Nation: Instant Sentence

As a onetime dean of Harvard Law School, as a member of the Federal Trade Commission under Franklin Roosevelt, and as a crusadingly liberal public servant under two other Democratic Presidents, James McCauley Landis was known as an unyielding champion of integrity in law and government. But last month (TIME, Aug. 9) Landis appeared in a Manhattan Federal Court to plead guilty on charges of failing to file federal income-tax returns on $360,000, which he earned from 1956 to 1960. It was not, he insisted, that he had intended to be a tax cheater. It was just that he had been too busy to fill out his tax returns. Last week Landis was sentenced to 30 days in prison. "The sooner he serves the sentence," added Federal Judge Sylvester Ryan, "the better it will be for the defendant." And so, at age 63, Crusader James Landis headed for jail.