're not going to go around and get the views of another
judge. If somebody is coming up for a sentence that is going to be
substantial, for ten or fifteen years, you might want the views of
another judge. You might want the views of another judge if you have
a case of the type of, let's say, Patty Hearst just to use an illustra
tion of a type of case. Where you are considering public reaction
as well and things of that character, then as the sentencing judge
you might want to get the views of other judges.

Sharp: Was the McFadden like that for you?

Zirpoli: No! [laughter] No, it wasn't. No, I didn't consult with anyone
on that. I went ahead on my own.

Sharp: Did you want to and not, or you just didn't think it was necessary?

Zirpoli: No, I didn't bother. I was younger then, a little more of an

activist probably than I am now. That's an era when I would be
described as an activist judge, I guess.

Sharp: The court of the Northern District got this pretty incredible

reputation, and you have already mentioned it and Judge Wollenberg
mentioned it too, for being an "easy" court. Did that bother you at
the time, or you thought it was great, or you didn't care?

Zirpoli: No, that didn't bother me so much — certainly, from a point of view
of conscience. There has been a change in attitudes for crime and
punishment in the last ten years, let's say, at least, but the
attitude then and certainly of our court and my attitude was that you
shouldn't send this man to jail unless you had truly aggravating
circumstances or a crime of violence. You had a kind of a belief in
rehabilitation. You had a faith in the effectiveness of the probation
system, and I still have a certain faith in the effectiveness of the
probation system. You had the realization that if you were going to
make the probation system really work, you had to take chances because
is you put five people on probation and they all made good, that means
you are under-utilizing the probation system. If you put ten on

193

Zirpoli: probation and maybe you lose one or two, at least that is a better
indication that you are making effective use of it.

Many prison authorities like [James] Bennett, the former director
of the Bureau of Prisons of the United States, always felt that there
was no benefit derived at all if the sentence was in excess of five
years. The only basic benefit derived is that you kept the man in
custody for a longer period and, therefore, he ceased to be a threat
to society. But for rehabilitation purposes, he felt that no value
could be derived from a sentence in excess of five years. That was
sort of the thinking of the time. And then the personalities involved.
It's hard to compare districts. When you get into a big metropolitan
district, you get into a district in which you have the various judges
and there are some exchanges of views, and you end up with a little
more even-handed application of the sentencing process.

If you get into some district that is, let's say, the mid-South
or something, without naming them (I could name people), you see a
situation where the judge gives a sentence and it would be incredible
in San Francisco .

Sharp: Do you mean harsh, overly harsh?

Zirpoli: Yes, oh, yes. Now, I had an experience as a trial lawyer in which

I represented a Chinese gentleman charged with the importing of herbs
from Communist China, by way of illustration. He was indicted in
Tennessee. So I went down to Tennessee. I was going to plead him
not guilty and I felt I could win the case. Well, I sat in the court*-
room and when I saw what was happening there in Tennessee, I came
back and agreed to plead my man in San Francisco if the United States
attorney there and here would accept. The U.S. attorney in Tennessee said
yes if my man would be a witness in Tennessee, and I said he would.

To make a long story short, my man pleaded here and got a $1000
fine and six months probation. Two other Chinese went to trial in
Tennessee, one from New York and one from Tennessee. They were
convicted and given five years. Now, that's a tremendous disparity,
but this judge in Tennessee, what experience did he have with Chinese?
Practically none. And Communists — Communism must have meant something
very serious to him. Importing from a Communist country in violation
of the law — you know, a serious crime. And it was Communist China we
were talking about, too! [laughter]

Sharp: On top of it all!

194

The Issue of Draft Resistance

Sharp: I thought we might talk some about these draft cases then and the
draft in general. There is this March '68 mass trial of a hundred
defendants with a hundred attorneys who pooled their arguments, I
suppose.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: How did all of that come about, that you would have the panel all
put together like that?

Zirpoli: I tried to remember that and I don't remember how that came about.
There is an article here on it, isn't there?*

Sharp: It doesn't give very much on that. I guess I was thinking a little
bit about the antitrust cases and how they were pooled, at least
some of them, because there were so many defendants. It was put
together to be easier for the judge, I suppose.

Zirpoli: Aubrey Grossman was the leader, but I ruled against him, as I recall.

Sharp: The only mention I found about how this all turned out was that you
had dismissed some of the arguments like that the Vietnam war was a
violation of international law?

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, that was one of the stock arguments, not only here but even
in the jury trials.

Sharp: Apparently, you tried to narrow it down to some of the more important
matters like the constitutionality of the draft board regulations
themselves and the conscientious objections to the draft? I wondered
if you just recall how this all proceeded and how it all ended up?

Zirpoli: My recollection is I ruled against them. The only question that
became important was the question of the structure and make-up of
the draft boards. I ruled against those who were objecting to the
structure of the draft boards for the most part, but there may have
been one or two instances, and I don't recall them now, where the
draft board was improperly constituted, but I don't remember the
details of that.

Sharp: Because you had to deal with so many of these cases, the CO cases and
the draft cases, I am wondering what sort of effect it had on you
personally.

*See following page.

194a

By William Cooney

The most concerted at
tack in history on the Se
lective? Service System was
launrhcrl in Federal Court
here yesterday.

Federal. Judge Alfonso^ ZTr-
poli, • already Hooded "with
written legal arguments, al
lowed attorneys one hour of
oral argument yesterday and
said he would give them an
other two hours this at'tcr-
uoon.

At stake is the fate of at
least 100 youths who have re
fused to be inducted .into the
Armed Services. A panel of
some 100 attorneys have
agreed to defend them, and
have pooled their arguments
to present en masse instead
of individually as each trial
comes up.

Yesterday three of the de-
jfcnse points were argued;
i that youth morally and con
scientiously opposed to war
in general or the Vietnam
war in particular should not
be drafted, that a youth is
denied his Constitutional
rights when he can not have
an attorney represent him
before a draft board, and
that the makeup of draft
boards is discriminatory in

ttiat minorities are excluded.

But throughout tho argu
ments, Judge Zirpoli repeat
edly interrupted with oppos
ing arguments and several
times said, "These points
may be better raised at the
individual trials."

At one point he said, "If j
you are really interested in|
raising these points, why not
try a case that has the points
in a trial, get a ruling, and
then, if necessary, appeal it,
keep the case moving until
you get a final decision?"

At other points Judge Zir
poli said, "If you want to get
somewhere, you are going to
have to show me where this,
is an issue which I can take
and rule on, which I have the
power to decide."
• The point of conscience
was argued by Aubrey
Grossman, leader of the pan
el of attorneys. "We arc
dealing with a mass phe
nomenon," he said. "This
war so violates the con
science and moral scruples
of these men that they just
can't serve."

The best definition of a
conscientious objector, he
said, is "one who knows what
is good and right and must
do what is ?.:»od and right."

The point about the draft
boards not allowing a youth
to have an attorney with him
was argued by Daniel Wein-
stein.

The draft board regulation
prohibiting an attorney in mi-"
constitutional, W e i n s t e i n
said, because everyone is en
titled to an attorney in a cri-
minal proceeding. A dral't-
board hearing is at least a
quasi-criminal proceeding
because, by refusing to abklu
by the board ruling, the
youth can subject himself to
the criminal process, Vvein-
stein said.

RACE

Attorney Terry Francois,
who is also a San Francisco
Supervisor, argued the point
about the makeup of draft
boards, ciling those in the
Western Addition and in
Hunters Point.

la the latter case, ho said,
there is only one Negro on
the board, whereas half tho
population,' at least, is Negro.

In Hunters Point, he said,
none of the members live in
Hunters Point or May view,
where the population is 43
I'.cr cent Negro and only one
of the board members is Ne-
cro.

San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 1968

195

Zirpoli: It didn't really bother me. I had my own views about the war in

Vietnam, but I didn't let them control me. My own views about the
war in Vietnam, and it is still my view from the point of view of
international policy, is that we should never have gone to Vietnam.
My view is we should let the Russians and the Chinese fight it out.
I am of the view that you can't conquer a people and the Russians
are proving it. They haven't really conquered the Poles, they
haven't really taken over Afghanistan. They want to get out of
there now, and the same thing happened in the Orient. The center
of the battle would have been the Chinese and the Russians to
determine who would be the influencing factor in that area. I didn't
think it was in the interests of our national defense that we be
there in Vietnam. I think the French learned their lesson.

I am also one of these who believes as Machiavelli said:
"You never conquer any people." You can send a million soldiers in
there and in two generations the Romans are no longer Romans or
whoever they happened to be. They become Britons or whatever they
are or wherever they are. So this is a personal belief that you
just can't conquer millions of people without putting in millions
of soldiers.

Sharp: Did the stories of people resisting and all of that, did it
reinforce how you already felt?

Zirpoli: No, I was still of those who believed that it's "your country, right
or wrong." No, because if my beliefs were that strong, then I should
never sit on one of those cases. I should just step down. That's
what you say to yourself. I mean if you really feel that strongly
about it, then you have no business there on the bench.

Sharp: It strikes me that what you are talking about is an example of how
a judge operates, how a judge works, in the sense that there is a
kind of objectivity that you learn to have about what you are doing.
There are the personal feelings that the judge has.

Zirpoli: Yes, his personal feelings can enter into it from time to time. You
can't get away from the fact that you are human. Your personal
feelings will enter into it when you have before you a situation
that calls for permissiveness to indulge in your personal reactions.
That's why, let's say, whether you want to give probation or not
give probation, there is no reason why the letter of the law should
be that strict. You can say to yourself, "Look, I analyzed this
thing. Somebody might have sent him to jail and some other judge
would not and I am one of those who wouldn't under these circumstances."
That may be due partly because of your own background and your
personal beliefs.

Sharp: Is sentencing one of the main areas then for a judge where there is
a sort of gut —

196

Zirpoli: The sentencing is an area in which you have got to forget the

Sermon on the Mount, "judge not." You're not God, but nevertheless,
you have got to pass judgment and sentencing is a matter of great
concern to many and most judges. Of course, before I came on the
bench, I had thirty-three years of trial experience as a prosecutor,
and as a defense attorney. Therefore, I had learned to accept and
to approach with greater ease these problems than someone who had
no prior experience of this nature.

Sharp: One of these other cases is the 1970 case of Robert Andre. It is
one of the newspaper articles that I sent you.* It pointed up the
issue of the draft board's use of induction to punish men who didn't
comply with the regulations. I wonder if you could comment on that
and what its implications —

Zirpoli: I don't remember. My recollection on that is somewhat hazy. But if
it turned out that that's what the board was doing, I would rule
against it. [pause] But I don't remember the details. The name
sounds very familiar to me, but I don't remember enough detail about
Andre. Is that in here somewhere? [looks through papers]

Sharp: It's this one.

Zirpoli: This was one the question of retroactive application. But these

were the people that were improperly inducted, illegally inducted.
I was saying that if this fellow was illegally inducted, he's
entitled to go free and so is anybody else who has been illegally
inducted; I would use a retroactive rule.

Sharp: Do you remember how that turned out?
Zirpoli: I think we ordered him released.

Sharp: Yes, but I wondered about the other people. The U.S. attorney agreed
it might be —

Zirpoli: I have no real recollection though on those, but I see that the draft
boards stopped the practice.

Sharp: That whole issue of the draft board's ways of operating is pretty
serious, I think.

Zirpoli: I think that this is a situation that aroused the ire of the head
of the Selective Service.

*See following page .

196a

Judge Rules
liiega! Draft
For 6000

fly William Cooiicy

Approximately 6000
men now in the Army be
cause they were drafted
I illegally should be re-;
leased, a Federal judge
vulcil here yeslerda.^

ruled .siiecTfinUly on"" the
case- of Robert \V. Anclro,
'2.5, now a private languish
ing in the stockade at Fort
: Oi:d for being AVVOL.

Andre had liis induction i
speeded up because lie failed j
to give his Long Beach draft j
board his current address j
and was inducted illegally on1
April 9, l:'li9.

Nine months later, the
United States Supreme Court
ruted in Hie Gutknecht case-
that speeding up a man's in
duction, jusl because he
burns a draft card or fails to
give a new address, is ille
gal.
; RETROACTIVE

The importance of Judge

; Zirpoli's decision is that, for

the first time, a Federal

court has ruled there ". . . is

, no substantial reason why

the decision in Gutknccht

should not be. given retroac

tive application.". \

i He noted that, the govcrn-

Scc Back Pa'je

From Page 1

me"nt~felaimed"Sifit:h a retroac-
tivity ruling would affect ap
proximately 6000 men who
were drafted as delinquents.

Letting all those men out
could cause great administra
tive problems, the govern
ment argued.

That is a c o n c c r n. the
judge said. but. ". . . since
delinquency induction w a s
not a ti I h o r iz e d i by Con
gress), the petitioner is in
Mie Army illegally.

"In view of this the factors
of law enforcement reliance
and administrative conven
ience are entitled to almost
no weight in the balancing
process."

PRISON

' Andre's attorneys, Michael
Sorgen and Mark Sussnow
saw another implication in
the judge's ruling;

"Thousands of men who
refused illegal induction or
ders tire now in prison." Sor
gen said. "And they should
be released, loo "

That thinking could be ac
curate, admitted James L.
Browning, the United States
Attorney here.

He said he got from Judge

B 0 E R

fi B(!a^[j?ft BHW

*3^ 7

I Zirpoli a 10-day stay of exe--
| cution of the order to release
! Andre, and will immediately
! file a notice to appeal Judge
j Zirpoli's ruling.

START

Sorgen and S u s s n o w,

though, said they thought the

> Army should immediately

I start processing the 6000 soi-

I diers for discharge, even iC

• the government does appeal.

| "If the government keeps

| these men in the Army and in

j prison, knowing of .Judge Zir-

poli's ruling, it is holding

them illegal! y," Sussnow

said.

Sorgen added that, "I
would hope the government
would respect the rights of
these men and release them
now."

Since the Gutknecht deci
sion last January, many men
whose induction or conviction
was not final have been giv
en a second chance.

Draft boards automatically
withdrew induction orders
for many. Courts dismissed
cases which were still on ap
peal of refusing induction.

Judge Zirpoli's ruling is
the first in the country to af
fect men already in (hit
Army.

San Francisco Chronicle, May 26, 1970

197

Sharp: It could have been.

Zirpoli: And the attorney general didn't agree with it. What happened was
that after Selective Service raised hell, we found out the Depart
ment of Justice didn't agree. In a way, the Department of Justice
was disposed to really accept these conclusions. In fact, the
Department of Justice wrote a letter and said, "Please don't
associate us in any way with that letter (of Selective Service)."
That's what in effect they said.

Sharp: And a letter of apology came?

Zirpoli: In effect, yes. Now, Judge Peckham's experiences may parallel mine

to a great degree and it would be interesting to get his views on it.

Sharp: Yes, because he had quite a few of the same kinds of cases.
Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: The whole issue of the draft board's acting improperly and the

animosity and protesting against the war would create sort of a very
difficult role or position for the court, I would think, to be
constantly calling draft boards on the carpet and —

Zirpoli: Well, it wasn't that bad.
Sharp: It sounds pretty dramatic.

Zirpoli: I know, but it wasn't quite that dramatic! [chuckles] Of course,

you always have to remember, too, of all the communities in America,
this was the primary center of resistance.

Sharp: So it's magnified.

Zirpoli: Magnified. People came to San Francisco; if they wanted you to

report for induction and you didn't want to report, the thing to do
was to come to San Francisco and then your case would be before one
the judges in this district. So a lot of people came here deliberately,
In fact, there was a journal that they issued to draft resisters in
which they were advised to do that.

Sharp: And all the procedures were listed about how to do that.

It gave you a certain kind of reputation as generous and
humanitarian and great.

Zirpoli: Yes, I don't know about the "great" part, but it became a reputation
of being an easy judge. If you were all out for the war, we were
terrible. If you felt the war was not a good war for one reason or
another, then you thought we were pretty good. Your reaction
depended upon your point of view.

