Howe and Hummel

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Howe and Hummel was a New York law firm, celebrated in the latter half of the nineteenth century and principally renowned for its active involvement in crime and corruption.

The partners in the firm were William F. Howe (1827-September 2, 1902), a corpulent Boston-born trial lawyer with a shady past (he was once accused of murder and was, in the gossip of the time at least, reputed to be a former ticket-of-leave man who had fled from a long stay in Britain only one step ahead of the police) and Abraham Hummel (1849-January 21, 1926), his physical opposite and former clerk, a runtish, rake-thin genius renowned for his ability to spot loopholes in the law.

Howe handled most of the firm's criminal work, participating in more than 600 murder trials in the course of his fifty-year career and winning a large but unstated proportion of them. He was noted for his extravagant dress, favouring bright waistcoats and large jewelled rings - although he steadily dressed down as a capital trial progressed, invariably ending it in a funereal suit and black tie. He had a markedly florid rhetorical style, on one occasion delivering an entire summing-up, two hours long, while on his knees before the jury box. One of his most remarked upon talents was an apparent ability to weep at will, although legal historian Sadakat Kadri notes that his frequent opponent Francis L. Wellman "suspected that he used an onion-scented handkerchief to get in the mood". The less extrovert but more intelligent Hummel specialised in civil law and ran the firm's thriving blackmail racket, representing chorus girls and thwarted lovers, threatening married men with exposure and well-off young bachelors with suits for breach of promise of marriage.

At its peak, operating from offices just across the road from NYPD headquarters on Centre Street, Howe and Hummel received fat retainers from a significant proportion of the criminals, brothel-keepers, and abortionists of New York. All 74 madams rounded up during a purity drive in 1884 named Howe and Hummel as their counsel, and at one time the firm represented 23 out of the 25 prisoners awaiting trial for murder in the city's Tombs prison and had an undeclared interest in the twenty-fourth.

Bill Howe's persuasive abilities were the stuff of legend. Perhaps his most notable achievement was to get a client, Ella Nelson, acquitted on a charge of wilful murder. Howe admitted that the girl had been armed with a revolver, but successfully persuaded a jury that her trigger finger had accidentally slipped not just once, but four times in the course of an argument with her married lover.

Among Abe Hummel's most celebrated achievements was the discovery of an error in procedure that led to the release of 240 of the 300 prisoners on Blackwell's Island in a single day. On another occasion, the partners invoked a technicality that, had it been allowed, would have set free every prisoner awaiting trial, or recently convicted, of first degree murder in the state of New York, and made it impossible for the authorities to obtain further capital convictions for murder for a period of several months.

The final collapse of the firm came in 1907, five years after Howe's death, when Hummel was convicted in New York of suborning perjury, disbarred, and sentenced to a year in jail. After his release, Hummel left the United States and lived chiefly in Paris.

Howe and Hummel kept no records, actively courted publicity, and were much discussed in their day among the members of the legal profession. As such, many of the stories told about them have the aura of tall tales. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the partners were among the most effective and innovative attorneys to practice in the United States during the nineteenth century.

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[edit] References

[edit] Books

  • Arthur Train (1908). True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office. New York: Charles Scribners Sons.
  • Richard H. Rovere (1948). Howe and Hummel: Their True and Scandalous History. London: Michael Joseph.
  • James Morton (2001). Gangland: The Lawyers. London: Virgin
  • Sadakat Kadri (2005). The Trial: A History, from Socrates to O.J. Simpson. New York: Random House.
  • Francis L. Wellman (1924). Gentlemen of the Jury. New York: Macmillan.

[edit] Articles

  • 'William F. Howe, Dean of Criminal Bar, Dead.' New York Times September 3, 1902, p.9.
  • 'Decadence of New York's Criminal Bar.' New York Times, September 7, 1902, p.34.
  • [Accounts of Ella Nelson trial] New York Herald, June 19, 1891, p.3 & June 20, p.4.