Ford Plea for Mistrial Granted; “ruse to Keep Ford from Court,” Sapiro Charges

(Jewish Daily Bulletin)

The dramatic $1,000,000 libel suit of Aaron Sapiro against Henry Ford, based on the anti-Jewish articles published in Ford’s organ, the “Dearborn Independent,” which charged Sapiro with being a member of “a Jewish conspiracy” to exploit American farmers, came to a sudden end yesterday when a plea for mistrial made by Ford counsel was granted by Judge Fred M. Raymond. The motion for mistrial was based on charges by Ford detectives of alleged misconduct on the part of one of the women jurors and the plea of Stewart Hanley, acting in the absence of Senator Reed, chief of Ford counsel, that the juror in question, Mrs. Cora Hoffman, granted an interview which appeared in the “Detroit Times.”

Mr. Sapiro and chief of his counsel, William Henry Gallagher, after an impassioned address by the latter in opposition to the mistrial motion, branded the mistrial “a ruse to keep Ford off the stand” in an affidavit filed with Judge Raymond.

“Justice, not only blind but manacled and chained,” was Gallagher’s description of the trial.

Regarding the interview granted by Mrs. Hoffman to the Detroit paper, Mr. Gallagher pointed out that proof of the interview had not been furnished and that at any rate as quoted, she did not discuss the trial but only spoke of charges that were made against her by Ford detectives.

“Assume she did talk,” said Gallagher. “She talked after she had been accused and not about the merits of the case but as to the merits of the charges against her.

“This entire matter bears the mark of a perfect frame-up, a desperate method for securing a mistrial at any cost, to defer the appearance of Henry Ford on the stand and to give the defendants another chance to turn the tide before some other jury,” he said.

Gallagher demanded that if Mrs. Hoffman was eliminated from the jury, the trial, nevertheless, go ahead with the remaining eleven jurors despite the fact they probably had been prejudiced.

“We don’t want a verdict from a jury which even a Ford employee charges is open to suspicion,” Gallagher said. “We want to go ahead now with eleven or ten or four or three jurors, and I do not want to oppose the motion.”

Attorney Hanley, for the defense, was taken by surprise by Gallagher’s concluding remarks and asked that the court reporter read it to him.

“Why I am astonished,” said Mr. Hanley. “I thought the motion for a mistrial was the only thing before the Court and that Mr. Gallagher had been speaking in opposition to it.”

Gallagher’s argument accused Ford detectives of tapping wires, influencing jurors and even placing listening devices in Judge’s rooms.

He asserted that Judge Tuttle, who presided during some preliminary stages of the suit, had changed a date for opening of the trial without reference to Sapiro’s side.

The motion for mistrial handed to Judge Raymond by Ford counsel was based on information secured by some of the fifty Ford detectives who have filled the court corridors ever since the trial began. The text of the motion charged Mrs. Hoffman with four points of misconduct and was signed by Clifford B. Longley, Ward N. Choate, Stewart Hanley, and James R. Reed, attorneys for defendants.

Although Senator Reed’s name was signed to the document, he was not in conference with the other attorneys before the document was handed in. He remained in his suite at the Hotel Statler, recovering from a gastro-intestinal attack which he suffered last Sunday night.

A curious feature of the affidavits by the detectives was that many of the alleged episodes which they related occured weeks ago. One in fact, the time when Mrs. Hoffman was reported to have expressed prejudice against Mr. Ford, took place last February, a month before the trial began. Others were in the third week in March, just after the trial began. Mr. Gallagher in his statement called attention to the fact that the alleged remissness by the juror had not been reported at the time of its discovery. It was learned, however, that the Ford counsel first had brought the matter to the attention of Judge Raymond on April 7.

In rendering his decision Judge Raymond stated:

“I am extremely loath to grant a motion for mistrial.

“Up to the time that the public press interfered with the functions of this court, the Court believed no mistrial should be granted.

“It is deeply regrettable and deplorable that a case which has cost as much money and labor should come to this conclusion.

“But when that newspaper report became known it seemed, and seems now, impossible to proceed.”

He expressed concern lest the judgment reached if the case proceed, be reversed by a higher court.

“There are, I understood, 300 to 400 witnesses yet to be presented in this case,” he said. “No plaintiff or defendant ought to be obliged to come into a Federal Court and twice present his evidence, but that seemingly is the case because of a desire of a newspaper for something startling.

“This is a terribly unfortunate experience for the Court.”

Mr. Gallagher said that he would offer a motion for a new trial immediately.

In the statement filed with the court in behalf of Mr. Sapiro and himself, Gallagher declared the following to be the real reasons for the mistrial motion by Ford counsel:

“1. A desire to stop the case now, because it is clearly not going in the way that the Ford attorneys thought it would go; or, second, that further desperate means have to be taken to prevent or postpone the appearance of Henry Ford on the stand, probably on the realization that he is either not fit to come into court or that he dare not face the examination on the charges which he has been broadcasting to the world all these years; or, third, that this might give an opportunity to inflict other nasty charges in reference to the plaintiff connected with a supposed Jew, by the same methods of dark insinuation that have marked much of the proceeding of this trial.

“This entire matter bears the mark of a perfect frame-up, a desperate method for securing a mistrial at any cost to defer the appearance of Henry Ford on the stand and to give these defendants another chance to turn the tide before some other jury.

“It is not my intention to attempt to debate the ground for mistrial, as far as the interview in ‘The Detroit Times’ is concerned. That is sufficient ground, as every lawyer knows, and as was pointed out expressly in the discussion before Judge Raymond.

“In preparing for the trial of this case I acquainted myself with the devious methods of the Ford people in conducting litigation and matters in which they had an interest. I have long been aware of the activities of their detectives in shadowing jurors, witnesses, litigants and attorneys.

“Every regular attendant in court has been aware of the fact that Ford detectives have been in constant attendance, and, knowing the practices of the Ford people, it is as clear as day that Mr. Sapiro could not have connived openly with this Miller, or anybody else, as is charged, in the court room or corridors.

“I stated in open court on Tuesday that we confined our efforts to the court room and we have not had a single individual in attendance or under employ other than the attorneys who were in the court openly and the men who were engaged to secure the service of subpoena on Mr. Liebold. None of these men had a thing to do in or about the court room and confined their work to the tedious task of trying to serve Mr. Liebold. This statement goes for myself and Mr. Sapiro and every one connected with him.”

Electric power, cut off for two days in the area of Thirty-fifth and Thirty-eighth Streets and Seventh and Ninth Avenues, New York, by fires in the Eighth Avenue subway excavation caused a loss approximating $3,000,000 to the cloak and suit industry through the halting of telephone service, cessation of elevator operation and the forced closing of many buildings, it was stated.