198

Zirpoli: But that's true in any controversial question that arises in the

court. That's true of the application of the death penalty. It's
true of the nature of the court's reaction to crimes.

Sharp: Did you get a lot of mail?

Zirpoli: Some, not too much. Somebody sent me a postcard calling me an old
Jewish son-of-a-bitch and saying I was a toad of Governor Brown.
The writer was an American Legion veteran. I have forgotten how
that went, but it was very comical in a way.

Sharp: But you were able to maintain a sort of lighthearted feeling about
the mail or the criticism.

Zirpoli: No, I've only had two or three instances in which I thought that a
letter of that nature was serious. For one in particular I had the
FBI get me photographs of the individual, so when he appeared in my
courtroom I could recognize him. Another one, I got from a lady,
an elderly lady, who still writes me. I gave her probation, but
she still threatens me. [chuckles] Then I had a fellow who was in
Alcatraz who threatened me, but he mellowed with the passage of
years and decided he wasn't going to kill me after all.

Sharp: I had one last question about the draft lawyers. I wanted to ask
you again because I wondered if there was some sort of qualitative
difference about the input of draft lawyers from, say, the input of
antitrust lawyers? Was there something really special about the
lawyers involved?

•

Zirpoli: No, the lawyers who were involved in the draft are the lawyers who
today are involved in some form of public interest, for instance,
affirmative action lawyers. They were typical of affirmative action
lawyers today and were in a sense typical of the Selective Service
lawyers. You weren't going to get any of the big downtown firms or
the top lawyers coming in on Selective Service cases. First of all,
they had plenty of business. Unless some member of the family, one
of them was involved, you wouldn't have them here. These other
lawyers for the most part were struggling lawyers. They were lawyers
with limited experience, or they were lawyers who represented extreme
views like [Aubrey] Grossman, for instance, a lawyer who would be
representing the left wing, as far left as you can get it; or they
were Jehovah's Witnesses' lawyers as a select group; or they were
relatively young lawyers. Some of them were in it by court appoint
ment.

199

A Note on Law Clerks

Sharp: Were your law clerks at this point especially instrumental in
helping you to do any special thinking?

Zirpoli: Yes, my law clerks have been instrumental from the day I came on
this bench, and I have been very fortunate. I have had wonderful
law clerks, all of them.

Sharp: Since we're on the issue of law clerks (and then I'll get to Judge
Sweigert), do the law clerks have sort of an assigned role as far
as you —

Zirpoli: As far as I'm concerned?
Sharp : Yes .

Zirpoli: My law clerks, I let them do any and everything they can accomplish.
In other words, every case on the calendar goes to a law clerk.
They've got to do the research and prepare a memo. They go through
the case and do the memo, and they make a recommendation, and then
I review it. If I approve it, and if they have done a good job, I
may accept it in the form it's in. I may modify it or I may dis
agree with it, of course, after it's all over. But I give them all
the leeway I can. They are all self-starters. I have been very
fortunate. I pick my law clerks from Boalt Hall. I have always
been able to get one from the top 5 or 10 percent of the class.
This understanding that I have with Boalt Hall facilitates my
selection of the law clerks. So as I say, I have been very fortu
nate in the quality of my law clerks and their subsequent practice
and subsequent careers have proven that to be true.

For instance, I would not pick as a law clerk someone who is
an angry young lady or an angry young man who is a crusader and has
got some big crusade in his heart. Then I'm not interested because
that's not being objective enough. But that's something I try to
find out before I engage them. I had one young lady applicant with
top grades, but she was a very angry young lady and she had her
beefs about the state of society, and of course, I didn't want that.

We had an experience over in the Supreme Court of California
where the clerks wrote a letter to the editor, which was a tremendous
reflection on the attitudes of the moment. I don't remember what
they were, but it caused great anxiety among the justices of the
supreme court because they wanted to make sure that no one would
ever interpret this as the views of the justices.

Sharp: Do you think your views on how the law clerk should work and what he
or she should do have changed since your first — ?

200

Zirpoli: No, they haven't changed. When I first started, I could do more of
the research myself. I've always had only one law clerk. Some of
the judges have two. Now, before I became a senior judge, the work
load was a little heavier and there were a number of matters that I
would dispose of without assignment to the law clerk. Today I
assign everything to a law clerk, even though I can dispose of it
without research because one of the objectives of a law clerk here
is to acquire the benefit of experience. If based on my experience
in habeas corpus I don't let the law clerk see a habeas corpus
petition, they're not going to find out anything about it. So I
let him look at it, let him make the memo. If I find they missed
a point, I just call their attention to it: "Well, this is all
fine. Everything you've got here is great. But you just have the
wrong defendant," by way of illustration, or respondent.

So I believe in letting the law clerk do all that he or she can.

Judge Sweigert and the War in Vietnam

Sharp: The last issue then that I wanted to ask you about with respect to
the Vietnam war and to some of the issues that came before the
Northern District is Judge Sweigert 's view of it, as he expressed
it in 1970 in the case of those three Boalt Hall students who wanted
to challenge the war's legality. Sweigert, as I read in an article,
supported their right to challenge it and in a limited way —

Zirpoli: Gave them standing.

Sharp: Gave them standing, and used this opportunity to express his
opposition to the war.*

Zirpoli: Yes, and I would say that he was greatly perturbed by the fact that
the [U.S.] Supreme Court refused to tackle the question, and he's
the one that made reference to the steel cases and others where they
were prepared to make rulings on the power of the president, but when
it came to the war, which was even more important, they would not
rule.

Sharp: They sort of abdicated.

Zirpoli: They abdicated on it: "We're talking about a political question and,
therefore, we don't pass on political questions."

But as he himself pointed out, from his point of view, this was
not a political question; it was a true constitutional question. It
was a question of who has the power to declare war, and is this a

*See following pages .

200a

Judge. 'Here y,

** -..,;.-,.^(

Takes On
War Case

By William Cooney

United States DJs.Ulci
Court Judge_Willi_amxS\vej.-'

"jjert defended yestercfay.

"the right of three young:'
men to challenge the le-'i
gality of the Vietnam war;
and went on to chide the]
U.S. Supreme Court for!
dodging the issue.

The Federal jurist de
nied a Government motion j
to dismiss the suit in Uie j
coarse of a wide-ranging !
opinion which indicated
Sweigert himself lends to
regard the war as uncon
stitutional— beciuiso it has
not been declared by Con- ,
grass.

He said he will not make a
final ruling until the Govern- j
ment attorneys have filed an I
answer in the suit of three
Berkeley law students, all of
them military reservists.

In his 28-page discussion of
the legal issues, Judge
Sweigert said: "Whatever
the ultimata decision . . . we
are of the opinion that the
courts . . . should discharge
their traditional responsibili
ty for interpreting the Consti
tution of the United States."

"It has already been
Charged that the failure of
the courts to decide the con
stitutional question one way
or the olh-jr, has contributed
to. tiie controversy and the
consequent unprecedented
disunity of our country on the
Vietnam war issue."

lla said he has taken "judi-

cial notice of the fact that tne
armed forces of the United
States are now committted,
and have been for nearly five"
years, to' a full scale war in
Vietnam; that this war lias
never been declared by the
Congress and that the Presi
dent of the United States,
through the incumbent and
his predecessor in office, has:
continued, nevertheless, to
conduct the war without re
ceiving or even requesting a
congressional declaration."

San Francisco Chronicle
September 11, 1970

Judge Sweigert then listed1
the reasons continually given
by the Government for con
tinuing fighting _.and knocked

soning: . »• ; • , '. • . .

"It will be :"noted that none
of the .foregoing arguments;
make any- pretense that^rti-'
cle I, Section 8 (II) ("Con
gress shall have power ... to
declare war . . .") has been
complied to explain why, for
various reasons of expedien
cy, the Constitution has NOT
been complied with.

"They are. therefore, of
doubtful relevance in a court
whose duty it is to see that
the Constitution IS complied
with."

TONKIN

The Tonkin Gulf Resolu
tion, since repealed by (lie ••
Senate, dgos not comply with
Congress' duty to affirma--
lively declare a war if it i.
wants one, the Judge said.

Why, asked the judge. has.|
not the k'giiJily of the war i
been decided by the Supreme
Court?

Because, he said, lower
Federal courts have avoided
ruling on the main issue, pre
ferring instead to dispose of
cases "on technical, jurisdic-
tional, procedural grounds"

i*:i ~\

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SiU.^CMte.ii.JiiAl

JUDGE SWEIGERT
Court- tcsponsibility

instead, such 'as : Uiat the i:s-
sue is "pulilical" and should
not -be decided by coin-Is:
that: the Government has i:»t
•"consented!' to be sued: or
that the person challenging
the war has not "standing"
to sue.

And the Supreme Court, lie
noted, has denied petitions ,
seeking review of the qties- i
lion.

On (he "political" question, |

200b

Judge Sweigert noted that,
the Supreme Court stepped !
into the case of Congressman-'
Adam Clayton Powell being)
harrci! from taking his '. seat ,'
in the I louse 'of Representa-1
fives, and also ruled against)
President. Truman who had)
ordered Hie seizure of striker

REAL

;, "To. say that these Unve
pi ai'j) tiffs, must wail until
they are called up, perhaps
suddenly, and ordered to the
V ie t n a in area, perhaps
quickly, and then file a court

urueieu me seizure oi SinKe* . 1".* • IMB«KWMTI

bound steel mills during a; j s.'"t' perhaps with loo little
national emergency. ' j time to properly do so, bor-

„: ders we think, on the absurd.

national emergency.

"It seems to this court,
said Judge Sweigert eraphaU*
ically. "that to strike down
unconstitutional a Presi-

dent's wartime seizure of a
j few private steel mills but to
shy away on "political ques
tion" grounds from interfer
ing with a presidential war,
itbcll, would be to strain at a
gnat and swallow a camel.1'1
. He went- to the issues iu the,
case before .him:,, r •.-.••!

'•These three enlistees
have a real, and not too re-
mole, stake in the outcome,
perhaps their lives . . ."

Federal attorneys must re
ply to the suit within 15 days,
and after that will come ar
guments on the constitution
ality of the war.

His discussion in his order
yesterday, lie wrote, is "de
signed, to further, so far as a
District Court can appropri
ately do so, an ultimate rul
ing in our Ninth Circuit and
j hopefully, by . the Supreme
Court, upon all the important
issues here considered."

But he also strongly indi
cated he. leans toward the
view the war is unconstitu- j
tional. He said that, in the
event he rules in favor of the
reservists — that the war is
unconstitutional, — "the ef
fect of any such judgement
I will be stayed pending any
'appeal by" the Government. '
He concluded with a strong '
J presentation of the Constitu
tional question involved.

; CASE

"A strong case can be
made," he wrote," for the
.proposition that compliance
with the Constitution and its
plain provision that the pow- .
•er to declare war lies, not in,
the President, but in the.'
i Congress, should be made to
rest upon something better
t h a n Uie 'ambivalences of
congressional inaction or
( mere defense legislation, ap-
; propriatjons and questiona
ble resolutions.

"That such compliance1
calls for nothing, iess than
wliat the Constitution plainly '
says — a declaration, of war
by the Congress or at least
an equally explicit congres
sional expression, either gen
eral or limited, but in any :
event such as to clearly indi- '
cate a congressional intent,
to meet its responsibilities
j... by consenting to (or re-
I fusing to consent to), the initi- '
liaUon or continuance of war'
by the President: that unless ;
the President receives, upon
his request or otherwise,
BUCh a declaratory consent
either general or limited, as
soon as reasonably possible,
any undeclared war becomes
a usurpation by the Presi
dent or an abdication by the
Congress — or, perhaps —
both."

201

Zirpoli: war, and has it been declared? He concluded that it was a war and

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

it was not declared.
Why did he do this?

Well, Judge Sweigert was a man of strong principle and if that was
his conviction, he was going to express it, and the case before him
provided a vehicle to properly do it. He wouldn't do it if he didn't
have a vehicle to do it although he might express his views in the
dining room, maybe to me or some other judge. Once in a while judges
do that. They should not philosophize, for one thing, but they do.
The court of appeals does it more often than not.

Why is that?

Well, maybe that's a little too strong, more often than not. But
they often philosophize when there is no need for it. You will more
often find them doing so in the dicta of the court of appeals
decisions than you will in a district court decision. Of course, the
functions of the two courts are a little different, so it is under
standable.

Because of their reviewing the law as opposed to reviewing the facts?

Yes, they are reviewing primarily the law. They are not supposed to
substitute their judgment on the facts for that of the trial court
unless the court's judgment is clearly erroneous. In other words,
if the facts or the evidence will not support a conclusion of the
judge, that's one thing. But let's say if the judge just doesn't
believe a witness, the court of appeals has no right to say, "We
believe him."

Did Judge Sweigert talk to you about this ruling?

Oh, he didn't talk to me in the sense of talking to me . I mean at
the dinner table he just said, "I've got this case, and why in the
hell doesn't the Supreme Court perform its duty and pass on the
constitutionality of it?" I mean that type of conversation, yes.

He just said he was going to do it.
really seeking your —

It wasn't a question of his

Oh, no, no, no. He didn't seek our counsel. No, Judge Sweigert
rarely sought counsel or advice of the judges as to what he should
do. He wrote well and he wrote good opinions, and he didn't need
any advice in that regard .

You have to remember that Judge Sweigert had a pretty good
understanding of the social and economic problems of our time, and
Earl Warren relied on him. He was a tremendous influence in the

202

Zirpoli: programs invoked by Earl Warren as governor, as it relates, by way
of illustration, to Medicare and problems of that character.

Sharp: I had even seen a piece that talked about the relationship between
Warren and Sweigert. Sweigert is given quite a bit of credit for —

Zirpoli: Yes, probably in the historical society's Bulletin.*
Sharp: Is that it?
Zirpoli: It could be.

Sharp: — assisting Chief Justice Warren in becoming more liberal in some of
his views .

Zirpoli: Yes, definitely. I think Sweigert had more influence on Earl Warren
than any man. During the election campaigns, I am sure Judge
Sweigert wrote most of the speeches or did all the spade work on
them.

Judge Sweigert was responsible for most of the judicial
appointments in the state of California that were made by Earl Warren.
The governor would just go into Judge Sweigert and say, "Who do you
think we should name?" Or Judge Sweigert would say a few days after
the vacancy, "We ought to appoint so-and-so."

He was very active in that regard and he was very effective
because he would make the appointments early. As a consequence, no
one would be angry or sore because they weren't appointed. They
didn't get their applications in, and the number of applications
would be less. Sweigert would make an analysis and an appraisal of
the lawyers in a particular community. He would call the lawyer and
say, "The governor would like to appoint you to the superior bench,"
and you didn't even think you wanted to be on the superior bench.
After you received a phone call you'd say, "I'll call you back
tomorrow." Then he would get acceptances from a number of them. I
know some judges were appointed in that fashion.

Sharp: That's quite a bit different from Mr. Reagan's approach to judicial
appointments with a judicial selection advisory board.

*See the Bulletin of the Historical Society of the U.S. District
Court for the Northern District of California, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring
1983. Included in this issue are an essay summarizing Judge Sweigert 's
political and judicial career and a memo which the judge wrote for
Earl Warren's gubernatorial campaign in California in 1942.

203

Zirpoli: Yes. Of course, I can understand it on the federal level in part.

Traditionally, the American Bar [Association] and others have played
a role in making recommendations. You have an FBI investigation and
everything else that goes with it.

Sharp: I was thinking more of Mr. Reagan as governor of California. His
appointments process was quite a bit different in terms of the
judiciary.

Zirpoli: That was true of most of the governors and even Pat [Edmund G.]

Brown [Sr.] did. Pat Brown would take too long before he made his
appointments and he wasn't as systematic and definite as Earl Warren.
Earl Warren was systematic and definite because Judge Sweigert was a
good organizer. He was well organized in everything that he did. I
mean he kept records of everything. I don't keep records. I just
don't fit in his class.

