The Law: The Sanctity of Robes

Martin Erdmann looks like anything but a rebel lawyer. His hair is close-cut, his collar white and button-down, his tie narrow, his suit oldfashioned. Handling documents with nicotine-stained fingers and chain-smoking Lucky Strikes, Erdmann, 57, could pass for a run-of-the-mill judicial factotum behind his small, cluttered desk in Manhattan's Criminal Courts Building. Actually, Erdmann is an independently wealthy bachelor who has devoted his career to New York City's Legal Aid Society. He directly supervised 50 lawyers and did trial work before a recent switch to administrative duties. After being involved in the defense of tens of thousands of indigent clients over the past 25 years, Erdmann now must defend himself from possible disbarment.

The case is significant because it points up the insulation from attack enjoyed by judges, particularly when the criticism comes from those who know the courts best—practicing lawyers. An ordinary citizen can usually say what he will about judges, at least if he is not in front of one. A lawyer, who is technically an officer of the court, can find such criticism dangerous indeed. Erdmann, regarded as one of the best criminal lawyers in the country, is especially well qualified to speak about the shortcomings of criminal justice.

Whores and Madams. Speak he has. In a March 12 LIFE article, Writer James Mills told of Erdmann's great distress with the criminal court system in the U.S. Mills noted that Erdmann's "disrespect for judges . . . is so strong and all-inclusive that it amounts at times to class hatred." Referring to what he considers judges' unprofessional bias. Erdmann was quoted as saying: "There are so few trial judges who just judge, who rule on questions of law, and leave guilt or innocence to the jury. And Appellate Division judges aren't any better. They're the whores who became madams." Would he like to be a judge himself? "I would like to, just to see if I could be the kind of judge I think a judge should be. But the only way you can get it is to be in politics or buy it—and I don't even know the going price."

The article, in fact, spent only a few paragraphs on Erdmann's views on the judiciary. Much more space was devoted to a frightening portrayal of the creaky criminal justice system as Erdmann sees it every clay. He is not naive about his clients. About 98% of them are guilty, he says, but his duty as their lawyer is to do his best—including bargaining with prosecutors—to get defendants acquitted or secure the lightest possible sentences.

His comments about the judiciary infuriated the justices of New York's Appellate Division, First Department (Manhattan and The Bronx). They petitioned the grievance committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York to consider whether Erdmann had violated those canons of ethics that require lawyers to show respect for the bench. Though the Appellate Division has authority over an attorney's qualifications, initiation of formal disciplinary proceedings is normally left to the Bar Association. After some quiet, inconclusive discussions, the Bar Association decided to do nothing more than give Erdmann a private rebuke.