What One Lawyer Can Do for Society: Lessons from the Remarkable Career of William P. Homans, Jr.

William P. Homans Jr. was an iconic civil liberties and criminal defense lawyer who mentored generations of younger lawyers that followed in his path. He appeared in cases that defined his times, from representing targets of the McCarthy-era inquisitions of the 1950s, to defending publishers of books like Tropic of Cancer when the authorities sought to suppress them, to serving on the defense team in the conspiracy trial of internationally-renowned pediatrician Benjamin Spock and four other leaders of the anti-Vietnam-War movement, to defending a doctor charged with manslaughter arising from an abortion he performed soon after Roe v. Wade legalized such procedures. In each case, Homans advanced the larger causes as well as his clients\u27 interests. William Homans also defended countless persons whose names are not widely known and who paid him little or nothing because, like John Adams before him, he believed profoundly that each accused is entitled to the best defense possible. Acutely aware of the many imperfections and biases in the criminal justice system, he was a passionate opponent of the death penalty, and in a series of landmark cases, he persuaded the Supreme Judicial Court to abolish the penalty in Massachusetts. Homans\u27s contributions to the law remain a model for the legal profession, and many valuable lessons may be drawn from his fifty-year career at the Bar

The Pauper--Short-Changed at the Jury Box

Fear of governmental domination prompted the founders of the United States to restrict governmental interference with individual liberties. Indeed, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution to prohibit tampering with preferred freedoms. One such prohibition is that no citizen can be deprived of his life, liberty or property solely upon governmental accusations. Such deprivation can follow only after determination of guilt by a jury of the individual\u27s peers. However, West Virginia statutorily denies paupers this fundamental right to a trial by their peers. This denial constitutes an invidious discrimination violative of the equal protection clause of the Constitution

The Ithacan, 1969-10-31

https://digitalcommons.ithaca.edu/ithacan_1969-70/1008/thumbnail.jp

Periodical Index

Subject Index of Articles, Comments, Notes, and Recent Developments Appearing in Leading Law Review

Spartan Daily, March 3, 1972

Volume 59, Issue 73https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/5587/thumbnail.jp