Sharp: This ruling that Judge Sweigert made, do you recall what the response
of the other Northern District Court judges were to it?

Zirpoli: I don't think anybody objected, but I don't recall anything specific
other than his advising us and telling us that he was doing this. I
am not sure if he told us after he had actually done it or before,
because most of the judges don't tell you what they are going to do
in advance, unless they are seeking some advice.

Sharp: So nobody really openly opposed him?

Zirpoli: I have no recollection of anyone opposing him. You would have a hell
of a time opposing him because you would have to work out an argument.
You couldn't just say, "I don't like what you did." He would say,
"Why not?" Then you would have to start making an analysis and he'd
say, "Do you mean to tell me that this is not a war? Do you mean to
tell me that the president declared war? When and where did he
declare it?" You'd have a tough time meeting that kind of argument.

Sharp: Yes. It was quite significant the way the press treated it. They
treated it as though he had said that he had declared that the war
was unconstitutional, so the press sort of took it a few steps —

Zirpoli: But it didn't get, nationally, I don't think it got that much
reaction.

Sharp: I don't know. I know it's fairly well known within San Francisco

that he had done it, but nationally I don't know what sort of response
there was. Do you recall how this turned out? In the article it
said that he was going to give the U.S. attorneys fifteen days to
present their side of it.

Zirpoli: No, I don't. I don't recall with any clarity.

204

Sharp: I didn't find in the Chronicle what had happened afterwards.

Zirpoli: He did nothing that meant anything because the war went on; he
didn't stop it!

Sharp: I just wondered if these three young men did go ahead and pursue
the challenge, and what happened to the rest of the case.

Sweigert wanted the district court and the Ninth Circuit
really to deal with the issue of the war and the war's constitu
tionality. I wonder if you recall sensing any willingness on the
part of the Northern District or the Ninth Circuit to do this?

Zirpoli: I don't remember any. There never is. You have no desire to pass
on a constitutional question unless it's meaningful. This has no
consequence, so just let it stand. The same way during the Japanese
[internment] cases. There is no desire to take an appeal in those
cases or to have them appealed if you can avoid it. There was a
sense of deliberate effort to avoid appeal in the Japanese cases.

Sharp: Yes, I know.

The Court in Wartime

Sharp: Over the course of these interviews, we have talked about war quite
a bit. The courts' and the district courts' role, as it were, in
war-related matters, all sorts of matters — the Japanese-American
internment, the curfew orders, and all of that, and now the CO and
the Selective Service stuff.

I wondered if you had any broader view of the court's role in
wars and how the court is supposed to act or react?

Zirpoli: The basic, broad view in war is that the war should in no way affect
the civil rights of the individual unless an imminent danger is
presented that requires actual curtailment. Absent that, all the
rights have to continue as they were, and then you have to continue
to be, let us say, vigilant against arbitrary action of the state,
let's put it that way.

Sharp: So that one of the main differences between what was happening in
San Francisco in World War II and the question of the Japanese and
the difficulties is that there was a major feeling of national —

Zirpoli: Well, certainly as far as the Japanese were concerned in World War
II, there was a form of military necessity. How true it was, to
what degree it really was, I cannot say. At that time, we were in a

205

Zirpoli: position where we had to accept basically the conclusions of the
military because the courts were not given the other views. The
courts were not fully apprised, for instance of, let's say, even
the views of the FBI in their entirety at the time.

But based upon the information that was given us, based upon
the progress of the war in the early stages of it, there was every
indication of imminent peril, of actual attack on the West Coast.
I mean we had lost all of the naval battles in the first four or
five months. Then the Japanese had taken over everything that they
sought to take over up until that time, and we had lost major naval
battles. So there was every reason to be concerned from the point
of view, let's say, of the military or those who believed that all
of these things were true. The courts were presented with the facts
as they knew them. They had no other source.

You had fifth column activities in Europe as some indication.
While there were no acts of sabotage on the West Coast that we
actually know of, we do know that there were mixed allegiances among
the Japanese. I mean they don't want to particularly admit that
today, that at that time there were. There were people who actually
owed their primary allegiance to the emperor. I mean that was part
of the oath of the societies of which they were members.

Of course, today — I'm not quarreling with them — but today they
slide over that and overlook that aspect of the situation, the
condition as it existed.

Sure, on hindsight, we were all wrong. There was no need for
it. But you can't wait until something happens and that was the
situation. [pause]

Sharp: I think that's all the questions that I have about these things. I
wondered if there are other comments that you would like to make
about the Northern District.

Zirpoli: No, I haven't anything more that I really think that I could add

that is of any value. There is the question involving Santa Rita,
San Quentin — .

Welfare and Aid to Families with Dependent Children

Sharp: There is also the issue of welfare cases which you had, AFDC [Aid to
Families with Dependent Children] matters.

Zirpoli: Did you find something in the papers on that?

206

Sharp: Yes, I did.

Zirpoli: Did you find a comment from Reagan?

Sharp: I think I might have missed that.

Zirpoli: They were very unhappy with my ruling.

Sharp: I'm sure they were. Let's see, what did I find? According to the

San Francisco Chronicle, September 11, 1970, you ordered an increase
in the AFDC program, a 32.4 percent increase to reflect the increase
in cost of living. The state was supposed to do this to comply with
a federal order, but it didn't. Deputy Attorney General Elizabeth
Palmer objected to your ideas, as did Lucian Vandegrift, who was
Human Relations Agency secretary, and said they would appeal.
Reagan blasted your ruling on the following day. You ruled that in
September. In December, your ruling was stayed by the Ninth Circuit.

Later on, in '71, April of '71, you delayed your order to cut
off $700 million in federal funds for the AFDC. You said it wouldn't
be necessary to do it if the state Department of Social Services
would raise the benefits by 21.4 percent, which it had been ordered
to do by you previously and Sacramento Superior Court Judge Gallagher.

Zirpoli: Yes, and they did, and then Reagan claimed credit for it in his

campaign for president. While he was campaigning for president, he
was telling everybody how he increased the aid for dependent
children in California.

Sharp: What he had done actually was in response to several orders that
you had made.

Zirpoli: I cut off federal funds. They either did it or they didn't get
federal funds. They had to make their choice.

Sharp: Judge Wollenberg had quite a few of these AFDC cases as well.

Zirpoli: One of these was a three-judge court and he was on the court with
me. I've forgotten who the third judge was. But we had a three-
judge court.

Sharp: One of the reasons I wanted to talk about the AFDC cases was because

they show the federal court's involvement in state matters, essentially,
They also show the court in a similar way almost to the Selective
Service and conscientious objector cases in the sense that it's the
position of sort of a current monitor of practices, federal or state
agency practices.

Zirpoli: We were doing it all of the time.

207

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:
Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:
Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp:

Yes.

We're still doing it. You have to bear in mind that if an appeal is
taken to our court, we review all of the so-called Social Security
benefits, payments for persons who are incapacitated. If they are
turned down, they come to the court for an appeal. We review all of
these cases where people have been cut off from their aid and it was
not furnished any longer because they are incapacitated, or they
cease to be incapacitated, or they can be gainfully employed, as
contrasted to whether they could or could not. So that type of
supervision goes on all of the time.

It seems like a very major one because of the interests that are at
stake.

Substantial; for instance, on the Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare, yes.

I would like first to talk a little bit more about that first next
time, which will be our wind-up session.

Fine.

I am surprised you are spending this much time with me.

I think we are getting some really good information about the court's
history and about your involvement in the court. I think it is
going to be a good series.

I am afraid somebody is going to read that and say, "Who the hell
does he think he is?" [laughter] That's what they're going to say!

Because you don't think you are worth spending that much time on or
not that representative — ?

I doubt that I am worth spending that much time on. Anyway, I don't
know. Maybe not too many people will read it, so I shouldn't worry!
[chuckles]

I hope they do. [laughter]
II

Substantive and Administrative Changes within the Court Since 1961

Sharp: I thought we would start by spending some time just talking about how
the court has changed overall since you have been on it, since 1961.

208

Zirpoli: All right.

Sharp: First of all, I might try to pin you down just a little bit and ask
you about how the types of cases have changed themselves. For
example, is there more antitrust now than —

Zirpoli: I think I'll really just tell you about the growth of the court, the
nature of the cases, and things of that character. To start with,
when I first came on the bench, the federal bench, in 1961, there
were two district courts in California: the Northern District, with
its seat in San Francisco, and the Southern District, with its seat
in Los Angeles. There were six district judges in the Northern
District of California, with five sitting in San Francisco and one
in Sacramento, which was considered a division of the Northern
District .

In 1967, California was divided into four districts. The
Northern District, with its seat in San Francisco; the Eastern
District, with its seat in Sacramento; the Central District, with
its seat in Los Angeles; and the Southern District, with its seat
in San Diego .

Today, in the Northern District of California, there are twelve
active judges and three senior judges, and in the Eastern District,
formerly part of the Northern District, there are now five active
judges and two senior judges. So that what was the Northern District
of California, when I was first inducted into office, has grown in
the number of active judges from six to seventeen.

Now, it can be said that no court system in modern time,
including those of all the states, has been exposed to such an
impressive expansion as have the federal courts of over the past
twenty years. Now, not only has the volume of the business of the
court grown dramatically, but also the nature of the litigation has
changed with an extraordinary increase in the number of complicated
and protracted cases, such as antitrust cases, particularly the
multidistrict litigation, which came into being in 1963 and for the
purpose of handling it, they had to amend the laws in 1967 or '68 to
set up a special multidistrict panel.

Now, in addition to the antitrust cases, we had class actions
which have tremendously increased in volume; securities fraud cases,
based upon the Securities Act; the labor relations and environmental
cases; and there has been a tremendous growth in the statutes in
administrative regulations that have come down.

Additionally, the federal courts have had to chart new
experiences in constitutional law in the form of due process and
constitutional changes, not only on the criminal side, but on the

209

Zirpoli: civil side as well, in such cases as prison reform, social welfare,
civil rights and other discriminatory practices. Now, these are
indications of the change in the nature of the cases and the
increased complexity of these cases.

To give you an idea, the number of federal agencies jumped from
twenty to seventy in the past twenty years, while the number of pages
of federal regulations tripled in the seventies alone.

Now paralleling these trends, the supply of lawyers has doubled
since 1960, so that the United States now boasts the largest number
of attorneys per thousand population of any major industrial nation
in the world. We have three times as many lawyers per hundred
thousand as Germany, ten times as many as Sweden, twenty times the
number in Japan.

Furthermore, the cost of litigation over the past twenty years
has increased dramatically so that most of the middle class and the
poor cannot afford to go to court to settle their grievances.

Furthermore, the discovery practice is now being abused in such
a fashion as to prolong litigation and to increase compensable time
for lawyers ,

Now, these factors, in my view, tend to diminish the quality of
justice and call for some reforms. Now, how can we effect reforms?
What can we do? The basic response would be to examine more care
fully the adversary system and determine whether, in the final
analysis, it is undermining justice in many types of cases.

Now, I am not advocating that we do away with the adversary
system, but the adversary system is one of the factors which adds
to the tremendous cost of resolving disputes. I believe that what we
should do — to give greater access to all people — is to simplify the
rules and procedures and take the measures that would improve our
resort to mediation and negotiation.

Many people today debate whether lawyers exacerbate controversy
or help to prevent it from arising. Now, doubtless, they do some of
each. I fear that there is a tendency on the part of lawyers today,
rather than to try to meet with the lawyer on the other side or ask
the other side to have its lawyer meet with him and resolve the
problem by negotiation, to want to be the first to the courthouse.
They want to file a suit to show their great strength and position
of strength, and if they don't do that, someone might interpret that
as a sign of weakness.

Now, it is unfortunate that such feeling exists, but such feeling
adds to the volume of litigation. When you consider in the final
analysis that certainly not more than 10 to 20 percent of the cases

210

Zirpoli: go to actual trial and that eventually 80 percent or better are
settled, it's an indication that the lawyers and all the parties
concerned could have saved a lot of time and trouble for themselves,
expense for their clients, and time of the court by resorting to
negotiation at the very outset. Certainly, the minute a suit is
filed, if it's negotiable, they ought to try to negotiate it.

Now, there is a tendency on the part of some law firms (I notice
at least in one) where, if they contemplate filing a suit, what they
do is prepare a complaint, send it to the attorney of the other side
and say, "This is what we propose to do. Would you care to negotiate
a settlement with us?" I have known cases in which they have actually
done that and settled their cases. So there has to be some type of
reform in this area.

Now unfortunately, with possibly some exceptions that are
beginning to crop up, the law schools aren't training lawyers in this
manner. They're training them for conflict rather than for what I
call, in general, the art of reconciliation and accomodation. So
this is my reaction as a general overview of the changes that have
transpired over the past twenty years.

Now, there have been administrative changes as well, which have
had their impact on the courts. I have already mentioned, of course,
the fact that we have had changes arising in our interpretation of
constitutional law. Illustrations of these, of course, are the cases
that come down from what I will call the Warren era.

But in order to take care of these changes and to improve due
process, of course, legislation has been enacted, such as the Speedy
Trial Act, the Jury Selection Act, all of which have necessitated the
preparation of plans on the part of the district court. So we now
have a plan under the Speedy Trial Act that we operate under so we
can be sure that criminal cases will be terminated within a reasonable
period. In other words, arraignment within ten days and trial within
sixty.

We have adopted plans for the appointment of counsel. We have
a federal public defender here, and I went over the history of that
once before when I related how it came about.

Then we have had problems arising under these statutes, which
say that you are entitled to have the benefit of counsel for the
purpose of pursuing certain types of litigation, particularly in the
civil rights area — where do you get these lawyers? So the courts
have had to try to adopt plans for that purpose.

While many of these acts provide for attorneys' fees, if the
party prevails, it is still difficult to get lawyers because there is
a certain amount of cost involved. So we have adopted a plan that

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Zirpoli: enables us to use the library funds that we have raised over the
years. We can advance costs up to $1000 to an attorney for cost
purposes alone, but not for attorneys' fees, so that they can take
depositions and make discovery.

As I say, these changes that I have mentioned, of course, have
resulted in a need for change in the administrative process. Of
course, one of the big changes that occurred approximately in the
early sixties and not quite mid-sixties is the change from the
master calendar to the individual calendar. We had to change from
the master calendar because under the master calendar, the judge
wouldn't get a case until it was assigned to him for trial. The
master calendar judge would be handling all pretrial motions. The
master calendar judge would rotate every two or three or four months,
whatever period we fixed.

We had to keep the lawyers from knowing when the rotations would
take place because they would resort to judge shopping if they knew,
and this would be particularly true on the criminal side. If you
knew that a particular judge was going to be master calendar judge
next month and you had a criminal case, you would try to continue
it until next month and plead your man guilty because you had an
easy judge or you thought you did.

The master calendar judge would be changed from time to time.
Since they handled all pretrial matters, sometimes three or four
judges would be ruling on a case or some aspect of the case before
it got to trial.

So, as I say, we changed over to the individual calendar. Then
we invoked a system of assignment to judges by lot so that no one
would know which judge was going to get a case. You went down to
the clerk's office and filed a case, and you would have no idea
which judge was going to get it even if you waited around because
the cases are all placed in categories. We have eighteen categories
of cases, such as criminal, antitrust, contract, civil rights, patent,
and so forth.

We selected a number from each category for each judge. Let's
take contracts by way of illustration. If you want to use the twelve
judges as an illustration, you fill out twelve names, or ten names for
each of the twelve judges, say, you would have 120. The judges' names
are placed on cards which are put in sealed envelopes. They are then
mixed in, just as you do when you shuffle cards. When a man files a
suit, he gets a number and then the clerk picks the first envelope,
opens it, and then learns for the first time who the judge is going
to be and he puts that judge's initials after the number of the case.
That means that judge has the case assigned to him for all purposes.

