The Supreme Court: A King's Triumph

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A Negro named Edward Simmons was one of the most pugnacious trial lawyers in Chicago back in the 1950s. With a Phi Beta Kappa key hanging from his watch chain—he claimed to be a Howard University alumnus—Simmons tried hundreds of cases, won acquittals for many an accused criminal, and was known for meticulous appeals briefs. He was a touchy sort who once sued the Chicago Transit Authority for $1,000,000 because a bus driver had been rude to him. His colleagues noticed that he took pleasure in berating prosecutors and judges. Simmons was such a high-powered attorney that he had occupational ulcers.

What he did not have was credentials to practice law. Simmons was really an Alabamian named Daniel Jackson Ol iver Wendell Holmes Morgan, who never went beyond grade school. He had been in and out of jails since his teens and had learned his law not at Howard but in prison libraries, where he researched appeals for himself and other inmates. Described as "the King of the Courtroom Fakers" by Ebony magazine, Morgan practiced for eight years in Chicago, until he was exposed. Sentencing Morgan to prison for contempt of court, the judge quipped that his name alone "was enough to drive the man to almost anything."

Released in 1958, Morgan resumed his practice in Washington, D.C. This time he chose the name of a Californian, Lawrence Harris, a member of the D.C. bar who had never practiced there, and he claimed Harvard Law School as his alma mater. He had lost none of his flair. After a particularly florid and emotional summation at one mur der trial, Morgan spun around before the astonished jurors and fell in a dead faint. He tried some two dozen criminal cases before he was uncovered again. Convicted of fraud, he was sent to Leavenworth prison in Kansas.

Morgan's return to prison set the stage for his crowning achievement. While at Leavenworth, he brought a lawsuit against the warden and the chief medical officer. Both, he contended, had ordered "unqualified inmates" to inoculate him with a drug that gave him permanent injuries. Claiming that they were acting "under color" of federal office at the time, the two men got their case removed from a state to a federal court.

The federal judge threw out Morgan's case. But Morgan persuaded an appeals court to order the judge to reconsider the question of whether it should be tried in a state court. Last week, deciding that the procedural point was important, the U.S. Supreme Court itself decided to take it up.

Reason to Hope. This means that sometime next year, Daniel Jackson Oliver Wendell Holmes Morgan, now 59, may get up, clear his throat and argue before the highest court in the land. Morgan, who was freed last May and now lives in Washington, says that he is "seriously considering" doing just that. Court officers report that there is no reason why a nonlawyer may not plead his own case before the justices. Even if he does not win, Morgan's triumph will no doubt encourage other jailhouse lawyers to hope that they, too, may one day demonstrate their skills before the U.S. Supreme Court.