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Zirpoli: Now, this is working out a lot better. We had to do it, as I say,
because with the passage of time, more complex and protracted cases
were being filed. It was ridiculous having many judges passing on
pretrial matters. Even before we went on the individual calendar,
as some of the complex cases arose, we started assigning them to
individual judges. We realized we would have to do that.

These are some of the basic administrative changes that have
taken place over these twenty years . I would say these are the
major changes. Now, I don't know what other questions you have with
relation to the changes, because anything else would be a little more
detailed, and I don't think that it would add to the overall picture.

Sharp: I have a couple of questions that sort of buttress some of the

remarks that you have already made. A few questions on changes in
procedures, how the use of discovery, for example, has come about.
The heavier use of discovery has really come about since you have
been on the federal bench.

Zirpoli: That's right.

Sharp: I was wondering about the problem of limits — ?

Zirpoli: Well, there are problems of limits and some judges, for instance,
will limit the number of interrogatories that you can ask. Most
judges — all of them, in fact — call status conferences. After a case
has been on file for a period of time, we ask the lawyers to come in
and tell us what the status of the case is. They have a preliminary
pretrial to work out a discovery procedure, so as to avoid the abuse
of discovery, and indicate the manner in which the discovery shall
proceed .

Of course, the plaintiff and the defendant are both interested
in being the first to start the discovery and we have to sometimes
control that, so we do. As I say, one method is to put limits on the
number of interrogatories. Another method is to require depositions
before you resort to certain types of procedures. There is no sense
in trying to make discovery or ask for production of documents if you
don't know who the responsible parties are in the company that is
involved. When you learn the proper person having responsibility,
then that's the person that you depose. By that process you may
avoid some of this other discovery.

Of course, the party that has the deep pocket can afford to
indulge in discovery. Quite often he does, and forces the man who
has less resources to expend substantial sums of money, which might
otherwise not be necessary. I prefer to have the lawyers get together
and enter into a stipulation as to all the facts that can be stipu
lated and for the production of all the records that need to be

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Zirpoli: produced without resorting to the court. They are fairly cooperative
and we have had a certain amount of success.

Of course, we invite the parties far more today than we did
prior to 1960 to seek settlement through the process of the court;
that is to say, to have a judge assigned to sit as a settlement
judge who will then sit with the lawyers, try to evaluate their
cases with them, and suggest methods of settlement.

Generally, of course, nine times out of ten, it's a question of
how much money and which of the parties is to pay it. The judge can
pretty well work that out if the people end up in the same ball park
if they are not too far apart. Of course, it's amazing sometimes.
They are so terribly far apart and still you end up with an appro
priate settlement.

Now, you have problems when it comes to things like school
reform and prison reform. The judges can sit with the lawyers even
there for purposes of settling it and working out a program. If
there is prison reform that's needed, you sit down with the lawyers
and indicate wherein the constitutional rights of the prisoners were
being violated and the measures that can be taken to remedy the
situation.

That happened with me at the very outset with the Santa Rita
prison.* I was able to get the lawyers in together and even the
members of the [Alameda County] Board of Supervisors and they ended
up by making appropriations of county funds for the purpose of
erecting a new prison facility.

Sharp: Is that what became Greystone?

Zirpoli: Yes. Well, Greystone is what prompted the creation of the new
prison.

Sharp: I have some questions on that, but they come really a little bit
later.

Zirpoli: Do you have any more on this, and then you said something about the
role of the judge?

Sharp: Two things really, I guess. There are two decisions, the Miranda

decision and the Mapp decision (Miranda having to do with confession,**
Mapp having to do with search and seizure***) . I am wondering how

*Interested readers may see Zirpoli' s earlier recollections of this
incident in Jackson, Judges , pp. 297-300.

**Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (June 13, 1966).
***Mapp v. Ohio 367 U.S. 643 (1961).

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Sharp: they changed the court's work and if you could just say something
about that.

Zirpoli: They changed the court's work because what you are talking about is
confessions and unreasonable searches and seizures. The courts have
invoked stricter rules as they apply to the conduct of the police.
In Miranda, the courts, because the police were abusing their
authority for the purpose of securing confessions, they established
a per se rule, that if you didn't advise the prisoner or the accused
of his right to assistance of counsel, that was a per se violation
of his constitutional rights.

Now, I was always of the view that the Supreme Court went too
far. I felt that what the test should be, under the circumstances,
was the confession reliable, was his statement reliable, and that as
far as the misconduct of the police was concerned, that should be
a matter of a civil rights action against the police. But the
minute you put in that per se rule, even if you thought that the
confession was reliable, you couldn't use it, and I always felt that
it had to be basically a question of reliability. That was just a
personal view.

There is a tendency now to move away from the old Miranda rule .
Certainly, the clearest example is that you can certainly use it for
cross-examination purposes, which you couldn't do before.

On search and seizures, the question should always be, in my
view, was it unreasonable? That's where the [U.S.] Supreme Court
gets into their quarrel. I mean one justice sees it one way and
another justice sees it another way. So they look at all of the
circumstances .

A fellow comes out of, let's say, a supermarket with a bag and
you think maybe he has groceries, but you have learned from an
informant that that's where the narcotics are to be exchanged. Then
if you seize that bag, go up to him and open that bag, where are you?
Will the Supreme Court say it's reasonable or it's unreasonable?
I use this as an illustration of the type of problems that arise.

But there is a tendency to back away right now — not too far — and
I am not suggesting that they should back away too much either. But
I think on some of these questions we might be better off if we had
a specific statute which entitled you to bring a civil action for
unwarranted police activity, although you can bring it under the Civil
Rights Act even now. So you are not entirely without a remedy.

Sharp: And yet the two decisions, Mapp and Miranda , were based on the

feeling that the police had gone too far and that there needed to be
this sort of —

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Zirpoli: Some form of restraint.

Sharp: Yes, which I guess each judge then needs —

Zirpoli: It hasn't been too bad. I mean actually a lot of people have

expressed fear of dire consequences, but the work of the police has
not been unduly hampered by it really.

Issues for the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference: Sentencing
Institutes, Diversity Jurisdiction

Sharp: One other question about changes in the court. There is a Ninth

Circuit judicial conference that is held annually, I believe, now.

Zirpoli: Yes.

Sharp: I am wondering if the kinds of matters that are discussed at this
annual conference, what sort of implications there are for the
district court's work, and how that changed over the years?

Zirpoli: The judicial conference is provided for by statute and when they

met in the early days (and now I am going back to the thirties and
the forties), it generally was just the judges who met. Occasionally,
they would invite a lawyer, who could sit in the audience, but
couldn't participate. If they invited a lawyer, he wouldn't parti
cipate anyway.

Then they evolved. They decided to include lawyer delegates.
Originally each judge was permitted to name a lawyer delegate. Now,
before I went on the bench, I served for many years as Judge Goodman's
lawyer delegate. The purpose of the conference is to discuss matters
of mutual importance and the impact of legislation on the court, rules
of procedure, civil and criminal, and recommendations for changes and
recommendations for the Ninth Circuit representatives to the Judicial
Conference of the United States, which makes recommendations for
changes, for instance, to the Congress.

Zirpoli: Of course, another change during that era was the changing in the

rules so as to permit greater discovery in the criminal cases . The
change, as I say, has helped some and has alleviated in part the
fact that you are not entitled to a grand jury transcript as such.
There was a time when you didn't even have to have a reporter in the
grand jury room. Of course, now you have to have a reporter there to
report all of the proceedings that involve the interrogation of
witnesses or the presentation of evidence, so that to a degree, as I

216

Zirpoli: say, that has alleviated a situation about which we had been
clamoring in those early days.

Sharp: The judicial conferences then that are held within the Ninth Circuit,
in some ways are they self-educating?

Zirpoli: They are self-educating in certain areas.

We also have the sentencing institutes. There the judges gather
together for the purpose of discussing sentencing procedures so as
to avoid the inequities and disparity in sentences. Then you have
workshops. You get a group of judges together, and each decides
what the sentence shall be. Then they compare notes to see what the
results are and to see what the disparities are, particularly since
you have identical situations that each judge is passing on.

Of course, we took care of that, in part, in our own district at
one time by having the probation officer submit a brief summary of
the sentencing in each case so the judges could review it if necessary,
So this is some indication of what we are trying to accomplish through
the various conferences.

Sometimes the district judges meet and the lawyers meet and the
court of appeals judges meet. At least for half a day, each of these
groups meet separately. Then, of course, we meet as a body and we
always have a representative of the [U.S.] Supreme Court there, too,
to discuss matters with us as questions arise from time to time.

Sharp: Over the years, with the lawyer delegates now in full standing as
part of these judicial conferences, is there a commonality of
approach with the lawyers being more involved?

Zirpoli: While there is a commonality of approach, there are definitely dif
ferent approaches to some problems. By way of illustration, a
peremptory challenge to a judge. You can't do that in the federal
system. In the state court, you can exercise one challenge. Well,
when the judges are definitely opposed to it, most of the lawyers
favor it. I use this as a quick illustration of the difference in
point of view.

Of course, there was also a desire on the part of the federal
courts to cut down on their volume of business by removing all of
the diversity jurisdiction; that is, the privilege of a citizen of
one state who is suing the citizen of another state to sue in federal
court.

Sharp: I had heard that. I wondered if that was going to go through or —

217

Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

It's still a matter of debate in Congress. Legislation has been
introduced from time to time, but it has not been passed as yet.
Of course, one of the big changes that may occur would be the
rewriting of the federal criminal code. If they do that, that will
become quite an educational process and, I am sure, the subject of
most of the judicial conferences for several years to come.

When we thought it was imminent, that became part of the dis
cussion of one or more of our own judicial conferences. I had to
present to them an overall view of what the effect of the new code
would be and what its impact on the court would be. That's one of
the functions of the Judicial Conference of the United States and
also the judicial conference for the circuit, when legislation is
proposed, to try to ascertain the impact of the legislation on the
court.

We have no control over what Congress wishes to enact as far
as substantive law is concerned. Our interest is primarily what the
impact will be, particularly as it relates to procedures. The new
code will change — somewhat change, not significantly — the sentencing
procedures .

Just to follow that through a little bit more then, do you think
that the different circuits would have different attitudes about
the diversity jurisdiction and whether or not getting rid of it —

I know of no federal judge who is in favor of it. It may be, but
I just don't know any.

How much would it cut down on the volume of your work?

I don't know. I have just been guessing, but there are figures
available, and I hate to guess. At least one out of twenty cases
maybe .

I was thinking maybe one out of ten or twelve.

Well, I am not going to say. But you can just see for yourself,
you can reduce the caseload, by way of illustration, by 5 or 10
percent, that means a difference of forty judges. Based on the
number of judges we have now, it would make a difference of at least
forty judges .

Further Thoughts on Juries

Sharp: I have a question then on juries and how they might have changed
Now, you mentioned just briefly the Jury Selection Act, which I
think was in '68 or '69, but fairly early in your tenure.

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Zirpoli: I don't recall the date.

There was also the Bail Reform Act, which was another reform
that occurred in this era. That was promoted by Robert Kennedy.
There are problems there. I mean they are talking about amending
it now so as to include the denial of bail if the individual
involved is of danger to himself or to the community. The test is,
will he show up; the so-called basic test.

Now, on jury selection, it's based on a review of the history.
At one time, women were not allowed to be on the jury. At one time,
each court had its own system and we had what we called blue-ribbon
juries. Now, the selection has to be representative of the community
and voter lists are the primary sources. So you determine how many,
let's say in the Northern District of California, prospective jurors-
you need, and you try to work that out based on the number of
registered voters. You start out with a number and say, just for
illustration purposes, if you need one out of twenty, you go down the
voter list and say, "All right, we'll start with number sixteen,"
whoever happens to be sixteen. The next one is thirty-six. The next
one is fifty-six. So you pick this one and then you can jump here,
and you pick that one. This would be a random selection. As a
result of the random selection, you presumably get a more representa
tive jury.

Now, a problem also arose in the question of election of the
foreman. There had been a disposition on the part of the courts to
look at the qualifications of the respective members of the grand
jury, and you'd pick out some executive or someone who had experience
as a managing or presiding officer. Well, that resulted in some type
of discrimination as far as women are concerned, and may have resulted
also in some forms of racial discrimination.

So what you do now is, while you don't overlook that factor, you
also look at the composition of your jury and judges will now at
times select a woman. Sometimes they do it just deliberately so that
no one can claim that there is discrimination, or they'll select a
Hispanic or a black or an Oriental as the foreman — or foreperson, I
should say — of the grand jury.

Sharp: With all of these differences in the way the juries are put together
and the way the forepersons are selected, how do you put it all
together? What differences do you see in juries now as opposed to
maybe when you were first on the bench — can you make any generaliza
tions like that?

Zirpoli: When you picked the members of the Olympic Club, the Bohemian Club,
the Pacific Union Club, and the institutions of that character, or
names suggested by various people, lawyers or the U.S. attorney and

219

Zirpoli: judges, when you had that procedure, naturally you got people who

were better educated, for one. You got people who were older, number
two. You didn't get the people who were over seventy and you weren't
likely to get people under twenty-five or thirty either.

The change is that the jury is far more representative without
a doubt than it was. Now, whether this is good or bad — if you have
a complicated case, it's better if you have educated people. But
then that's not the function of a democracy that provides equal
protection for all. So we're adhering to our representative jury
selection system.

Sharp: Are there some cases that are handled better by judges than they are
by juries?

Zirpoli: Oh, there is no question that there are certain cases that are so
complicated in character that it makes it very difficult for a lay
juror to comprehend and analyze. This is illustrative of an anti
trust case that I think Judge [Samuel] Conti had involving IBM.
When it was all over, he submitted an interrogatory to the jurors.
One of the jurors said, "My God, you have to be a lawyer, an engineer,
and an economist to understand the case!"

You see? But so far, you're entitled to a jury in all those
cases to which you would have been entitled to one under the old
common law. Now, even in the antitrust area, you're entitled to a
jury trial. There's some question of whether, ultimately you could
deny a jury trial in antitrust cases even if Congress did so by
statute. They have not elected to do so. I have proposed such a
statute here for such purposes, and that's a matter of debate, for a
lot of people are still saying definitely that it would be unconsti
tutional to deny you a jury trial, even in an antitrust case.

Now, there are certain cases where you're not entitled to a
jury trial; for instance if you file a lawsuit against the United
States of America, seeking damages, you're not entitled to a jury
trial. Matter of fact, you can't sue the United States without its
consent. However, the United States, by act of Congress, has consented,
so that if a postal truck rams into you while it is going through a
red light, after you go through the administrative process of
presenting your claim, and that's not resolved, then you have a right
to sue the government. But you don't have a right to a jury trial.
But if a civilian rammed into you, another civilian, of course you'd
be entitled to a jury trial.

220

Prisoners' Rights and the Court's Role:
and San Quentin

Examples from Santa Rita

Sharp: I had some specific issues I wanted us to talk about that the court
has dealt with in terms of other state or federal agencies or groups
since the sixties. I just picked two examples. One is the example
of conditions at Santa Rita, Soledad, and San Quentin. The other is
the example of some of the AFDC matters that you have handled. From
the Chronicle I got a list of some issues involving the treatment of
prisoners at some of these facilities. But I thought I would describe
a few of them, and then we would talk about them.

In '70, there was a suit involving the treatment of pretrial
detainees at the Greystone section of Santa Rita and apparently the
new facilities had been built, but they were not available to them.
In May of '72 you ordered that changed, that the new facilities
would be available to them.

In March of '74, the Ninth Circuit agreed with your 1971 ruling
that a state prison must provide counsel for inmates; more specifically,
that a prison discharge hearing had to be conducted more like a regu
lar court proceeding. John Wesley Cluchette, who was one of the
Soledad Brothers, had brought that case.

Then there are several cases from San Quentin, reports of
violence; in 1971, one report in which both inmates and guards were
killed.

In '75 in December, you wrote a long, twenty-six page opinion
about long-term maximum security confinement at San Quentin and that
the way that that confinement was being handled constituted cruel
and unusual punishment. That was a '73 suit filed by six different
inmates, which, I guess, was a fairly controversial ruling. You had
a lot of opposition from the California Correctional Officers Asso
ciation.

Zirpoli: But they eventually complied with basically everything I ruled on.
Sharp: They did?

Zirpoli: Yes. The San Quentin Six, I think it was — I can't think of the name
of the — Spain.

Sharp: I have all of the names: [Hugo] Pinell, [Fleeta] Drumgo, [Luis]
Talamantez, [David] Johnson, [Johnny] Spain, and [Willie] Tate.

Zirpoli: All right. Well, Spain was the lead name. These men had previously
engaged in certain forms of violence and were presumably involved
in the escape attempt that ended up eventually in the death of the

221

Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

judge over in Marin County. They were put, in effect, in solitary
confinement and they were there twenty- three out of twenty- four
hours of the day.

So they had no access to fresh air or exercise,
they had to have access to exercise and fresh air.

I ruled that

They were chained. Tear gas was used. I abolished the use of
neck chains entirely. I said they could not use tear gas unless a
situation of actual danger occurred and it became necessary to resort
to it to avoid injury to others of the prisoners or guards.

These measures, which I suggested had to be followed, were fol
lowed, and the same was true in Cluchette. My ruling in Cluchette,
strangely enough, went to the court of appeals, but it took them
three years to pass on it, and they decided that I hadn't gone far
enough. So they added some items, as a result of which they were
reversed by the [U.S.] Supreme Court.

With relation to Santa Rita, these were people who had yet to be
tried. Yet their conditions of confinement were far worse than those
who had actually been convicted. If you were convicted, you were
removed from the so-called Greystone and brought into one of the
dormitory-type places .

The new ones .

As a result of the hearings which we had and the meetings which we
had, they opened up a big outdoor area where these people could go
and spend the day. They opened the receiving rooms, and the use of
the showers, and the visitation rights; they were all improved.

Now, it's unfortunate that the courts had to do this because
that's an illustration of the increased workload that the courts were
getting all over the country. These prisoner complaints were coming
in because the legislature and executive office, through the director
of the Department of Corrections, were not resolving the problems.

That is what I would like us to get at, some perspective on the issue
of prison conditions and the court's role and what essentially amounts
to monitoring prison conditions .

The court's role is an unfortunate one. The court should not be
running the prisons, but if you can't get the legislature to appro
priate the money, and you can't get the executive office to invoke
the proper administrative procedures, then the courts have to come
in. What the court is presumably limited to is telling them that
what they are doing is unconstitutional and saying you have to correct
that.

222

Zirpoli: Sometimes you get a correction of it and sometimes you don't. We
have the situation in Alabama where Judge Frank Johnson invoked
substantial prison reform. You had situations in Florida where
they ordered the release of prisoners when the prisons became over
crowded. They have been doing that around here, too. I noticed
in Santa Clara County they did that fairly recently.

But, see, we are not equipped to do that. We don't have the
personnel and, furthermore, we conduct hearings that are based upon
rules of evidence. If the legislature wants to hear it and conduct
inquiries, there is no limit to the information they can seek or
the expert advice that they can seek. They are better equipped to
make a study of that nature and resolve by legislation where
necessary the problems that arise.

Sharp: The other issue then is changing standards of treatment of prisoners.
You have been dealing with prisoners for a very long time, since
your early work at Alcatraz and seeing what was going on there. I
am wondering how these particular cases in which you had to rule
reflect some of your ideas about prisons and prisoners and what they
are entitled to and what they are not entitled to.

Zirpoli: The only thing that the constitution says is that you shall not be
subject to cruel and unusual punishment. So what you do is you
review the conditions as they exist and make a determination of
whether it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Is a prisoner
entitled to more medical care in the prison than he would have
received on the outside? Is he entitled to more dental care in
prison than he would have received on the outside? The answers
should definitely be no, but the fact of the matter is that in many
instances they get more because they wouldn't get any on the outside.
They are in no position to get it. So you have to study the situation,
Some of them complain about the exercise, about the food and the
kitchen, and you study all of those.

Now, I think in the Spain case, I found there was no basis for
at least three-quarters of their complaints but I did find there was
a basis on the use of neck chains and lack of fresh air and exercise
and things of that character.

So I haven't any doubt that prison conditions have to be
improved, but there is also the fact that the prisons have been
trying to train their personnel. They put in a training program at
Santa Rita after I made my ruling — the sheriff's department did
itself.

Sharp: What sort of training was it?

Zirpoli: A method of better understanding and approach to the prisoners.

223

Sharp: Since, I guess, about the sixties or so there has been a lot of

consciousness raising about prisoners and about the lives of prisoners ,
and a list of what sorts of things they should be able to have in
terms of the conditions. From what I have read, that has brought a
huge increase in the numbers of prisoners' rights cases.

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, the tremendous growth in habeas corpus cases is the

clearest example. When you get to the point that you have in our
court over six hundred habeas corpus cases, and maybe a hundred or
two hundred civil rights cases on the part of prisoners, you are
beginning to load up the court. Most of these claims are frivolous,
but you have to review them because even though the vast majority are
frivolous, now and then there is a case that has merit.

This presents a problem in the [U.S.] Supreme Court, too,
because most of the cases that are referred them by way of petition
for writ of certiorari are frivolous, but every now and then there
is a good case. And it's that every-now-and-then-there-is-a-good-
case that resulted in a Miranda ruling, by way of illustration.

The Death Penalty

Sharp:

Zirpoli:
Sharp:

Zirpoli:

The other issue that has to do with prisoners really is the death
penalty and the death row appeal . The death penalty has always been
an important matter for the court, I guess.

Yes.

In 1969, you were assigned all of the death row appeals,
that all come about?*

How did

That all came about because I had one or two. It became apparent
that the question of the death penalty in California was to be
reviewed by the [U.S.] Supreme Court. It would have been unfortunate
if some of those prisoners were executed who might very well have had
a proper case depending upon the ultimate rulings of the Supreme
Court. So to avoid that possibility, I was assigned all of the death
row cases.

What I did was to contact the warden at San Quentin, as I said,
to advise me in advance of the various execution dates so that I
could appoint an attorney who would then interview the individual and

*See San Francisco Chronicle article on following page.

223a

'-'- i ••:•: . -.. •.•••. • - ..•.-••.

Issues Not Resolved

infron

By William Cooncy

A Federal judne here

yesterday stayed the exe

cution of a Death Row in

mate — and indicated he

will do the same lor all oth-

' ers until the United States

! Supreme Court rules on

'some ticklish

tions. .

Judge AJfoitso
who

1 Death Row appeals that en-
; ter Federal courts, granted a
| stay to Lawrence G. Modes-
' to, 33, who was to be killed
[ March 5.

"Pending a Supreme Court
j ruling there should bo protec-
i lion for him and everyone
.similarly situated," the
j judge said.

ARGUMENTS

j On March 3 the highest

[ court is to hear arguments in

! two cases which contain 5m-

'portant Constitutional issues

; which Modesto could raise

l here, Judge Zirpoli said.

j These are that juries now

have no standards or guide-

j lines when they are trying to

decide if a man should be put

I to death cr given life impris-

I onmetit, and that a death

sentence is cruel and unusual

; punishment.

"Why shouldn't he (Modes
to) have the benefit of the
•Supreme Court decision?"
I Judge ZirpoU asked.

Both issues were rejected
by the California Supreme
i Court November 18.

FUTILE

Therefore, argued modes-
I to's attorney, .Jerome Falk, it
'might bo futile for Modesto
; to appeal to that court.

"We run the risk of having
jto ask for a Federal stay on
the eve of his execution, if
'the State denied a stay on
March 4— and there could be
a slipup," Falk said.

Judge Zirpoli said that his
having all the Death Row
cases "is a pretty awesome

j responsibility ' and I, too,
! have a fear of a slipup.

"I have my secretary
i mark my calendar so there'll
[be no slipup and some peti-
I tioner will be deprived of
i having his case heard.

"I agree that possibility is
remote but I am concerned
vand worried."

// Arguing against the stay
'was Albert W. Harris Jr., a
deputy attorney general.
Even if the Supreme Court
rejects the issues in Moder,-
to's case. Modesto has anoth
er issue he can take to the
State Courts — that potential
jurors who opposed the death
penalty were excluded from
his jury, Harris said.

"Without sounding overly j
inhumane," Harris said, "you ,
should hot protect him byi

waiting for something from
Washington, because next
year, I'm sure, there'll be
some thing else from Wash

ington.

TACTIC

"The interest of the people
has .been given very short
shrift for several years now.

"This is a delaying tactic.

"There he sits with another
n.rrow in his quiver (the jury
issue), waiting to sec what
the Supreme Court does,
when he should be ordered to
return to the State courts and
exhaust his remedies there."

There are how only five
men on' Death Row with firm
execution dates.

Modesto was convicted of
(he 19G1 sledge-hammer kill
ing in Riverside of tv/o girls,
19 and 13.

San Francisco Chronicle
February 21, 1969

224

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Zirpoli: file a petition if necessary and get a stay of execution. So that
worked out very well .

Zirpoli: We haven't had an execution in California for God knows how many
years, and I don't recall the exact number.

Sharp: Quite a while. The article mentioned that you had granted a stay
of execution for Lawrence Modesto and you said that the Supreme
Court should rule on the constitutional issue involving juries
having standards or guidelines when they were trying to decide if a
person should have the death penalty or life imprisonment. I won
dered how that all turned out because I didn't find any other mention
of it.

They said they didn't have proper standards and the law was amended.
It is still being argued as to whether these standards even as
amended are appropriate.

What did the standards say?

Well, there is a standard in the Supreme Court. I don't recall the
details, but it indicated that certain factors have to be considered
by the jury. If they were not considered and if they were not
applied uniformly, then you didn't have proper standards. Sometimes
whether you get the death penalty or not depends upon the jurisdic
tion in which you are convicted. You are more likely to get the
death penalty in, let's say, San Mateo County than you would in San
Francisco, because of the difference in the composition and make-up
of the population.

How long did you have all of the death row appeals?

I don't want to guess, but I. don't think I had them more than a year.

Was there any general effect then of your having all of them?

Well, it was a lot more convenient. It was just a matter of court
convenience. It was better that one judge have them so we would get
a uniformity in our rulings for the present purposes than to have
three or four judges basically considering the same question.

Sharp: I wonder what you would say were the important issues for yourself
in considering death penalty cases?

Zirpoli: The important issue in considering death penalty cases is to review
the circumstances of conviction for one thing, and the nature of the
trial and the manner in which the case was presented to the jury, how
the jury was selected. All of these become factors for consideration,

Sharp:
Zirpoli:
Sharp:
Zirpoli:

225

Zirpoli: and that's what you'd do, you would review it. But with the [U.S.]
Supreme Court entertaining these cases, you had to resolve the
doubts in favor of the prisoner until the Supreme Court made its
rulings .

No, I would not have permitted an execution until I was
completely satisfied that the individual involved had truly exhausted
all of his remedies, including certiorari in the Supreme Court. So
I would stay executions to enable the parties involved to file their
petitions, because what happens is first, you go into the state court
and exhaust your remedies. Then you come into the federal court.
From the district court, you go to the court of appeals and then up
to the [U.S.] Supreme Court. Certainly, until someone had exhausted
all of these remedies, you weren't going to permit an execution.

Now, eventually, I had to permit an execution where all of the
remedies had been exhausted and the fellow came through my court and
went to the Supreme Court . The Supreme Court turned him down and he
was to be executed, and he was. He tried to come back a second time
but I couldn't do anything any more. After that, my hands were com
pletely tied. I think that was the last man to be executed in San
Quentin.

Sharp: I am trying to remember his name. [Aaron Mitchell]

Zirpoli: Well, I may remember it myself, but I remember I even talked to his
mother.

Sharp: I think I had seen a note that she had come to see you.

Zirpoli: Yes, and she came to my chambers and I talked to her and tried to
explain to her what the situation was, but it was very difficult.

Sharp: I can't imagine what that would have been like, either being the
mother or you in terms of dealing with the situation. [pause]

Aid to Families with Dependent Children:
Responsibilities

State and Federal

Sharp: The AFDC cases, we talked about these just a little bit last time,
but essentially they are cases in which people challenge cuts that
the administration had made or prevention of increases which the
administration had made, somehow generally not complying with federal
orders for higher, more generous allotments.

Zirpoli: Well, it was providing for the increase in cost of living. As
recall — that was the three-judge court?

226

Sharp: That's one of them. That's the case you were with Judge Wollenberg.

Zirpoli: Wollenberg, yes. That was just a situation where there was failure
to comply with federal statutes, which was necessary in order to get
federal funds, and if you didn't comply with the federal statute and
provide for cost-of-living increases, you were not entitled to
federal funds, and we just told them the increase would have to be
made in order to be entitled to federal funds . I think we even gave
them a percentage that they had to increase. I think originally it
was around 30 percent, and we cut it down to a 23 percent increase,
and this caused a consternation in Sacramento in the governor's
office, among others. The then governor is now our president.

Sharp: I am wondering, too, about the role of the [state] attorney general's
office.

Zirpoli: The attorney general's office was opposed to it. Mrs. Palmer was the
deputy attorney general. But Mrs. Palmer, I think, was pretty well
satisfied that we were right. I mean, she did her best to represent
the attorney general and the point of view of the state of California
or the point of view of the governor, I should say, but I am sure
that she was clearly satisfied that our ruling was right.

Sharp: Now, Elizabeth Palmer is somebody I have been trying to find out
information about for a long time. At the time of this case, she
must have been fairly elderly. I know that she had been around a
long time.

Zirpoli: Yes. I wouldn't want to guess too much on it, but I am seventy-eight.
She would be about seventy-two now, and that's a guess. I may be off
a few years .

Sharp: Can you tell me anything more about her? I don't even know how long
she was in the attorney general's office.

Zirpoli: Oh, she was there for quite a number of years. She was a good lawyer,
and I think she was a very good representative for the attorney
general's office. I have seen many representatives from that office,
but I didn't see very many that were better or her equal.

Sharp: Was she formidable?

Zirpoli: Yes, in a very dignified way. Oh, yes.

Sharp: I don't have any image of what she looked like or how she —

Zirpoli: She was a somewhat handsome lady. She wasn't a young lady in her

early twenties or something of that nature. So, no, I liked her as
a lawyer and as a person. In fact, I attended her retirement party.

227

Zirpoli: The attorney general's office gave her a big party when she retired
after God knows how many years.

Sharp: Is she still alive, do you know?

Zirpoli: I think so and I think she lives in Marin County.

Sharp: Judge Wollenberg talked a bit about her in some of these cases. I
guess I think it must have been these same cases, the AFDC cases.

Now, you would have had dealings with both Tom Lynch and Evelle
Younger. Tom Lynch (a Democrat) was attorney general during Mr.
Reagan's first term; Evelle Younger was during his second.

Zirpoli: They were several cases really when Evelle Younger was attorney

general, I don't remember any particularly significant cases when
Tom Lynch was attorney general.

Sharp: I thought there were more really in the second term. Mr. Reagan

considered welfare reform more substantially in his second term than
he did in his first, so I thought it was probably Mr. Younger. I
wondered if your dealings through the court were primarily through
Mrs. Palmer or you actually had some — .

Zirpoli: No contact with the attorney general as such. Mrs. Palmer was the
contact. Of course, Tom Lynch I knew because he was assistant U.S.
attorney at the same time that I was.

Sharp: Yes, and you were both on a few cases together, I believe.
Zirpoli: Oh, yes. We were on "Baby Face" Nelson together.
Sharp: That's what I thought.

What is the role of the attorney general's office in these AFDC
cases? What was it from your viewpoint?

Zirpoli: The role? To prove that the state of California was right and they
didn't have to provide for these increases; and the role of the
attorney general's office is to contest the state habeas corpus cases
involving prisoners or prisoners' rights; and to defend suits against
the state for discriminatory practices if they occur, to keep the
attorneys' fees as low as possible to be awarded to the other side;
to go to the legislature and get changes in the law, or get the
legislature to appropriate monies to be paid when they had to pay
money and there was no other provision for payment.

These were some of the things, and also to serve the people of
the state of California, to bring an action in antitrust if necessary,
on behalf of the state of California, or to seek additional monies,

228

Zirpoli: let's say, from the big oil companies who were using state land, or
to seek compensation on behalf of all users of gasoline in the state
of California if the oil companies overcharged. I mean, I am using
these as illustrations of the types of litigation that the state of
California can and should engage in.

Sharp: The order that we talked a little bit last time and is part of some
of the rulings you had in the AFDC cases, the 1970 order to increase
by 32.4 percent the AFDC allotments —

Zirpoli: I changed that to 23 later. I think I did.

Sharp: Did you change that after the Ninth Circuit stayed that or before?

Zirpoli: It may be. I'm not sure. Do you have a copy of the opinion?

Sharp : No .

Zirpoli: Let me go through the titles here. [pause to look through Lexis
printout of cases]

Sharp: There are not too many from 1970 in there. Most of them are from a
later period.

Zirpoli: [continues to look through papers] I don't know whether I have them
or not. I can't remember.

Sharp: Anyway, what I wanted to highlight was the fact that the Ninth

Circuit had stayed your ruling, your order, and that that seemed to
reflect some disagreement between the district court and the Ninth
Circuit with respect to the state's effort to comply with the federal
order.

Zirpoli: Oh, no, that stay is not unusual. There was nothing unusual about
that.

Sharp: Is there often disagreement between the circuit and the district court
with respect to this kind of case?

Zirpoli: There is always disagreement when the court of appeals reverses you.
I don't know what you mean by that.

Sharp: What I am wondering is, in this sort of case, when you are saying
that the state is not doing what it is supposed to be doing with
respect to federal orders, federal rules, is the Ninth Circuit some
times more willing to accept tha't sort of noncompliance than the
district court?

Zirpoli: No, we'd say there was noncompliance. You have to comply or you don't
get the money. The court of appeals will generally say the same thing.
They'll look at the facts.

229

Comparing the District Court and the Court of Appeals

Zirpoli: Now, there is a problem that arises, of course, sometimes in the

relationship of the district court and the court of appeals and maybe
we ought to talk about the role of the district judge and the role of
the court of appeals.

I used to make this a subject of a session that I would hold with
all of the newly appointed clerks over in the court of appeals. I
would give them the point of view of the district judge. I am not
going to go into that in any detail, but as I saw it, the primary
function of the trial court is to achieve justice in the particular
case before it to the extent that such an end can be obtained within
the framework of the law.

Now, to achieve that purpose, the conscientious trial judge may,
on occasion, knowingly stretch or bend the framework. He may stretch
it a little. He will not intentionally break it or mutilate it. He
knows that his decision of itself will not become a part of corpus
jurus, will rarely be cited in an opinion of the Supreme Court.

So in doing justice in the particular case, the role of the
trial judge in the administration of justice is to act in accordance
basically with his conscience and render what he believes to be a
just ruling. He keeps in mind that, let's say (or at least I do),
that injustice is not one of those homeopathic drugs which, when
taken in minute quantities, has a beneficial effect. He tries
desperately to avoid injustice.

Now, sometimes he may be unhappy with the previous rulings of
the Supreme Court and he is forced to follow them. To the degree that
he can render justice and make distinctions when he can for that
purpose, he will probably do it.

But the primary function of the court of appeals is to publish
and uphold the law and to maintain its strength, clarity, and
stability. Now, if in performing its primary function, it is not
able to effect justice in a particular case, the court of appeals
ought nevertheless to be firm in the faith that by upholding the law
the court will give greater service to justice and liberty over the
long span of the years. So they are looking at the precedent that
they set as it governs the courts below in the years to follow.

I look at the particular case to see that justice is rendered
in that case, and that's, I would say, the basic distinction between
the role of the trial judge and the appellate judge. The trial judge,
he doesn't particularly become disturbed if he is reversed. When he
becomes disturbed is when the court of appeals has not made an ade
quate review and analysis of the facts. If the factual recitations

230

Zirpoli: are not in accordance with what transpired truly below, then the

district judge gets a little disturbed, maybe a little riled, too,
by it.

So we try to take care of that situation, if a question of fact
is involved, the court of appeals cannot reverse you unless your
finding is clearly erroneous. That's where we are a little disturbed.
We feel sometimes that they don't truly adhere to this requirement of
Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and that on occasion
some judge will substitute his judgment for that of the judge below.
That is a cardinal rule that they should adhere to and adhere to
entirely.

There is a disposition on the part of some judges to philosophize.
Now, you really shouldn't do that. You've got an issue before you
and that's the issue you should decide. You shouldn't say, "Now, if
other circumstances existed; this would be or that would be," because
you are looking into the future and you shouldn't do it. You have to
be careful about the impact of your ruling or your decision, par
ticularly in the court of appeals and even in the district court
because sometimes you have to look beyond the immediate case: What
is the impact going to be with relation to society generally, or with
relation to other problems that arise?

So if you have a particular question, you try to resolve it not
necessarily with the purpose of affecting future litigation, at least
on the district court level. On the court of appeals, however, you
can look at future litigation, but it should always, in my view (I
may be wrong on this), should be related to the exact issue that is
before the court.

I have seen situations in which the court of appeals has decided
to engage in dicta and expand on some kind of a ruling, and you find
that that's what the lawyers are going to be citing to you in the
future on situations where that was not the problem before the court
at the time, and it makes it tough for the judge. [pause]

Sharp: I'd like for us to shift gears a little bit and talk more personally

about judges. You started it off there in giving me those ideas about
the difference between the trial judge and the circuit. I thought we
could talk just a little bit about chief judges. When you came on —

Zirpoli: Judge Harris was the chief judge. Judge Goodman had died a few months
before. His widow gave me all his robes.

Sharp: You had known Judge Goodman then for some time.

Zirpoli: I had been his lawyer delegate for years prior thereto and at the

suggestion of Judge Harris and his request, I had set up the indigent
defendant program.

231

Sharp: I don't know too much about Judge Goodman and I thought, if you can
do it, we might talk just a little bit about how different Judge
Goodman and Judge Harris were as chief judges.

Zirpoli: Judge Goodman was a very active chief judge. [pause] I wasn't a

judge then, so I'm just basing it on what I understand without having
had the benefit of having him as my chief judge, but he was generally
an active chief judge. He was very much interested in the responsi
bility of the judiciary and the work of the Judicial Conference of
the United States and the Ninth Circuit and the work of the committees
and in the operation of the court and the rules of the court.

Judge Harris was an easy judge to get along with as chief judge.
He didn't make particular demands on the lawyers. He was more
interested in the work of the court than he was, let's say, in the
judiciary as a whole, whereas Judge Goodman's interest was a much
broader interest. They were both good chief judges.

Sharp: Was their leadership somewhat different then, would you say?

Zirpoli: Well, their leadership was somewhat different because Judge Goodman
was more apt to take the rein in hand than Judge Harris. But Judge
Harris was a very pleasant person to get along with, and he was very
considerate of the judges and their personal needs. I am not saying
that Judge Goodman wasn't; Judge Goodman was, too. Of course, Judge
Goodman was a man of substantial wealth. Harris was well to do, but
he was not a man of substantial wealth or wealth comparable to Judge
Goodman, and that difference in your economic status oftentimes
affects your work and the role you want to play.

Sharp: Certainly. Were there other leaders in the court when you first came
on, other judges that you were sort of aware of, besides Judge Harris
who was a leader by benefit of his role as chief judge? Were there
judges who seemed leaders?

Zirpoli: Oh, certainly. I had great respect for Judge Wollenberg and Judge
Sweigert by way of illustration and other judges were Judge [Lloyd]
Burke, who is still on our court, and Judge [Oliver] Carter, who
later became the chief judge.

Sharp: He was chief judge then after Judge Harris.
Zirpoli: After Judge Harris.

Sharp: How would you contrast his chief judgeship as opposed to Judge Harris?
Maybe you could just sort of describe him.

Zirpoli: There wasn't too great a difference. Judge Peckham, of course, has
certain interests that the other judges didn't have. For instance,
one of them is the very fact that we are indulging in this historical

232

Zirpoli: study, which is one of the pet projects of Chief Judge Peckham. He
was the man who thought of the idea of having an historical society.
He has tremendous interest in those areas as they affect the history
of the court, the maintenance of the records of the court, and things
of that character.

You have to realize that the role of the chief judge in part
changed over the twenty years. When Judge Goodman was chief judge
and Judge Harris was chief judge, you didn't have what we call a
meeting of the chief judges of the metropolitan districts that they
have now. They all meet and discuss problems.

We didn't have multidistrict litigation. Multidistrict litiga
tion first arose under Judge Harris with the electrical equipment
cases. It was after that you had a great communication between the
chief judges of the various districts throughout the country. So
this has become a very substantial interest on the part of our
present chief judge who regularly attends these meetings. You know,
when you were in Goodman's time and Harris's time, you didn't par
ticularly worry about what was going on in some other district.

Sharp: Right, but you do now.
Zirpoli: You do now.

The Craft of Trial Court Judging

Sharp :
Sharp:

Zirpoli:

Sharp:

This may be hard for you
##

to answer ,

Are there some judges either who are on the court now or who were on
it before and have retired whom you would think were personally
important to you because of the ideas that you might have gotten
from them, or the style, or something else?

Judge Goodman, I would say Goodman, yes; Judge Harris, because I
enjoyed a very pleasant relationship with him; Judge Carter, I think
I had his confidence; and then the other senior judges, both of them
died, Judge Wollenberg and Sweigert, and I was close to both of those
judges .

Are there kinds of ideas that the judges share in terms of sort of
intangible ideas about how judging should occur, or how you should
be as a judge, and how you should think as a judge? Are those kinds
of things learned from each other, do you think, or is it not?

233

Zirpoli: To a small degree. I mean you talk things over. You know that, for
one thing, you should not be saying too much. That's one thing that
a judge has to avoid is saying too much. You discuss that. You
don't grant TV interviews and you don't go around offering opinions
on matters as to which you may have some responsibility at a later
date. You don't become a sponsor for testimonial dinners and things
of that character.

Sharp: When you were young and just coming onto the bench —
Zirpoli: I was fifty-six.

Sharp: All right, younger than you are now, were you aware of learning how
to be a judge?

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, I was aware of it. But as I said before, I had had thirty-
three years of practice. In fact, [practicing in] the federal court,
I got to know these judges pretty well in those years.

Sharp: Were you aware that you were learning from them or were you aware

that they were teaching you as older, longer-term judges than yourself?

Zirpoli: Well, just a certain amount of teaching; teaching in the sense that
you might discuss a problem with them, but the actual teaching
process as such, no. We were conducting seminars in those days for
newly appointed judges.

Sharp: That sort of filled that —

Zirpoli: Yes, and that was of some assistance where you discuss different
problems. Maybe you discuss habeas corpus, which would be a
relatively new subject for some new judges. It wasn't for me, but
it's an illustration of what I mean. The use of discovery and the
employment of discovery procedures is a matter that you might have
discussed, too, at times with judges because that was in the truly
developing stage.

Sharp: Have you been aware at some point in your tenure on the district court
bench that you weren't new anymore, that you had sort of reached — was
there any year or any —

Zirpoli: I couldn't point to any one. When I went on the bench, I was given
assignments immediately. I mean, once in a while, a new judge will
sit with old judges for a few days before he takes on responsibilities,
but that depends upon his prior experience. If you were a trial judge
and you came from the superior court to the United States District
Court, you didn't need that. If you were an outstanding trial lawyer —
let's take Judge [William W] Schwarzer as an example — he doesn't need
any instruction from the court. He could probably give us some
instruction.

234

Sharp: You have been here a long time, and I am wondering why you stayed
so long at the trial level.

Zirpoli: Well, what do you want me to do, go home and take it easy? I have
to do something and you have to remember that this is a very con
venient and comfortable method of retiring, so to speak, because as
a senior judge, as I've said before, in the back of your mind you
know that if you don't want to do any work, you don't have to. So
it's very comfortable to come here, take on your assignments, take
a day off whenever you want. It's a very pleasant way to be in retire
ment. Otherwise, you are home wondering what to do. Sure, you can
work around the house and go out into the country for a ride or go to
the beach or something, but that was not my practice. My practice was
to come here and work, so I continue to come here.

Sharp: Let's talk about judging though. What has judging as a job, as a

position, what has it offered you for so long that you have remained
at the trial level as opposed to going on into the circuit?

Zirpoli: Oh, as opposed to going onto the circuit? Well, that's because I
always felt that I was better suited to be a district judge than I
was a circuit judge. The circuit judge, you sit there in panels of
three. You don't see anyone. You get briefs, you review them, you
have your law clerk do research for you, and then you sit with them,
you sit down in the conference, you decide it, and you write an
opinion.

Well, here you go on the bench, you see the witnesses, you hear
them, you can get the action and the activity going on, and you make
the decision in the first instance, and you make it then and there.
It isn't a question of receiving briefs and reviewing them and
pondering over them for substantial periods of time.

Sure, we're grateful to the judges on the court of appeals that
they do that, so that if we make mistakes, they can correct them and
they can ponder over them. But I am not suited for that type of work.
You have to be somewhat more of a scholar on the court of appeals than
you do on the district court. You really don't have to be a scholar
on the district court. So since I don't fit in that class particu
larly, I am more satisfied with what I am doing.

Sharp: I think you had turned down appointment to the Ninth Circuit.

Zirpoli: In '68.

Sharp: For the reasons that you have just given me?

Zirpoli: I wrote a letter to the president [Lyndon B. Johnson] in which I said
that I thought I was better suited to serve as a district judge. That
was a very short letter and that's just about what it said.

235

Sharp: Did you think about it for a long time before you wrote the letter?

Zirpoli: No, I think I thought about it for maybe two days at the most. Two
days.

Sharp: Was it something that you discussed with Mrs. Zirpoli?

Zirpoli: Oh, yes, I discussed it with my wife. I told her I thought I would
be better suited — I gave consideration to the fact that I am of
Italian extraction and they don't have one on the court of appeals.
But that didn't prompt me to take it. After all, I had to be satis
fied that I would be happier there. I would make a little more money
there, that's true.

Sharp: This is sort of difficult, too, but I wondered how, if you could,
describe your commitment to judging?

Zirpoli: You have to remember that from the time I was assistant to United

States attorney, my ambition was to be a district judge and, there
fore, I achieved that which I desired, and I found the work very
pleasant.

From the point of view of pleasure in your work, of course, you
had far more pleasure in the early days. After you have been sitting
on the bench for twenty-one years a routine bank embezzlement case
becomes routine, an armed bank robbery case becomes routine. Pretty
soon antitrust litigation becomes somewhat routine, although the
nature of the product involved or the parties involved may change.

So the work is not as exciting as it used to be. I think I
have to truthfully say that. Of course, I had a lot of committee
work and I found that exciting. But with the passage of time, you
have less desire to travel, too, from place to place.

Sharp: Do you think you would have turned out differently in terms of the
kinds of concepts and attitudes that you brought to judging if you
had been a district court judge somewhere else in another state, in
Florida or New York or Kansas or somewhere?

Zirpoli: Not particularly; only to the degree that people may have different
outlooks on certain types of crimes in other parts of the country.
It is true that we in California may not necessarily look upon certain
types of crime with the same considerations that would apply in

Florida or other states, but I
basic change.

don't think that there would be any

If I was born and raised in some other state and subject to a
different environment all along, if I hadn't gone to Boalt Hall, if
I hadn't been a Young Democrat, if I hadn't been, you might say, a

236

Zirpoli:
Sharp :

Zirpoli:

Sharp:

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp :

Zirpoli:

liberal, if I had grown up as a Republican conservative, I might have
some different views.

I am wondering because the Northern District is considered, at least
by people outside of the Northern District, fairly special in the
sense that it is liberal, and liberal in some of the areas that we
have talked about in terms of conscientious objectors and so on.

I think we may be considered a little more liberal,
districts, I don't know.

As for the other

You have been seen as innovative in some areas that we have talked
about. Is that a problem for you?

Not a great problem. I mean, when you say "innovative," what you are
saying is I might be a little more of an activist judge, for one thing,
and another thing, you have to remember that changing times causes
changes in point of view even on constitutional questions. The consti
tution has to be interpreted in part with the times so that they have
some bearing.

Does it give you any sense of people's expectations of you in terms of
your judging?

People's expectations? I assume that they'll expect me to be fair
and that they expect me to be reasonably courteous to everyone in the
courtroom. Their expectations of me may differ from another judge.
They know that I'm not a real stickler for the rules. Some other
judge may be. If the brief is a half an hour later, another judge
may not accept it. I have a different approach, that's all.

In your terms of your being liberal, now there is a precedent that
you are liberal because of the kinds of decisions that you've made in
a lot of different cases. So people sort of have that expectation
that you will —

They have that expectation, but at times they are terribly disappointed.
You have an expectation that because someone is liberal you are going
to bring, let's say, a discrimination case [to him], and it doesn't
have any merit. I may be a liberal, but, boy, that's going to be
thrown out. I'm not going to permit my liberal views to overcome
the obvious in the way of an unwarranted case, or one that in no way
justifies the relief sought. In other words, I'm not going to ever
stretch the facts to achieve a desired result in the law. Once in a
while that happens at the appellate level. That's what you worry
about, too, as a district judge, that someone at the appellate level,
in order to better establish a certain particular legal principle (not
that there is anything wrong with the principle), may stretch the
facts or indulge in the exercise of discretion or judgment, which is

237

Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:
Sharp:
Zirpoli:

Sharp :
Zirpoli:

within the province of the district court; they may indulge in it
themselves .

Have you ever thought that you have a judicial philosophy?

Have I ever thought that I had a judicial philosophy? My basic
judicial philosophy is that I just pray to God that I always render
justice, that I haven't treated someone improperly, and that if I
have, that the good Lord will forgive me. [laughs softly]

Or that you'll be reversed!

Well, I've mentioned that. I have no quarrel with being reversed if
I am wrong. The only time I quarrel with being reversed is when
they misinterpret the facts basically. It's like one of the district
judges who went on the court of appeals. When he got there, he was
talking to his colleagues about a case that he had been reversed on,
and he said, "I would find no objection to the reversal if the facts
only were as you had found them." He was expressing that same
thought that I mentioned.

Do you have some other ideas?

No, I don't have any other ideas particularly. As I said, I am a
little bit disturbed about some trends in litigation. That is one
thing that disturbs me and I think that the law schools and everybody
ought to concentrate on finding simpler methods and procedures for
more mediation and negotiation and less actual court controversy.

Are there any classes offered in law school in arbitration or
mediation?

Well, they're doing that, I understand, some of it in Harvard. Now,
I don't know if other institutions are doing it.

But that is considered pretty non-mainstream, to have that sort of
class taught?

Of course, there is always the thought that it might be wise to require
a year or two of apprenticeship before you actually become a lawyer.
In other words, after you graduate, make you work in a law office for
a year or some period of that nature. I also believe that after you
are appointed as judge of the court of appeals, if you have never had
prior trial experience, you should be required to serve in the district
court for at least thirty days.

That would give people quite an eye opener, I would think.

Oh, yes. It has been suggested. Time and again it has been suggested,
but they haven't done it yet.

238

Sharp: Are there other sorts of comments that you would like to make about
your work?

Zirpoli: Not that I haven't expressed.

Sharp: Then those are all of my questions.

Zirpoli: All right.

Sharp: I am thankful that you had this much time to spend with me.

Zirpoli: I don't know how much interest there will be in what I had to say,
but anyway, I have tried my best.

Transcriber: Michelle Stafford
Final Typist: Sam Middlebrooks

239

TAPE GUIDE — Alfonso J. Zirpoli

Interview 1: September 9, 1982

tape 1, side A 1

tape 1, side B 9

tape 2, side A [side B not recorded] 19

Interview 2: October 14, 1982

tape 3, side A 27

tape 3, side B 38

tape 4, side A 44

tape 4, side B 53

Interview 3: November 2, 1982

tape 5, side A 56

tape 5, side B 65

tape 6, side A 76

tape 6, side B 86

Interview 4: November 24, 1982

tape 7, side A 89

tape 7, side B 98

tape 8, side A 107

tape 8, side B 118

Interview 5: February 7, 1983

tape 9, side A 119

tape 9, side B 128

tape 10, side A 136

tape 10, side B 145

Interview 6: February 24, 1983

tape 11, side A 148

tape 11, side B 157

tape 12, side A 166

tape 12, side B 176

Interview 7: May 5, 1983

tape 13, side A 177

tape 13, side B 187

tape 14, side A 196

tape 14, side B 205

Interview 8: May 12, 1983

tape 15, side A 207

tape 15, side B 215

tape 16, side A 224

tape 16, side B 232

APPENDIX

240

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241

Forging New Law: District Judges
Set Precedents on Tough Issues

CoHltiiurri From first
tj-itfd housing. Most of these decisions are In
vriou* Rt-ipcs of Appcnl And are likely tn some
orm to reach the Supreme Court.

D*»pite the new Interpretation of the law In-
wived in many such derision*. Inwycr* *ny the
jftuit courts oLnpncat and IJy Supreme Court |
faow_»^grc.at dc.it Qj _citf,crc.nce_lQ-a. wril-rcv •
cned Jpjtxr jwu»l onjiuan. "Zirpoli la * very!
nurageou* judge." -.IM I'.iul Halvomk. ataf.
nunscl (or the Amen •-. Civil Liberties Union.
•But aUU he doesn't . '. overruled very ortcn.
nTien you per up tu ihe appeal* court they
•tally respect him."

One notable example of the effect of a> low* r*
sourt decision on tin Appeal* Court came last
uonth In the CMC_ of Karl CalclweU. * New
fork Time* reporter who had been Subpoenaed

0 appear before a Federal grand jury invest!* ,
;atinj the Black Panther*. Judge Zlrpoll In
Vprll required Mr. Caldwell to testify only to I
corroborate the articles he had written, and the j
fudge ruled that Mr. Caldwell had a journal- 1
•t'a privilege under the First Amendment to
withhold confidenU.i! Information he hid riift-
ntd in preparing the article*. But Mr. Old-
vtU refused to appear before the. grand jury at
til, drew a contempt citation, and appealed.

Last month, a three-judge panel, for Ihe
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal* overruled Judg- i
Urpoll ami quashed the subpoena completely, i
In upholding Mr. Caldwell, the judges spoke of 1
Wrst Amendment protections "to provide the •
public with a wide range of Information about
Ihe nature of protest and heterodoxy."

Participants on both sides. are convinced the
appeals court ruling would have been Incon
ceivable had Judge Zlrpoll not established the
precedent that reporters have special First
Amendment rights. "You can't really prove.
It," says U.S. Attorney James Browning, who
supervised the Government's case, "but cer»
Umly the tact Judge Ztrpoll carved out a typ«
of privilege for newsmen gave (Ihe Appeal*
Court Jud-es) some place to start. Previous to-
that there hadn't been anything of that sort." i

Cwuclentious Objectors

Another major Zirpoll decision, now before i
the Supreme Court, might be making the head
lines soon If the nation's highest tribunal i
agrees. In February Judge Zirpoii struck down |
the section of the Selective Service act that re* i
quires conscientious objectors to be opposed to |
"war In any form." Since Roman Catholic doc*
trine perceive* a difference between "just"
and "unjust" wars, he concluded, the section
"violates equal protection and due process of
the law."

This decision— meaning a person can be a
conscientious objector while opposing only the
Vietnam war— is one of a series of controver
sial draft rulings by Judge Zirpoii ttmt led to
the angry blast this summmer from Selective
'.Service headquarters.

The singling out of Judge Zirpoii and a col
league for criticism fell like a bombshell on the i
Federal courts' ear. "All the Judges were mad •
— It didn't do us any pood." says Paul Fitzpa*
trick, an assistant U.S. attorney »ho handle*
many draft prosecutions. "We disagree with
several of the decision*." lie adds, "but every
body here feels Judge Zirpoii is one of the most
conscientious and hard-working judges. All the
position* he has taken are thorough and well
thought out." In addition, Mr. Fitzpatrick *»ys.
contrary to Selective Service allegations the
draft car»« .-ire a**ignetl in in* 11 judges ran
domly with each gelling an <*qn;il number.

• Perhaps most annoying tn draft hrudqu.tr-
ter* wa* a Zirpoll decision In November ];«;:>;
that Selective Service regulation* require ar.im
board members to live In the district where the |
board ha* jurisdiction. With the Northern Cwli-

• fornla district court handling 3V, of the n.i* [

1 lion'* draft prosecutions Jind with most dm It I
boards here being improperly constituted I
under the ruling, the decision meant a, large ,
number of draft registers couldn't h« eon-
vlcted. In September. rrnHTnl Niri'Mi '— jrf

changing the regulations

1 C»Ubll»hing TrecctlenU

While such decisions may arouse the wraUi I
lot politician* and Selective Sen'ice officials on
I ideological grounds, even conicrvatlve Consti
tutional Jaw expcrta think they're p?rfcctly
| proper on » legal basis. "A Judge has to follow
i the precedents of higher courts." says Philip
iKurland of the University of Chicago Law!
I School, "but if there are no precedents, he has (
I to establish one." Charles Wright, a professor '
i at the Umv-rsity of Texas Law School, says |
; that many Innovative judges find a large pro-
(portion of their decisions accepted by appeal
(courts.

i Judg* Zirpoii defends his ruling* by con*
i tending ht is simply follow-in? the dictates of
•the Constitution. In an interview, he says.
• "Due process of law is more important than
any individual: ours i* basically a Government
of laws and not of men. Otherwise It could re*
suit in some form of tyranny.'*

If hi* decisions inspire controversy, the man
himself provokes a quite different reaction. Re*
cently he presided over a hearing on his deci
sion that California had to taise its maximum
benefits under the aid of famTTTts with_dep£n-
dent children program to reflect cost-of-living
incr~eTOv~or else lose its Federal welfare

! fund*. The decision had been biased bv Gov.

to establish that Hvinjt in ihe district Isn't nee- 1
erwiry.

Reagan, and the state officials in the court
room were clearly angry as the two sides went
into Judge Zirpoii'* chambers, to discuss how
the state would comply. - " .

After two hours, however, the California of
ficial* emerged In smiles, apparently so cailghl
up by the judge's personality they had forgoj-
ten their anger over his rulings. "We were
shouting back and forth." one official reports,
referring to the two sides In the dispute. "We
were icreaming at the top ot our lungs, calling
each other names, and Zirpoii loved It, he
loved It"
Making Trlend*

Lawyers and government official* aren't the
only ones to pay a visit to Judge Zirpott's
chambers. Once he sentenced a young man to
uil for selling a large quantity of LSD. When
the man wa* taken from the courtroom, he
said to a marshal, "I'm going to put a knife in
the judge's back when I get out." The marshal
informed Judge Zirpoii of the remark.

"I told the marshal to bring him into my
chambers and wait outside." Judge Zirpoii re
calls. "Then I asked him what he was talking
about. He said he wasn't going to put a knife in
my back, he was going to plant a bomb in my
car. I told him where wilt that get you, why
don't we talk about 11? So we talked for an
hour, and when we left we were friends."

The incident reflects the one word most
often used to describe Judge Zirpoii:
j «i»n- On one occasion, he walked over to the
i local prison with two cups of coffee and s;it
i down with a prisoner he h.id to sentence. He
i tonclti'lcri thai the prisoner, in hi* lale 40s.
(committed crime* because he had spent half
i his life in jail «n*i had no idea what any other
I pxifttcnee WAS like. "So I deferred wntcnre six
months." Judge Zirnnli says, "ami he came
I back with a job J.r.d JCOO In lha bank, nut by all

standnrd* of his previous record h*» should
have been put in jail." The judge continued hi*
probation.

Despite Judge Zirpoli'* wide range of Im
portant decisions, one close assoclat* *nyx that
"criminal law is what he really loves; he has a
tremendous understanding of criminals. He'*
willing to go out on M limb. For instance, he
hart this black guy never in trouble before who
rohjed n bank. The guy said his wife was *tek
find he hnd no money for the hospital. So Judge
Zirpnll put him on probation. You just ilnrt'i put
h;mk robber* onjirobatum-at least not young
black one*."

"1 don't believe a man should go trt jnil un
less he his committed a crime of violence,"
Judge Zirpoii explains. "Probation Is meaning
less if you don't take some risks. They can't
all he successes, but then the percentage of
Kucress Is remarkably high."

i.,...o......». ...» Mercer *

While ninny of Judge ZirpoH'* decision?
picnic liberals, they Hem from a basically con
servative philosophy that fears violations by
Government against the richts of the imhvirt*
ual. He applies this phtloj.ophy equally to busi
ness, and upheld the mercer m
that frp«-';JL-£rKEi"''C"--''"1-*
aciiinst a Government antitrust suit.
" "I'm not trying to impose any personal
vlc-vs." Judre Zirpoii declares, speaking ol
some of his controversial decision*. "I'm just
making Constitutional interpretations. The
easiest way out is to let the Appellate Court or
the Supreme Court declare an act of Conr.r*s!-
unconstitutional. But your c.xpericncc leads you
to change— you develop better understanding
and greater confidence in your position."

One biiie ingredient in Judge Zirpoli's suc
cess on the bench, is hard work. H*J nrrivc* at :
his comfortable wood-paneled office in San
Francisco's Federal building at 8:15 in the
morninc. and his day often lasts until midm;hi
with only an early evening break for dinner av
home and « •<>"? w»-k-

Lawyers say Judge Zirpoii never enters the %
courtroom unprepared. "He's marvelously in
telligent in terms of his ability to see what is at
issue in the case," says Prof. Amsterdam. "In
term* of putting all the piece* together right
he'* an absolute master, as good as anyoni
around. But hcjsn't in the Frankfurtcr-CardO"
-g-H^mj tradition. He doesn't concf'tyfi 9*. '"•*'
flirT"'"" ill fl ft'™* nf r'atftnic pnnciples m a

va^mTm. instead it's > hard-headed practical
realism/'

— in"~addltlon. one San Francisco lawyer 5ee^
another attribute In Jud;e Zirpoii. "The cuy.'
he itates. "has an Inhuman acuity to spot a
skunk."

' TurninK Down a Higher Po«(
,.' ..'Judge Zirpoii. who calls the position of Fe*
^ral district judge "the most exciting role ir
the judiciary." made an almost unprece
dented decision In I9«y bv turr.ing down an ap
pointment by President _Johnson to thTNlr.'l.
Circuit CouTrorAppTiTsT-I felt I was better
.suited to serve as a trial judge." he explains.
;"This 1* where things are done." Judpe Zirpol.
was appointed to the bench by president Ken
nedy In 1961. after a career that encompasses
assistant U.S. attorney, thai lawyer. San Fran
cisco councilman and active campaigner for
Democratic candidates.

Second only to his interest in the law ti
Judge Zirpoli's participation in San Francisco's
Ilallan community. Hi* father v.-as an Italian
"'consular official in th« United States, and he
says hi* mother "had no formal education but
could quote Ta*to and Dante stanza alter
smnxa." He frequently set* up Italian meals at
his home, lecture* to Italian groups and travel.*
to Italy.

Virtually nothing, it seems, will fate Judr^
Zlrpoll or alter hi» sympathetic temper.in'.em
on th« bench. When a lawyer cives an Inep'.
presentation, he will often call him into his
i chambers and offer advice on how to do a be:-
! tcr Job. When a girl spectator once interrupted
a trial by shoulin* to the jury to follow their
'conscience and not the law. he had her sent
Ifrom the courtroom -only to call her bacfc
after the proceedings to find out why she felt
that way.

But perhaps the classic confrontation came
three years ago. when a beaded, barefooted de
fendant accused of jumping bail appeared be
fore Ju-J(,'e Zirpoii obviuU!>i> far gcn« cm (.ru^s.
A* one lawyer who WAS present describes the
acene: "He kept calling the judge 'Love.' Zir
poii played along with him and they had this
, tremendous dialog. When he left Judj-e Zirpoii
said to him, 'You've made my morning much
brighter.' "

Later that year, when the district* und np-
peals judf-cs of the Ninth Circuit met for A con
ference nnd for entertainment. Judge Zirpolt
participated in a skit, fie donned n lon^-l..iircd
wig, took off hi* shoes, and plnycd th£ hippie's
role in a reading of the transcript.

242

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rules of the game, it was only natural that the lawyer's most effective weapon
was showmanship, and his value was judged by the sporting criteria, as it were.
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temporizing proverb that justice is but a game of chance must have been
some legal hireling, without scruples or passion, hoping in some way to
excuse his own incompetence, or to overcome his remorse and lessen his toil.
Every lawyer dedicated to his profession, who takes a case that seems just,
works fervently in the conviction that with faith in justice one can succeed
in changing the course of the stars, regardless of the astrologers.
As a judge 1 was privileged to experience such a change. Early in my ten
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Court ruling that, in ship collision cases where there is mutual fault, damages
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years before.
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effect. Injustice has always been a dangerous poison, even when taken in the
smallest homeopathic proportions.
In the last days of his life, a distinguished California lawyer spoke these
reassuring words: "The decisions of the courts are always just. In 52 years of
practice 1 have never had occasion to complain of a lack of justice."
Is this a naive statement? Perhaps. But only by such naivete can the bar
hope to raise itself from a game of intrigue and deceit to a noble instrument
for the furtherance of social justice.

capacities— we hold under an obligation to use in harmony with that
moral order.

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245

INDEX — Alfonso J. Zirpoli

Administrative Office of the Courts,

119-20, 163
Aid to Families with Dependent

Children, 205-07, 225-28
Alcatraz Island prison, 51-56
Aldisert, Ruggero J., 55, 149a, 158
Alien Enemy Control Board, 58-75
Alioto, John, 136
Alioto, Joseph L., 126-27
American Bar Association, 203
American Civil Liberties Union, 75,

77-78

amicus curiae, 70, 78, 180-81
Andriano, Sylvester, 61, 71
Anglo-California Bank, 56-58
antitrust, 124-47, 156, 165, 176,

219
Antitrust Procedures and Penalties

Act, 140
appointments to office, 25-26 See

also judicial appointments
Archer, Richard, 129-30
attorneys, 102-06, 123-24, 143,

145, 162, 173-75, 198, 209-11,

237
fees, 135-37, 190-91

Bail Reform Act (1966), 150, 155,

218

Ball, Joseph, 107
Bank Merger Act (1960, 1966), 128
Bank of America, 23, 24-25, 62,

128-30

Bank of Italy, 23, 25
bankruptcy, 55, 166
Bar Association of San Francisco,

32, 108, 160

Barclay, Thomas S., 59-61, 64-65
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), 110
Behrens, Earl, 95-96
Bendetsen, Karl, 69
Bennett, James, 193
Besig, Ernest, 77
Bourquin, George M. , 142-43
Brady, Matthew, 26

Brown, Edmund J., Sr., 114-16, 203

See also Brown Commission
Brown, Harold, 115-17
Brown Commission, 150, 155
Robert Pack Browning v. Me Iv in
Laird, etc. . et al. 177-78,
185-86, 188
Burger, Warren, 143, 156

Calamandrei, Piero, 174
California State

Corrections, Department of, 221-
22

Human Relations Agency, 206

Personnel Board, 85

Supreme Court, 199
California Trucking Association v.
Brotherhood of Teamsters. 141
campaign finance, 113-14
campaign management, 71, 95-98,

108, 113-14, 117-18, 202
Catholic church, 179-88
Chase, John Paul, 38, 40-41, 48-49
Christopher, George, 108, 113, 116
Clark, Tom C., 64-65, 140
Clutchette, John Wesley, 220-21
Cochran, Anna, 47-49
Collins, Wayne M. , 75-77, 85, 90-93
Columbus Civic Club, 97-98
conscientious objection, 177-90
consent decree, 146
court of appeals, 229-30, 234
Criminal Code Reform Act of 1978,

161

Criminal Justice Act, 159-60
Criss, Vernon E., 42

d'Aquino, Iva Toguri, 77, 89-93
death penalty, 223-25
Democratic national convention,

1936, 95
Democratic party, Democrats, 95-98,

113-14, 118
Denman, William, 70, 79, 80-82

246

DeWitt, John, 63-65, 69, 76, 79,

84-85

DiMaggio, Joseph P., 23-24
DiMassimo, John, 116-18
discovery, 123-26, 134, 136, 139,
149, 160-61, 209-13, 216, 233
diversity jurisdiction, 216-17
Dolan, Robert, 111-12
Douglas, William 0., 164, 179-80,

182-83
draft

boards, 194-98

resistance, 168, 175, 194-98

Edwards, George C., Jr.,
Egan, Frank, 26
Ehrlich, Jake, 37, 46
Eisenhower, Dwight D.,
elections
1931, 71

202

108

108, 113-14

118

150, 164

95-96

1932,

1942,

1952,

1956,

1958,

1960,
electrical equipment cases, 124-26,

232

Endo, Mitsuye, 80
Engle, Clair, 97-98, 115, 117
Ennis, Edward J., 65, 79, 85, 119
evidence, 57-58, 67-68, 164 See

also discovery
Ex parte Endo. 73, 77
Ex parte Quirin. 74
Ex parte Stidman. 82

Fahy, Charles, 53

Fascism, 58, 62

Faulkner, Harold, 29, 33, 106-07,

173

Fay, Red, 98, 118
Fazackerly, Don, 113
Federal Magistrates Act, 160-61
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,

122-24, 149-70, 230
Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure,

149-70
Ferriter, William, 38, 86

Fleishhacker, Herbert, 56-58
Herman D. Franck et al. v. The

Carborundum Company et al. . 138 ,

144

free enterprise, 147
Fuidge, Richard, 47-48
Furth, Frederick P., 131-34

Giannini, A. P., 24-26, 94, 95,

100, 129

Gillis, Helen, 39, 47-49
Gillis, Lester M. , 27, 38-51
Goodman, Louis, 102-06, 215, 230-32
Private Willard Goodwin. II v.

Me Iv in Laird, etc. . et al. .

177-78, 186

Graham, William, 39-41, 43, 45
Grossman, Aubrey, 194-95, 198

habeas corpus, 38, 51-56, 78, 81,

82, 83-88, 120, 158, 177-79,

223, 227, 233
Halley, James L., Ill
Harris, George, 103-04, 122, 124-

25, 231-32

Hennessy, Frank, 47, 57, 85, 92
Hinckley, John, 153-54
Hirabavashi v. United States. 73,

81, 87

Hitler, Adolph, 19
Hokobei Society, 59
Holiday v. Johnson. 55
Hughes, Howard, 125, 139, 146

II Cenacolo, 25, 100-01
Illinois Brick v. Illinois. 133
In the Matter of the Application of

Mitsuye Endo for a. writ of

habeas corpus. 72, 75, 77-78,

83-88

Ince, Wallace E., 89-93
indigent defendant program, 102-06,

159-60, 210-11
individual calendar, 103, 105-06,

211-12
Italian American Chamber of

Commerce, 99
Italian Mutual Benefit Society, 98-9

247

Japanese-Americans

internment of during World War II,

58-88, 204-05
Jehovah's Witnesses, 178-88, 190,

198

Johnson, Frank, 222
Johnston, James, 51-52
judging, 119-22, 129, 142-43,

164, 176, 177-90, 195-96, 201,
203, 209-38
judicial appointments, 98, 115-19,

202-03

Judicial Conference of the United
States, 55, 104, 106, 142, 148-
70, 172, 217
Advisory Committee on Federal

Criminal Rules, 148-70
Committee on the Administration of

the Criminal Law, 156-70
Habeas Corpus Committee, 158
juries, 57, 122, 145, 175-77, 188,
210, 217-19, 224-25

Mar in Shipyard, 64

Mazet, Eugene ("Frenchy"), 41

media

newspapers reporting crime, 49-50
James Andrew Miller v. Melvin Laird.

as Secretary of Defense, et al. .

177-78, 186

Miranda v. Arizona. 213-215
Mitchell, Aaron, 225
Moreno, Anthony ("Soap"), 40-41,

45-46

Mosk, Stanley, 113-14, 117
Murphy, Dan C., 25
Mussolini, Benito, 19-21, 61-62, 74

Negri, Joseph Raymond (Fatso), 27,

38-51
Nelson, "Baby Face" See Gillis,

Lester M.

New Order of Cincinnatus, 114
Nissho Iwai, 140

Kaiser Aluminum, 131-33
Kennedy, Edward M. , 156-57
Kennedy, John F., 98
Kennedy, Robert F. , 98, 115-19,

150, 218

Kenney, Robert W., 70
Khrushchev, Nikita, 112-13
Korematsu, Toyosaburo Fred, 80
Korematsu v. United States. 75-83,

La Guardia, Fiorello, 28-30
law clerks, 199-200
Leider, Clarence, 49
Leonardo da Vinci Society, 99
Lindbergh law, 44
Lindley, Walter C., 43
Louderback, Harold, 27-33, 56-58
Lynch, Thomas C., 42-43, 114, 118

Me Kay, James, 39-41, 43, 45
McPike, Henry H. , 46, 48, 50
Mailliard, William S., Ill
Malone, William, 95, 118
Mapp v.. Ohio. 213-15

O'Connor, J. F. T. , 25, 94

Order of the Sons of Italy, 98-99,

116

Orrick, William, 115-16
Owens, Edwin J. , 59-61, 64-65

Pacific Far East Line, 136, 139
Palmer, Elizabeth, 206, 226
Parente, Joe, 39-40
Pearl Harbor, 58-59, 65, 74, 87
Peckham, Robert H. , 178, 197, 231-

Pedrini, Armando, 24
Perkins v. Standard Oil Company of

California. 138
Petri, Angelo, 102
Phelan, Arthur, 35-37
Poole, Cecil, 115-16
Pope, Walter L. , 129
Pratt, Arthur, 49

prison conditions, 213, 220-25, 227
prisoner of war cases, 89-94
probation, 192-93, 195
Purcell, James, 84-87

248

Rancho Drive In Theatre Corp. v. Fox
West Coast Theatres Corp. and
United Artists Theatre Circuit.
Inc.. 127

Reagan, Ronald, 203, 205-07

Republican party, Republicans, 95-
97

Rizzo, Ralph, 47-48

Robinson-Patman Price Discrimination
Act, 131-32, 136

Robson, Edwin A., 126

Roche, Michael, 86-87, 91-92

Roche, Theodore, 57

Roosevelt, Franklin D. , 25, 95

Roosevelt, James, 96

Rossi, Angelo, 70-71, 98-100

St. Sure, Adolphus F., 31, 49, 79-

80
San Francisco

Board of Supervisors, 108-14

Candlestick Park, 110

Chinese in, 101-02

during the Depression, 19-26

district attorney, office of, 25-

26
Italians in, 1-8, 19-23, 60-61,

97, 101-02

prostitution in, 35-37
Sharp Park, 59-60, 67
U.S. attorney, office of, 26, 34-

88, 91-93

during World War II, 58-88
San Quentin prison, 220-25
Santa Rita prison, 213, 220-23
Schivo, William, 47-48
Schwarzer, William W, 161, 167, 233
sentencing, 120, 154-55, 165, 167-

69, 190-93, 195-96, 216
Shelley, Jack, 116-17
Shervin, Marvin, 144-45
Spain, Johnny, 220-22
Speedy Trial Act, 155-57, 210
Private Michael J. Stauf fer v.
Melvin Laird. Secretary of
Defense, et al.. 177-78
Stevenson, Adlai, 95-97
Stritmatter, Hans, 39-40
Stroud, Robert ("Birdman") , 53-54

Sweigert, William T., 78, 122-24,
129, 161-63, 167, 171-73, 200-04

Swig, Benjamin, 97

Symbolic Control v. International
Business Machines Corporation.
141-42

Taaffe, John, 42, 49, 173

Tokyo Rose See d' Aquino, Iva Toguri

To Ian, John H. , 66

United States
army, 178-88

Attorney General, 135, 169-70
Congress, 28-33, 128-29, 148-
70, 177, 185, 217
Select Committee Investigating
National Defense Migration
(Tolan Committee), 66, 70
House Judiciary Committee, 159
Federal Bureau of Investigation,
37-47, 56, 58-75, 91, 198, 203
Justice, Department of, 64-65,
67, 79, 85, 128, 135, 153, 159,
197

navy, 62
Selective Service, 178-88, 190,

191, 196-98
Senate, 117

Senate Judiciary Committee,

148-49, 159
War Department, 73
United States Appeals Court, Ninth
Circuit, 79-81, 84, 136-38,
144, 204, 206, 221, 228, 234
judicial conference, 104, 106-08,

166, 171-72, 215-17

United States District Court for the
Northern District of California,
27-88, 89-94, 102-06, 115-238
United States of America v. Crocker-
Anglo National Bank. Citizens
Bank, and Transamerica
Corporation. 128-30
United States Supreme Court, 53-55,
73-74, 78, 79, 80-81, 85, 88,
132-33, 143, 166, 176, 179-88,
201, 210, 214, 216, 221, 223-25

249

United States Temporary Emergency

Court of Appeals, 143
U.S. Vj_ Bowen. 184
U.S. v. Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu.

73, 75-83
U.S. v. James Francis McFadden.

179-89
U.S. y. Joseph Ray Negri. alias, et

al.. 34

U.S. v. Seeeer. 185-86
U.S. y_._ Wong See Duck. 35-37
University of California, 25
Boalt Hall, 199-204

Zirpoli, Armando, 23, 129

Zirpoli, Stella Graziani, 20, 22-23

Zirpoli, Vincenzo, 19, 74-75

Vandegrift, Lucian, 206
Vietnam war, 177-92, 194-98, 200-04
Volunteers for Better Government,
108

Walker, Elisha, 24

Walker v. Johnston. 55

Waley v. Johnston. 55

Wall Products Co. et al. v. National

Gypsum Co. et al. (3 cases),

130-37, 146

war powers, 76, 85, 204-05
War Relocation Authority, 71-72, 76
Warren, Earl, 70-71, 78, 172, 201-

03, 210

Weigel, Stanley, 184
Wenig, Herbert, 78
White, Byron R. ("Whizzer"), 116-17
Wilbur, Curtis D., 81-82
Williams, Thomas C. ("Tobe"), 40,

42-43, 49
Winchester Drive-in Theatre. Inc..

et. al. v. Twentieth Century-Fox

Film Company et al. . 126-28
wiretapping, 170
Wollenberg, Albert C., Sr., 30,

122-24, 161, 172, 191-92, 206,

226
World War II, 58-93, 101, 190-91,

204-05

Yasui v. United States.
Young Democrats, 95
Youth Corrections Act,

73, 87
155-56, 161

Sarah Lee Sharp

B.A., University of California, San Diego, 1971,
with major in history.

M.A., University of California, San Diego, 1975,
with major field in United States history;
Teaching Assistant in Comparative Americas,
1972-1975.

Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 1979,
with major field in United States history;
dissertation entitled, "Social Criticism in
California During the Gilded Age."

Interviewer-Editor for Regional Oral History Office,
1978 to the present, specializing in California
political and legal history.

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Full text of "Faith in justice: Alfonso J. Zirpoli and the United States District Court for the Northern District of California : oral history transcript / and related material, 1982-1984"

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